DAVID HAS ONE VISITOR, AND EXPECTS OTHERS
David had to rise pretty early to admit his charwoman. Behind her,
in the outer lobby, he saw the scared face of the hall-porter, who
remembered that a certain loud knocking and difficulty of gaining
access to that flat on one other occasion had been the prelude to a
tragic discovery, though he, not being in the building at the time,
had heard of the affair only from his mates.
David smiled reassurance at him, and went back to his bed-room to
dress. He placed the portrait and the letter in an inner pocket of his
waistcoat provided for paper money, and, the hour being in advance of
breakfast-time, went out for a stroll.
Regent's Park was delightful that morning. Not spring, but summer, was
in the air. Nature, to compel man to admire her dainty contrivances, was
shutting in the vistas. Already trees and hedge-rows flung their leafy
screens across the landscape. So David wandered on, promising himself
many such mornings with Violet; for it passed his wit to see how Van
Hupfeldt could wriggle out of the testimony of his own picture and his
own handwriting.
Hence, instead of being earlier he was somewhat later than usual in
sitting down to breakfast, and he was a surprised young man when, his
charwoman having gone to answer a ring at the door, the announcement
came of:
"A lady to see you, sir."
"A lady!" he gasped. "Who is she?" and he hoped wildly that it might be
Violet.
"You know her well enough, old boy," came the high-pitched voice of Miss
Ermyn L'Estrange, who now appeared in the dining-room, a pink-faced
vision in a flower-garden hat and muslins. "Poof!" she cried. "I have
not been out for many a day before the streets were aired. Say, young
party, that bacon and egg has a more gratifying scent than violets. I
have come all the way from Chelsea on one cup of tea."
The charwoman, eying the visitor askance, admitted that more supplies
could be arranged.
"Hurry up, then, fairy," said Miss L'Estrange. "And don't look so
shocked. Your master here is the very goodest young man in London."
David said that even the just man fell seven times a day; but, anyhow,
he was delighted to see her.
"You look it," was the dry response. "I never knew anybody who threw
their heart into their eyes as you do. You will never get on in London
if you don't learn to lie better. When you say that sort of thing you
should gush a little and leer--at any rate, when you are talking to a
woman."
"But I mean it," he vowed. "You can't tell how nice it is to have some
frills on the other side of the table. That hat, now, is a picture."
"The hair is a bad color to suit, you know."
"Ah, no, it has the gold of the sun in it. Perhaps I may be phrasing
the words awkwardly, but you look ten years younger this morning, Miss
L'Estrange."
She turned her eyes to the ceiling. "Ye gods!" she cried, "if only I had
those ten back again!" Then she gave David a coy glance. "I don't mind
betting you half a quid," she said, "that you are only pleased to see me
here because I bring to your mind the possibility of another girl being
your vis-a-vis at breakfast."
"Now you would make me dumb when I am most anxious to talk."
"Oh, you candid wretch! Why did I come here? Don't you believe that
there are twenty men in London who would give quite a lot if I honored
them by this morning call?"
"I do believe it," said David, gravely, "and that is just why you are
here, and not with one of the twenty. You are a far more upright little
lady than you profess to be, Miss L'Estrange."
She actually blushed, for, like most women who are compelled to make
up professionally, never an atom of grease or rouge was on her face at
other times. "David," she said, "you are a nice boy. I wish you were
my brother."
"You would be fine and dandy as a sister."
"Well, let's be friends. And the first sign of friendship is a common
alliance. I've taken your side against Strauss."
"What of him?" demanded David, warily; for Miss Ermyn was a slippery
customer, he fancied.
"Now, no fencing, or the alliance is off. You were down at Rigsworth
yesterday, remember, and you came back in a mighty temper. Not even
your pretty Violet was all perfection last evening, was she?"
"Things did go wrong, I admit," said he, marveling at this attack.
"Well, I am not here to pump you, or else I would surprise you a bit
more. No, David, I'm here just because I'm a woman, and as full of
mischief as an egg is full of meat; so that I can't help interfering in
a love affair, though it isn't my own. Did you know that Strauss brought
Jenny to Rigsworth yesterday?"
"Jenny? Why Jenny?"
