A Thunderbolt crashing through the roof of the hotel could not have
startled Lord Ellerdine more than the waiter's announcement:
"Mr. Admaston."
He dropped the paper, sprang to his feet as if someone had struck him,
while his face grew absolutely white and the little mouth became a round
"O" of consternation and alarm.
George Admaston walked slowly into the room.
He was a big man of about forty years of age, very quiet in manner, and
with a strong, resolute face. The eyes were grey and steadfast, and wore
that look which some people mistake for abstraction, but which is
anything but that. They had the expression of one who thinks often and
much. The finely chiselled mouth was set somewhat grimly, and there was
great force and assertiveness about the slightly forward thrust of the
massive chin. He was dressed in quiet grey tweeds, carried a bowler hat
in his hand and a light coat over his arm.
"Hello, Ellerdine!" he said. "What are you doing here?"
The voice was deep and mellow, informed with weight and gravity, though
pleasantly musical.
Lord Ellerdine looked hurriedly round the room. It might have been
thought he was seeking an avenue of escape.
There was no one to help him, however, and he began to stutter horribly,
while his eyes wore the look of a startled hare. "Here?" he gasped out.
"Oh!" His eyes fell upon the breakfast-table, and an inspiration came to
him. "Oh," he stuttered, "just had breakfast, don't you know."
"Early for you, isn't it?" said the big man, looking the wretched object
before him full in the face.
"It is rather early," Lord Ellerdine replied. "Been travelling all----"
"All what?" Admaston asked quickly.
The other was in despair. He realised what he had done. He looked
hopelessly round the room for Alice Attwill.
"Where's Lady Attwill gone?" he gasped.
Never relaxing his gaze for a single instant, and standing in the middle
of the room without advancing further, Admaston continued: "Is she
here?"
"Oh yes," replied Lord Ellerdine. "She's here. In fact, we're all here."
"Where's my wife?"
"In her room. Changing her gown. She's going for a walk."
"But I thought you went to Switzerland," Admaston went on.
"Did you really?" Ellerdine answered, with a ghastly assumption of
ingratiating affability, though his hands were shaking, his mouth
worked, and beads of perspiration were plainly rolling down his face.
Again came the grave, persistent voice: "Yes. That was the plan, wasn't
it?"
"Oh! Yes--of course. But we all got on the wrong train."
"What?" Admaston said sharply, and a new note in his voice made the
ex-diplomatist jump from the floor.
"We all got on the wrong train," he repeated.
"Who are we?"
"Collingwood and Peggy----"
"And what train did you and Lady Attwill get on?"
"The wrong one. Stupid mistake, wasn't it?"
"Very," Admaston answered.
Lord Ellerdine brightened a little. He thought he was carrying things
very well now. "Yes," he said, "and so we all stayed the night at this
hotel."
"Indeed!" Admaston replied.
The other put his shaking hands into his trousers pockets. "Oh yes!
all," he said. "The proprieties were most carefully observed,
Admaston."
"Now, that is very interesting," Admaston remarked; and if the other had
been a member of the Lower House instead of the Upper, which he never
entered, he would have known what that bland suavity of voice portended
when the Cabinet Minister rose to speak.
Lord Ellerdine nodded. "Yes," he said. "But what the deuce are you doing
here in Paris?"
"Oh! a whim."
"Didn't expect to find us here," the wretched fool continued--"did you?"
"There's something on?" Admaston answered, going towards the window and
talking as he went. "Racing or something, isn't there?"
"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said. "Auteuil. Going out?"
Lady Attwill appeared at the window. "Oh! Alice," Admaston said.
She smiled brightly, extending her little manicured hand, upon which
diamonds and sapphires flashed and sparkled in the brilliant light of
the sun. "How do you do, George?" she said. "Who ever expected to see
you here?"
"I don't run over often," Admaston answered, just taking her hand and no
more. "But I thought you were at St. Moritz?"
"St. Moritz? Oh!--no. We changed our minds and came on to Paris."
"Then _you_ didn't get on the wrong train?" Admaston said with grim
politeness.
The wretched Ellerdine, who had retreated to the breakfast-table and
sank down upon a chair, heard this, and was about to lay his head in the
bacon dish with alarm, when Lady Attwill's next words did a little to
reassure him.
"Oh yes," she said easily, going into the centre of the room; "we all
got on the wrong train, but we changed our minds when we discovered our
mistake."
"Good thing you did it before it was too late."
"Did what?" she asked in a flat voice.
"Why, changed your minds before you could change on to the right train."
"Wasn't it!" she replied. "And, by the way, I saw an old friend of yours
on the train, George."
