GREGORY’S WAY
STELLA had left a note to the same effect on her table. If she did not
return by a certain hour, the police were to read the letter they would
find on her mantelpiece. She had not allowed for the fact that neither
note nor letter would be seen until the next morning.
To Stella Mendoza, the interview was one of the most important and vital
in her life. She had purposely delayed her departure in the hope that
Gregory Penne would take a more generous view of his obligations, though
she had very little hope that he would change his mind on the
all-important matter of money. And now, by some miracle, he had
relented; had spoken to her in an almost friendly tone on the ’phone;
had laughed at her reservations and the precautions which she promised
she would take; and in the end she had overcome her natural fears.
He received her, not in his library, but in the big apartment
immediately above. It was longer, for it embraced the space occupied on
the lower floor by the small drawing-room; but in the matter of
furnishing, it differed materially. Stella had only once been in “The
Splendid Hall,” as he called it. Its vastness and darkness had
frightened her, and the display which he had organized for her benefit
was one of her unpleasant memories.
The big room was covered with a thick black carpet, and the floor space
was unrelieved by any sign of furniture. Divans were set about, the
walls covered with eastern hangings; there was a row of scarlet pillars
up both sides of the room, and such light as there was came from three
heavily-shaded black lanterns, which cast pools of yellow light upon the
carpet but did not contribute to the gaiety of the room.
Penne was sitting cross-legged on a silken divan, his eyes watching the
gyrations of a native girl as she twirled and twisted to the queer sound
of native guitars played by three solemn-faced men in the darkened
corner of the room. Gregory wore a suit of flaming red coloured pyjamas,
and his glassy gaze and brute mouth told Stella all that she wanted to
know about her evil friend.
Sir Gregory Penne was no less and no more than a slave to his appetites.
Born a rich man, he had never known denial of his desires. Money had
grown to money in a sort of cellular progression, and when the normal
pleasures of life grew stale, and he was satiated by the sweets of his
possessions, he found his chiefest satisfaction in taking that which was
forbidden. The raids which his agents had made from time to time in the
jungles of his second home gave him trophies, human and material, that
lost their value when they were under his hand.
Stella, who had visions of becoming mistress of Griff Towers, became
less attractive as she grew more complaisant. And at last her attraction
had vanished, and she was no more to him than the table at which he sat.
A doctor had told him that drink would kill him—he drank the more.
Liquor brought him splendid visions, precious stories that wove
themselves into dazzling fabrics of dreams. It pleased him to place, in
the forefront of his fuddled mind, a slip of a girl who hated him. A
gross bully, an equally gross coward, he could not or would not argue a
theme to its logical and unpleasant conclusion. At the end there was
always his money that could be paid in smaller or larger quantities to
settle all grievances against him.
The native who had conducted Stella Mendoza to the apartment had
disappeared, and she waited at the end of the divan, looking at the man
for a long time before he took any notice of her. Presently he turned
his head and favoured her with a stupid, vacant stare.
“Sit down, Stella,” he said thickly, “sit down. You couldn’t dance like
that, eh? None of you Europeans have got the grace, the suppleness. Look
at her!”
The dancing girl was twirling at a furious rate, her scanty draperies
enveloping her like a cloud. Presently, with a crash of the guitars, she
sank, face downward, on the carpet. Gregory said something in Malayan,
and the woman showed her white teeth in a smile. Stella had seen her
before: there used to be two dancing girls, but one had contracted
scarlet fever and had been hurriedly deported. Gregory had a horror of
disease.
“Sit down here,” he commanded, laying his hand on the divan.
As if by magic, every servant in the room had disappeared, and she
suddenly felt cold.
“I’ve left my chauffeur outside, with instructions to go for the police
if I’m not out in half an hour,” she said loudly, and he laughed.
“You ought to have brought your nurse, Stella. What’s the matter with
you nowadays? Can’t you talk anything but police? I want to talk to
you,” he said in a milder tone.
“And I want to talk to you, Gregory. I am leaving Chichester for good,
and I don’t want to see the place again.”
“That means you don’t want to see me again, eh? Well, I’m pretty well
through with you, and there’s going to be no weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth on my part.”
“My new company——” she began, and he stopped her with a gesture.
“If your new company depends upon my putting up the money, you can
forget it,” he said roughly. “I’ve seen my lawyer—at least, I’ve seen
somebody who knows—and he tells me that if you’re trying to blackmail
me about Tjarji, you’re liable to get into trouble yourself. I’ll put up
money for you,” he went on. “Not a lot, but enough. I don’t suppose
you’re a beggar, for I’ve given you sufficient already to start three
companies. Stella, I’m crazy about that girl.”
She looked at him, her mouth open in surprise.
“What girl?” she asked.
“Adele. Isn’t that her name?—Adele Leamington.”
“Do you mean the extra girl that took my place?” she gasped.
He nodded, his sleepy eyes fixed on hers.