"That is what I wanted to know. And she wouldn't tell me, the cat, until
I got my Irish up and offered to drag her over the furniture by the hair
of her head. And it was no use her lying to me, either. Every time she
tried to think of a plausible tale I told her it would hurt to cross the
chiffonier head first. At last she owned up, and then I opened a small
bottle--she wanted it, I assure you--and I got the whole story while we
finished it."
"But, for goodness' sake--"
"Whoa, my boy! Don't rush your fences. I'll tell you everything, so keep
calm. First, the night before last, Strauss comes to me--"
"One moment," broke in David. "Is this Strauss?" and he handed her the
portrait.
She looked at it and laughed. "Why, of course it is!" she said. "Fancy
you keeping his picture over your heart! Now, if it had been Violet, or
me--"
"Sorry to have interrupted you," he said.
"Funny idea! Anyhow, Strauss turned up the night before last and wanted
to borrow Jenny for the whole of next day. It was beastly awkward, as
she was helping me to re-hem this dress and put new sleeves in the
bodice; but he badgered me so that I could hardly refuse," and she
thought for an instant of certain notes crumpled up in the gold purse
which was slung from her neck; "so I packed Jenny off about eight
o'clock next morning--yesterday, that is. I was in a temper all day, and
tore two flounces out of my frock, and scraped my shin on the step of a
hansom; so when the minx came smirking home about midnight, to find me
making my own fire, I let her have it, I can tell you. But it fairly
gave me the needle when she wouldn't say what Strauss wanted her for,
and then the row sprang up. Guess you want to smoke, eh? I would like a
cigarette myself."
David was most docile outwardly when all of a boil within. He awaited
her pleasure, saw her seated in a comfortable chair, joined in her own
admiration of a pair of really pretty feet, and lit a pipe. Then she
continued:
"There was poisonous trouble for about five minutes. I might have let
her off if she hadn't said things. Then I frightened her. I believe I
did yank her hat off. At last, she confessed that Strauss told her that
his name now was Van Hupfeldt, and he wanted her to go down to Rigsworth
to be introduced to two ladies as Sarah Gissing, Gwen Barnes's maid."
"What?" yelled David, springing to his feet.
"Oh, chuck it!" said Miss L'Estrange in a voice of deep disgust. "You
nearly made me swallow my cigarette."
"But the man is a devil."
"Sit down, boy, sit down. You men are all six of one and half a dozen of
the other where a woman is concerned. Poor things! I wonder how any of
us escape you at all. Still, Strauss is pretty artful, I admit. You see,
Jenny, having been in service here, could lie so smoothly about Gwen
Barnes that it would be hard to find her out."
"Did she do this?" asked David in a fierce excitement.
Miss L'Estrange laughed again as she selected a fresh cigarette to
replace the spoiled one.
"Did the cat steal cream? Fancy Jenny being offered twenty pounds for a
day's prevarication and refusing it! Why, that girl lies for practise."
"Oh, please go on!" he groaned.
"Queer game, isn't it? I often think the ha'penny papers don't get hold
of half the good things that are going. Well, Jenny, according to her
own version, spoofed Mrs. Mordaunt and your Violet in great shape. What
is more, Strauss and a lawyer man wheedled them into signing all sorts
of papers, including a marriage settlement. Will you believe it? The
Dutchman had the cheek to give your Violet the certificates which Jenny
sold to him."
David said something under his breath.
"Yes," said Miss L'Estrange, "he deserves it. I can't abide a man who
goes in for deceiving a poor girl. So, at my own loss, mind you, I
determined to come here this morning and give you a friendly tip."
"Heaven knows I shall endeavor to repay you!" sighed David, in a perfect
heat now to be out and doing, doing he knew not what.
"Is she very beautiful, your Violet?" asked his visitor, turning on him
with one of her bird-like movements of the head.
"That is her sister," said David, flinging a hand toward the portrait.
"Ah, I knew Gwen Barnes. Saw her in the theater, you know. A nice girl,
but nothing to rave about. Rather of the clinging sort. You men prefer
that type I do believe. And now that you have heard my yarn, you want me
to go, eh?"
"No, no. No hurry at all."