"And who was that?" Admaston asked.
"Sir Peter Stoke," she answered.
"Really! But he must have been on the right train. He was going to the
Conference at Geneva."
"Oh!" she replied, "I met him at Boulogne."
There was a pause, and when he spoke again Admaston's voice grew colder
and colder with every sentence.
"Strange," he said, nodding his head with an appearance of
thoughtfulness. "He wrote to me from Amiens, where he has been staying
for the past week, that he was joining the train there; and Amiens is
the first stop on the Swiss express, isn't it?"
Lady Attwill almost whispered her assent.
"And the Paris express doesn't stop at Amiens?"
It suddenly occurred to Lord Ellerdine that he was being left out of the
conversation.
"No," he said brightly.
Admaston turned round to him.
"Funny that, being already at Amiens, where the Swiss express does stop,
he should have gone to Boulogne to catch it!"
Even the diplomatist, who had imagined that things were going better,
began to realise the game was almost up.
"Yes, damned funny of him, wasn't it?" he said feebly.
For a few moments there was an absolute silence in the room. Outside,
the roar of the morning traffic, the tooting of motor horns, and all the
gay welter of things which marks a Parisian morning in fine weather,
only accentuated the silence in the richly furnished salon.
Admaston turned and walked twice up and down the room. Lord Ellerdine
was still sitting, guilty and miserable of aspect, in his chair at the
breakfast table. Lady Attwill stood quite still where she was, near the
window. They were both waiting to hear what should come next. Suddenly
Admaston spoke.
"You found Paris very full?" he said in his icy voice.
"Very," Alice Attwill replied; "so we were lucky to get _in_ here."
"Here?" the big man asked.
"Yes; we all stayed the night at this hotel."
"You used to have a very fine old parrot," Admaston said.
There was spirit in the woman. She gave a little toss of her head.
"Er--I have her still," she replied.
"Not stuffed, I hope," he said.
"No, indeed. Alive and kicking."
There was a rattle of a handle, and the door of Collingwood's room
opened and he came into the room.
He gave one slight start, no more, and his manner immediately became
easy and natural. "Hallo!" he said. "Admaston!"
The big man regarded him gravely, showing no emotion whatever.
"Well, Collingwood," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I thought I
would just run over and see----" Then he stopped speaking.
"How did you know that we were here?" Collingwood said.
"From a friend," Admaston answered.
The fool had to have his say. "That's very funny, Admaston," he said.
"We didn't know ourselves."
"You surprise me. Didn't you know you were going to St. Moritz?"
"Of course we didn't know," Lady Attwill said quickly.
"Then how on earth could your friend know?" Lord Ellerdine asked.
There was a complete pause. Nobody said a word, but Admaston was the
centre and focus of the place. All eyes went to him, and then back and
round to each other's. He stood there, however, calm and imperturbable,
radiating, as it were, not only quiet strength and absolute
determination, but also sending out rays of fear, of uneasiness and
disturbance.
Lord Ellerdine broke the silence with his plaintive bleat, repeating his
former sentence: "Then how on earth could your friend know?"
"That's what I want to know," said Admaston. "But why on earth are you
all up so early?"
Collingwood's face had been growing sharp and hostile, his nostrils
twitched a little; he seemed now to be definitely on the defensive,
ready for the attack. What he said was this: "Mrs. Admaston wanted to go
out early to see the people _en route_ to Auteuil."
Admaston raised one firm, shapely hand and brought it down upon the back
of the other with a slow movement that ended in a little "click" of
noise. "Mrs.?" he said. "Why Mrs. Admaston? Why are you so ceremonious,
Colling? Why not Peggy?"
Collingwood looked dangerous, sulky and dangerous.
"Don't know," he said shortly. "I thought perhaps you were offended."
"Offended?" the relentless voice continued--so cold, relentless, and
full of purpose that it chilled them all as it echoed out into the room.
"Is there any reason why I should be offended?"
"Certainly not," said Lord Ellerdine in a staccato bleat.
"Good gracious! What an idea!" Alice Attwill chimed in.
Admaston turned to the ex-diplomatist. "Ellerdine," he said, "you ought
not to sit up so late. You look very shaky this morning, and your voice
has a peculiarly uncertain sound."
"Do I look shaky, old man? That damned journey----"
"To Paris," Admaston said quickly.
"Yes, yes, to Paris."
Admaston went up to him, gazing down at him with calm, reflective eyes
as a mastiff regards some terrified small dog. "Late suppers don't
agree with you," he said.
"With me?" asked the fool, perplexed.
"With Dicky? Late suppers?" Lady Attwill interrupted.