“That’s it. She’s my type, more than you ever were, Stella. And that
isn’t meant in any way disparaging to you.”
She was content to listen: his declaration had taken her breath away.
“I’ll go a long way to get her,” he went on. “I’d marry her, if that
meant anything to her—it’s about time I married, anyway. Now you’re a
friend of hers——”
“A friend!” scoffed Stella, finding her voice. “How could I be a friend
of hers when she has taken my place? And what if I were? You don’t
suppose I should bring a girl to this hell upon earth?”
He brought his eyes around to hers—cold, malignant, menacing.
“This hell upon earth has been heaven for you. It has given you wings,
anyway! Don’t go back to London, Stella, not for a week or two. Get to
know this girl. You’ve got opportunities that nobody else has. Kid her
along—you’re not going to lose anything by it. Speak about me; tell her
what a good fellow I am; and tell her what a chance she has. You needn’t
mention marriage, but you can if it helps any. Show her some of your
jewels—that big pendant I gave you——”
He rambled on, and she listened, her bewilderment giving place to an
uncontrollable fury.
“You brute!” she said at last. “To dare suggest that I should bring this
girl to Griff! I don’t like her—naturally. But I’d go down on my knees
to her to beg her not to come. You think I’m jealous?” Her lips curled
at the sight of the smile on his face. “That’s where you’re wrong,
Gregory. I’m jealous of the position she’s taken at the studio, but, so
far as you’re concerned”—she shrugged her shoulders—“you mean nothing
to me. I doubt very much if you’ve ever meant more than a steady source
of income. That’s candid, isn’t it?”
She got up from the divan and began putting on her gloves.
“As you don’t seem to want to help me,” she said, “I’ll have to find a
way of making you keep your promise. And you did promise me a company,
Gregory; I suppose you’ve forgotten that?”
“I was more interested in you then,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going back to my cottage, and to-morrow I’m returning to town,” she
said.
He looked first at one end of the room and then at the other, and then
at her.
“You’re not going back to your cottage; you’re staying here, my dear,”
he said.
She laughed.
“You told your chauffeur to go for the police, did you? I’ll tell _you_
something! Your chauffeur is in my kitchen at this moment, having his
supper. If you think that he’s likely to leave before you, you don’t
know me, Stella!”
He gathered up the dressing-gown that was spread on the divan and
slipped his arms into the hanging sleeves. A terrible figure he was in
the girl’s eyes, something unclean, obscene. The scarlet pyjama jacket
gave his face a demoniacal value, and she felt herself cringing from
him.
He was quick to notice the action, and his eyes glowed with a light of
triumph.
“Bhag is downstairs,” he said significantly. “He handles people rough.
He handled one girl so that I had to call in a doctor. You’ll come with
me without—assistance?”
She nodded dumbly; her knees gave way under her as she walked. She had
bearded the beast in his den once too often.
Half-way along the corridor he unlocked a door of a room and pushed it
open.
“Go there and stay there,” he said. “I’ll talk to you to-morrow, when
I’m sober. I’m drunk now. Maybe I’ll send you someone to keep you
company—I don’t know yet.” He ruffled his scanty hair in drunken
perplexity. “But I’ve got to be sober before I deal with you.”
The door slammed on her and a key turned. She was in complete darkness,
in a room she did not know. For one wild, terrified moment she wondered
if she was alone.
It was a long time before her palm touched the little button projecting
from the wall. She pressed it. A lamp enclosed in a crystal globe set in
the ceiling flashed into sparkling light. She was in what had evidently
been a small bedroom. The bedstead had been removed, but a mattress and
a pillow were folded up in one corner. There was a window, heavily
barred, but no other exit. She examined the door: the handle turned in
her grasp; there was not even a keyhole in which she could try her own
key.
Going to the window, she pulled up the sash, for the room was stuffy and
airless. She found herself looking out from the back of the house,
across the lawn to a belt of trees which she could just discern. The
road ran parallel with the front of the house, and the shrillest scream
would not be heard by anybody on the road.
Sitting down in one of the chairs, she considered her position. Having
overcome her fear, she had that in her possession which would overcome
Gregory if it came to a fight. Pulling up her skirt, she unbuckled the
soft leather belt about her waist, and from the Russian leather holster
it supported, she took a diminutive Browning—a toy of a weapon but
wholly business-like in action. Sliding back the jacket, she threw a
cartridge into the chamber and pulled up the safety-catch; then she
examined the magazine and pressed it back again.
“Now, Gregory,” she said aloud, and at that moment her face went round
to the window, and she started up with a scream.
Two grimy hands gripped the bars; glaring in at her was the horrible
face of a tramp. Her trembling hand shot out for the pistol, but before
it could close on the butt, the face had disappeared; and though she
went round to the window and looked out, the bars prevented her from
getting a clear view of the parapet along which the uncouth figure was
creeping.