"You dear David! Mouth all 'No,' eyes all 'Yes.' That's it. Treat me
like an old shoe. Bless you! we women worship that sort of thing, until,
all at once, we blaze up. Well, you will give Strauss a drubbing one
of these days, and I shan't be sorry. I hate pretty men. They are all
affectation, and waxy like a barber's doll. Well, ta-ta! You're going to
have a nice, pleasant day, I can see. But, fair play, mind. No telling
tales about your little Ermyn. I have done more for you to-day than I
would do for any other man in creation. And some day you must bring your
Violet to tea; I promise to be good and talk nice. There, now; ain't I
a wonder?"
And she was gone, in a whirl of flounces and high heels, the last he
heard of her when she declined to let him come to the door "with that
glare" in his eye being her friendly hail to the lift-man: "Hello,
Jimmie! Like old times to see you again. How's the wife and the
kiddies?"
Left to his own devices, David was at his wits' end to know how to act
for the best. At last he wrote a telegram to Violet:
The girl you met yesterday as Sarah Gissing was not your
sister's maid, but another woman masquerading in her stead. I
implore you and your mother to come to London and meet me in
Mr. Dibbin's office. He knows the real Sarah Gissing, and will
produce her.
This was definite enough, and he thought the introduction of Dibbin's
name would be helpful with Mrs. Mordaunt. Then he rushed off to see
Dibbin himself, but learned from a clerk that the agent would not
arrive from Scotland until six-thirty P.M., "which is a pity," said the
clerk, ruefully, "because a first-rate commission has just come in for
him by wire."
"Some one in a hurry?" said Harcourt, speaking rather to cloak his own
disappointment than out of any commiseration for Dibbin's loss.
"I should think so, indeed. Fifty golden sovereigns sent by telegraph,
just to get him quick to Portsmouth."
David heard, and wondered. He made a chance shot. "I expect that is my
friend, Van Hupfeldt," he said.
"The very man!" gasped the clerk.
"Oh, there is no harm done. Mr. Dibbin comes to King's Cross, I
suppose?"
"Yes. I shall be there to meet him."
Certainly things were lively at Rigsworth. David had a serious notion
of going there by the next train. But he returned to Eddystone Mansions,
in case there might be an answer from Violet. Sure enough, there he
found the telegram sent in her name by Van Hupfeldt. The time showed
that it was despatched about the same hour as his own. At first, his
heart danced with the joy of knowing that she still trusted him. And
how truly wonderful that she mentioned Pangley, a town he had not named
to her; there must, indeed, have been a tremendous eruption at Dale
Manor. Yet it was too bad that he should be forced to leave London and
go in chase of Mrs. Carter and the baby. Why, he would be utterly cut
off from active communication with her for hours, and it was so vitally
important that they should meet. Of course, he would obey, but first he
would await the chance of a reply to his message. So he telegraphed
again:
Will go to Pangley. Tell me when I can see you.
He was his own telegraph messenger. While he was out another buff
envelope found its way to his table. Here was the confusion of a fog,
for this screed ran:
Miss Violet Mordaunt traveled to London this morning by the
nine-eleven train. This is right.
FRIEND.
There was no name; but the post-office said the information came from
Rigsworth, and the post-office indulges in cold official accuracy.
Somehow, this word from a friend did strike him as friendly. It made him
read again, and ponder weightily, the longer statement signed "Violet."
He could not tell, oh, sympathetic little sister of the Rigsworth
postmistress, that you wheedled the grocer's assistant into writing that
most important telegram. It was a piece of utmost daring on the part of
a village maid, and perhaps it might be twisted into an infringement of
the "Official Secrets Act," or some such terrifying ordinance; but your
tender little heart had gone out to the young man who got "no answer"
from the lady of the manor, and you knew quite well that Violet had
never sent him to Pangley to hunt for a missing baby.
Anyhow, David was glowering at both flimsy slips of paper, when a letter
reached him. It was marked "Express Delivery," and had been handed in at
Euston Station soon after twelve o'clock.
This time there could be no doubt whatever that Violet was the writer.
Here was the identical handwriting of the first genuine note he had
received from her. And there was Violet herself in the phrasing of it,
though she was brief and reserved. She wrote:
DEAR DAVID--I am in London for the purpose of making certain
inquiries. I must not see you if I can help it. I must be
quite, quite alone and unaided. Please pardon my seeming want
of confidence. In this matter I am trusting to God's help and
my own endeavors. But I want you to oblige me by being away
from your flat to-night between midnight and two A.M. That is
all. Perhaps I may be able to explain everything later.
Your sincere well-wisher,
VIOLET MORDAUNT.