There was again a momentary pause.
The thing was closing in. The conspirators knew well enough that they
were being played with, with the cold ferocity of a cat with a mouse.
They were brave still. They preserved their pitiful pretences, but to
the heart of each of them a little icicle had come.
"It was after midnight before he had finished his supper?" Admaston
said.
"When?" Ellerdine inquired.
"Last night," Admaston rapped out.
"Dicky?" Lady Attwill said. "Why, he didn't have _any_ supper last
night."
"Not a bally mouthful," said Lord Ellerdine, shaking his head
mournfully.
"Collingwood told me," Admaston remarked, "that you had just finished
supper, well after midnight."
"Well, that was a whopper," said Lady Attwill.
"He didn't know," Ellerdine spluttered in.
"Oh! I thought not," Admaston said. "But you all stayed here last
night."
At that moment the sun, which had been filling the room with radiance,
had become obscured by a floating cloud. The place was informed by a
momentary greyness. It was only early spring, after all, and summer with
its perpetual radiance, its perpetual heat, its _air_ of summer, which
will always make a room cheerful even when a thunderstorm approaches,
had not yet arrived.
The room became as grey as the faces of the people who were in it, as
grey and cold as the accusing voice which could not be silenced, which
continued remorselessly. "But you all stayed here last night," Admaston
repeated slowly, clearly, and with a definite, staccato voice.
Then there was an odd chiming of tone. The anxious musical contralto of
Lady Attwill mingled with the more anxious, and definitely tremulous,
bleat of the diplomatist.
"Oh yes. We were all here," they said together.
"But no supper?"
"No supper, George," Ellerdine said in a faint voice....
The door opened and Jacques of Ecclefechan entered.
He looked towards Lord Ellerdine. "Your man, my lord, to see you," he
said in excellent Scotch-English.
A little wizened, elderly man with grey hair closely cropped to his
head, and dressed in a decorous lounge suit of black, came drooping
into the room.
His face was anxious, and at the same time pleased.
"I telephoned to Chalons, my lord," he said.
Lord Ellerdine jumped up as if he had suddenly sat down upon a pin.
"What?" he said.
"The railway people are sure they put your dispatch-box on the 2.43 with
you and Lady Attwill."
Lord Ellerdine's face became the colour of brick. If his mouth had been
larger it would have foamed at the corners. "Get out!" he spluttered.
The little man started back a step, his arms shot out in amazement, his
face a mere mask of one.
"My lord!" he said.
"Get out!"
The poor fellow realised that there was obviously something very wrong.
It was a situation he could only deal with in one way, and that was by
being thoroughly polite.
"Yes, my lord," he said, in a voice from which he vainly tried to
eliminate the amazement he felt.
Admaston turned sharply to the peer.
"What, Ellerdine?" he said. "Has your dispatch-box got on the wrong
train, too? What a chapter of accidents!"
Again there was a horrible silence in the place.
It was broken by a sudden, loud cry.
Peggy had entered from her room, and had seen them all standing
there--like figures in a tableau in the big hall at Madame Tussaud's.
"George!" she cried.
At that moment there was a singular change of poise among the tense,
strained people who were there.
Lady Attwill, radiant and beautiful, strolled up to the piano.
Admaston remained where he was. Collingwood bent forward, almost in the
attitude of a man about to spring.
"Well, Peggy. Going out?" Admaston asked.
"I was," Peggy answered; and if ever guilty fear was manifested in a
human voice, the people in that room heard it now. It must be remembered
that to people who have been upon the brink of crime or
misbehaviour--even though they may have escaped it--the suspicion, when
they are confronted with it, has much the same effect upon their
attitude as if the thing had already been done. The nerves of the
innocent have often proclaimed them guilty to the most indulgent eyes.
"I was going out," Peggy faltered.
"Wait a moment," Admaston said.
Peggy almost drooped together.
She was like an early lily of the valley suddenly withered by a sharp,
cold wind--and all gardeners will tell one how sudden and complete that
withering and collapse can be.
"Very well," the girl answered.
Admaston raised his right hand a little, while he was looking at her,
grave and straight. Then his arm dropped to his side.
"Ellerdine tells me that you all got on the wrong train at Boulogne."
"Yes," Peggy answered. She looked anxiously, and indeed piteously, at
the others, wondering what they had been saying, longing to be adequate,
conscious of her own innocence, but dreadfully conscious of the
appearance of her guilt.
Admaston--and nothing escaped him--saw the way her look flickered round
the salon.
"You did?" he said in a voice of doom.
She did the fatal thing; she answered "Yes."