Then David ran like a beagle to Euston Station; but Violet had been
gone from there nearly an hour, because he found on inquiry that the
nine-eleven train from Rigsworth had arrived at noon. Yet he could not
be content unless he careered about London looking for her, first at
Porchester Gardens, then at Dibbin's office, at which he arrived exactly
five minutes before she did, and he must have driven along Piccadilly
while she was turning the corner from Regent's. London is the biggest
bundle of hay when you want to find anybody.
Amidst the maelstrom of his doubts and fears one fact stood out so
clearly that he could not fail to recognize it. Not Violet alone, but
some other hidden personality, most earnestly desired his absence from
the flat that night. In a word, Van Hupfeldt, who knew of the photograph
and the letter being hidden there, had the strongest possible reason for
seeking an opportunity to make an absolutely unhindered search of every
remaining nook and crevice. But how was Violet's anxiety on this head to
be explained? Was she, too, wishful to carry out a scrutiny of pictures,
cupboards, and ornaments on her own account?
Then, with a sort of intuition, David felt that it was she who had
already visited her sister's latest abode at such uncanny hours of gloom
and mystery that her presence had given rise to the ghost legend. And
with the consciousness that this was so came a hot flush of shame and
remorse that he had so vilified Violet in his thoughts on the night of
his long run from Chalfont. It was she whom he had seen standing at the
end of the corridor on the first night of his ever-memorable tenancy
of this sorrow-laden abode, and, no doubt, her earlier efforts at
elucidating the dim tragedy which cloaked her sister's death had led
to the eery experiences of Miss L'Estrange and Jenny.
Well, thank goodness! he held nearly all the threads of this dark
business in his hands now, and it would go hard with Van Hupfeldt if he
crossed his path that night. For David resolved, with a smile which had
in it a mixture of grimness and tenderness, that he would obey the
letter of Violet's request while decidedly disobeying its spirit. She
wished him to be "away from the flat between midnight and two A.M."
Certainly he would be away; but not far away--near enough, indeed, to
know who went into it and who came out, and some part of their business
there if he saw fit. Violet, of course, might come and go as she
pleased; not so Van Hupfeldt or any of his myrmidons.
Thereupon, determined to oppose guile to guile, he dismissed his
charwoman long before the usual time, and called the friendly
hall-porter into consultation.
"Jim," he said, when the lift shot up to his floor in response to a
summons, "I guess you want a drink."
Jim knew Harcourt's little ways by this time. "Well sir," he said,
stepping forth, and unshipping the motor key, "I'm bound to admit that a
slight lubrikytion wouldn't be amiss."
"In fact, it might be a hit, a palpable hit. Well, step lively. Here's
the whisky. Now, Jim, listen while I talk. I understand there is to be
a meeting of ghosts here to-night--no, not a word yet; drink steadily,
Jim--and it is up to you and me to attend the convocation. There is
nothing to worry about. These spirits are likely to be less harmful than
those you are imbibing; indeed, we may be called on to grab one or two
of them, but they will turn out to be ordinary men. You're not afraid of
a man, Jim?"
"Not if 'e is a man, sir. But will there be any shootin'?"
"Ah, you heard of that?"
"People will talk of bullet-marks, sir, to say nothing of drops o'
blood."
"Drops of blood? Where?"
"All round our front door. They wasn't there overnight, an' next day
there was a revolver bullet stuck in your kitchen skirting-board."
"Excellent! Clear proof that our sort of ghosts will bleed if you punch
them hard enough on the nose. Now, I want your help in three ways. In
the first place, I am going out about seven and will return about nine.
I want you to make sure that no one enters my flat within those hours.
Secondly, when I come back, I wish to reach this floor without coming
in by the front door. You understand? If any one should be watching
my movements, I would like to be seen leaving the mansions but not
returning. Thirdly, I want you to join me on guard when you close the
front door at midnight, hiding the pair of us somewhere above, so that
we can see, without fear of mistake, any persons who may possess keys
which fit my front door."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" said the porter, setting down his glass. "Well,
I'm your man, sir. Leave everything to me. When you comes home at nine
just pop along the other street until you sees a door leadin' to a
harea. Drop down there, an' you'll find yourself in our basement. At
twelve sharp I'll come up in the lift and fix you up proper."
"Jim, you're a treasure!" said David.