"Ellerdine also says," Admaston continued, "that he and Lady Attwill
stayed here last night?"
The ex-diplomatist, who, though he was a perfect fool, was also a
thorough gentleman, flushed up and spoke in a voice from which all the
fear and bleating noise had gone.
"Of course we did, Admaston," he barked. "Why the devil--don't you
believe us?"
But it was of no use; the resolute, ice-cold voice went on.
"And were you all at supper at midnight?"
Peggy broke in. "Why do you ask?" she said--and if ever there was pain
and yearning in a human voice it was in hers at that moment.
"Because Collingwood told me that you were," Admaston answered, "and
Ellerdine says he didn't have any supper. Lady Attwill corroborates
Ellerdine's statement."
"Then why ask me? Don't you believe Colling?" Peggy said with a wail of
despair.
"No, I don't," Admaston said shortly.
Collingwood drummed upon the carpet with his left foot.
"Admaston!" he said.
Admaston turned round to him, and his face became, for the first time,
suffused with blood.
The quiet grey eyes blazed with anger; the big, capable face was
transformed into a single accusation. The voice, at last, was directly
accusing. It was wonderful in its pain, its suppressed horror, its
certain purpose.
"I don't believe a single word I have heard since I have come into this
room," he said.
Lord Ellerdine took a step towards the Minister. "By God! Admaston," he
said.
Lady Attwill ran up to Lord Ellerdine and caught him by the arm.
"Dicky, keep quiet," she said in a frightened but very decisive voice.
"You have lied--you lied to me on the telephone last night."
Collingwood glared at him.
"Telephone!" Lord Ellerdine said, also turning to Collingwood. "Did
Admaston speak to you last night--on the telephone?"
"Yes," Collingwood answered.
The diplomatist was genuinely distressed. "My dear fellow," he said,
"why _didn't_ you tell us?"
"Would that have saved you from saying that you all got on to the wrong
train? Collingwood lied to me. You have lied to me. Lady
Attwill--well--I beg your pardon...."
Collingwood took two steps towards Peggy.
"Why should you come catechising us?" he said to Admaston, and then he
stepped up to him.
The two men stood in front of each other. Admaston, with a white fire of
enragement in his face, still preserved his absolute calm of poise. His
hands were clasped behind his back, his whole forceful personality
seemed whetted for the aggression of the other.
Collingwood, on the other hand, was panther-like and alert. He almost
crouched to spring at the other. He was a little younger, infinitely
more _debonnaire_--probably not really so physically powerful, but at
least lithe, brave, and ready for anything.
The two men stood there for a moment, when Peggy ran between them. "Oh!
don't!" she cried, spreading out her arms--in front of Collingwood. She
seemed to fear her husband's heavy and certain onslaught.
She protected Collingwood, not George Admaston. Doubtless her action
showed her knowledge of the stronger man, her wish to protect the weaker
from his attack. But it was certainly most unfortunate.
"Go!" she cried. "Please go!" And then, turning rapidly to Lord
Ellerdine, "Dicky, take Alice away."
Lord Ellerdine was trembling exceedingly. He was not trembling from any
physical fear. He would have joined in the row with perfect happiness.
It would have suited him very well. He knew that he had cut a sorry
figure on this occasion--and he was not accustomed to cutting sorry
figures. He was not a clever man; nobody knew it better than himself.
But he had always considered himself to be an honourable one.
Lady Attwill seemed perfectly composed. Her face did not alter in
expression at all, but she caught hold of her friend by the arm and led
him out of the room.
The last thing that was heard as the two departed was the plaintive
voice of the ex-diplomatist: "I knew it--I knew it."
Admaston waited until the door was closed, and then he turned to
Collingwood. "Why don't you go?" he said.
"What are you going to do?" Collingwood asked, facing him.
The two men were white with passion. "What the devil has that got to do
with you?" Admaston said.
"A great deal. If you loved your wife as I love her you would understand
what it has to do with me."
"I loved her--and trusted her implicitly," Admaston answered, and even
in his passion his wife could detect a note of sorrow.
"Your presence here looks like it," Collingwood said quickly. "Why, how
did you know she was here unless you had her watched? Loved and trusted
her! Good God! man, you never knew she existed until another man wanted
her!"
"You admit that you wanted her!" Admaston snarled out.
"Yes," the other answered, standing well up; "and much good may the
admission do you. I wanted her, and I fought with all the weapons I
dared employ, and I have failed. What fight have you made for her? It
was her own purity that kept her sweet. It was that purity that I
wanted, but I have lost her." He made a passionate gesture with his
hands which showed how deeply he was moved--a gesture quite unlike the
ordinary English habit.
"If you have any instincts of a gentleman, you have won," Admaston
answered.
"What do you mean?"
Peggy, who stood there trembling, gave a wail of despair.
"George, you cannot mean----"
Admaston took no notice of her.
"Your methods have not been over nice," he said with biting scorn: "to
betray your friend--to seduce his wife."
"That's a lie! I don't defend myself--but don't you dare to say a word
against her. We were great friends. I loved her, and thought she loved
me. But she doesn't; she loves you."
"Pretty love!" the big man said. "I have finished with it and with her."
Again there came a wild cry from the trembling woman. "George, for God's
sake!"
Now for the first time a look of fear came into Collingwood's eyes. "You
mean to cast her off?" he said--"to break her spirit? No--no--you dare
not do it. You don't know what you are saying--you have no right...."
"That's for the court to decide," Admaston answered.
Peggy tried to step up to him, but he motioned her not to advance
further.
"Court!" she wailed. "No, George, not that! I have done nothing, George,
to forfeit your love!"
"Stop! You don't realise how much I know. I saw a letter at the house
yesterday before four o'clock. It told me everything you intended to
do--everything you have done. That letter brought me over after you. I
sent a detective to Boulogne to meet you."
Peggy shook with fear. "That man?" she whispered to herself, with a
light of horror in her eyes.
"Yes," Admaston said. "I sent him. He followed you to this hotel. He was
here last night. He is in the hotel now. He has given me this report,
and it leaves no doubt as to your guilt."
"My guilt! It is not true, George--I swear to you it is not true. I
don't care what you have done, or what letters or reports you have
received. I am your wife. I didn't love you at first--you knew that--I
was honest, I told you all--but now...."
"You blind fool!" Collingwood snarled out in a fury of indignation,
"don't you see what you are doing? You are playing my game, not your
own. I have tried to win, I have treated her pretty badly, but I don't
want to win her now. Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to
break her wings you'll only drive her to me?"
[Illustration: "Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break
her wings, you'll only drive her to me!"]
"Yes," Admaston answered with a bitter sneer, "I see--and you don't seem
very anxious to go through with it."
Collingwood looked at him for a moment, trembling with the desire to fly
at his throat. He restrained himself, however, with a tremendous effort,
and with an inarticulate growl of rage turned and left the room.
Peggy came timidly towards her husband. "George, you are not going to
send me away?" she said.
Admaston covered his face with his hands. "My God! Peggy, you lied to
me," he said in a broken voice. "A lie--a lie on your lips! Oh, Peggy,
Peggy, what have I done to you?"
"George, I did lie," she wailed--"yes, I did; but only that, only that!
I am your wife! Believe me! believe me!"
"My wife! No--no! How am I to believe you? How am I to tell whether
that's a lie or not?"
"It's the truth!" she reiterated, her voice shrill with pain. "I swear
it! I am as much your wife as I was the day you married me."
Unable to stand longer, she sank down upon the sofa, sobbing terribly.
"You have broken me," the man said--"crushed me. Oh! I was mad to let
you do it! I was a fool to leave you alone! But I trusted you. I laughed
at the gossip. The ridicule only made my trust in you the greater. I
worshipped you, adored you! My whole life was a prayer to you, my
ambition to make you proud of me. My whole aim in life was to win you,
by doing big things--for you. And now it is all turned to
desecration--to be the mock of the crowd!"
"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me! I'll come to you. I am
humble, not you. I am struck down, crushed. But I'll be your slave. I am
still your wife. I am still----"
He gazed at her searchingly. "You love Collingwood," he said in a
hollow, empty voice.
"No, no! There was a time when I thought I did."
"You thought you did! When did you think it? Last night?"
"No, George, no! I love you! I knew that last night, if I never knew it
before. I love you, George!"
"I don't believe you," he answered coldly. "You and he were together
alone when I telephoned."
He spoke very deliberately now. "Was he," he asked--"was he with you
when I telephoned at one o'clock?"
"Yes," Peggy answered, knowing well what the admission must convey.
"Yes--but...."
"Alone together from ten o'clock?..."
"Yes," she said, still more faintly; "but...."
"Alone together from the time I telephoned?"
"No, no, George!--not after that; I swear it!"
"I know far too much to believe a word you say," he replied, and there
was a note of absolute finality in his voice.
She saw that he had made up his mind--that she was doomed.
"I know too much to believe a word you say," he repeated. "You were
alone with him. My God! Alone with him!"
In a moment or two Peggy looked up through a mist of tears. The room was
empty.
Peggy was left alone.