work (the last time I had seen her was the day when I fled from the
private hospital in London of my sister-in-law, Lady Haslemere), and
she had thought a sea voyage might be beneficial. She added, with an
air of beautiful boldness, that perhaps she'd come partly to meet me
again. "I read that you were at the Belmont in New York; so I went
there. But they said you were staying on Long Island. Country air
will be as good for a tired nurse of wounded officers as it is for the
wounded officers themselves, _n'est ce pas_? And it will be nice
hearing your news, for we were rather pals!"
"Don was my best friend," I reminded her. "Here's his picture." And I
took from the flat top of the desk where I had been writing, one of
several framed photographs. A flush sprang to her cheeks as the
husband's eyes looked into hers, and snatching the frame she dashed it
down so violently that the glass smashed on the parquet floor.
"How cruel of you!" she cried. "He was a thief! He threw away my love
and made me hate him. I thank Heaven he died!"
An impulse of anger shook me. If she had been a man I should have
struck her. I'm not sure I didn't want to, as it was, in spite of her
beauty--or even because of it, so did it flaunt itself like an enemy
flag.
"It's you who are cruel," I said. "Not to me, but to Don's memory. I
could never believe he did what you thought. There may have been some
horrible mistake. And his death has never been proved----"
"He's dead to me; and the proof's incontestable, or I shouldn't wear
these things," she almost sobbed, indicating with a gesture her black
dress and veil.
In my secret heart I had thought in London, and continued to think,
that the motive for draping herself in black might be more complex than
she admitted. Sir Donald Allendale had sailed for America on strange
circumstances months ago; had disappeared, and a body found floating in
the East River had been (superficially, I thought) identified as his.
If widow's weeds hadn't been an effective frame for Irene Allendale's
dazzling beauty, I wondered if she would have mourned in so many yards
of crape for a husband she professed to hate?
"Oh, well," I said, controlling myself, and realising that she had some
excuse to execrate Donald's memory, "let's not discuss Don now. There
were faults on both sides. He was jealous, and you made him miserable.
You were the greatest flirt as well as the greatest beauty in India
that year, and--but come to think of it, we needn't discuss that
either. The present's enough. You've arrived on this side, and----"
"You're not glad to see me. No use pretending. I _know_, and--here's
the reason!" She darted forward and seized from the desk, close to my
open journal, the greatest treasure I had in the world--Maida Odell's
picture.
Roger had given it to me, knowing how I felt towards Maida. It was a
miniature painted on ivory, and almost--though of course not quite--did
Maida justice, as no photograph could do. I kept it in a gold,
jewelled frame with doors like the doors of a shrine which could shut
the angel face out of sight. Usually the doors of the frame were not
only shut but locked. When I sat at the desk, however, and expected no
visitors, I opened and put it where each time I glanced up from my
writing I could look straight into Maida's eyes. Lady Allendale,
however, had come as a bolt from the blue, and for once I neglected to
shut the shrine.
If I had been angry before, I was doubly angry now; but I said not a
word. Gently I took the frame, closed, and placed it in a drawer of
the desk.
"Did you say you thought of spending a few days on Long Island?" I
asked, when I could control my voice.
"I've engaged a suite at this hotel," Lady Allendale answered sharply.
"My maid's putting my things in order now. I do think, Jack, you're
being _horrid_ to me, and if it weren't too late to change without
making gossip I should give up the rooms and go somewhere else."
I didn't want a scene, so I reminded myself how sweet she had been when
Don had brought her as a bride to India, and I had always been welcome
at their bungalow. I soothed her as well as I could; refused to talk
personalities, and when she decided that her visit to my sitting-room
had better end, I took her to the door. At that moment a face almost
as familiar as hers appeared at a door opposite--the face of Irene
Allendale's French maid who had come with her to India four years ago.
This woman (Pauline, I remembered hearing her called) was receiving big
trunks with White Star labels on them; and I realised not only that the
lady's new quarters were close to mine, but that she was provided for a
long stay in them!
When she had gone, and the door of her sitting-room had been shut by
Pauline (whose personality I disliked) I picked up Don's photograph,
and sat down to look at it, reviewing old times.
Poor Don! Whatever his failings might have been, fate had been hard on
him!
He was among the smartest officers my regiment ever had, one of the
most popular--despite his hot temper--and the best looking. Everyone
said when Irene Grey came to India to be married, chaperoned on the
voyage by a dragon of a maid, that she and Donald were the handsomest
couple ever seen. The trouble was--for trouble began at once--that
Irene was _too_ pretty. She was a flirt too; and her success as _the_
beauty went to her head. She ought to have understood Don well enough
to know that he was stupidly jealous. Perhaps she did know, and
thought it "fun." But the fun soon turned to fighting. They
quarrelled openly. She would do nothing that Don wanted her to do. In
black rage, he told her to live her own life, and he would live his.
Both were miserable, for she had loved him and he--had adored her. She
flirted more than ever, and Don tried to forget his wretchedness by
drinking too much and playing too high. So passed several years. I
left the regiment and India, and took up flying. Then came the
outbreak of war. Don was ordered to England. Irene sailed on the same
ship, though by that time they were scarcely civil to each other. Don
used influence and got ordered to America to buy horses for the army,
he being a polo man and a judge of horseflesh.
I was in France then, but running over to England on leave, Irene sent
for me to tell the astounding news that Don had taken with him all her
jewellery. She had money of her own--not a great fortune; but her
jewels, left her by a rich aunt, were magnificent and even famous.
This scene between Irene and me, when she accused Don and I defended
him, lingered in my memory as one of the most disagreeable of my life:
and the maid Pauline was associated with it in my mind, as Irene had
called her, to describe certain suspicious circumstances. Later I
couldn't help admitting to myself, if not to Irene, that Don's
disappearance on reaching New York, before he had begun to carry out
his mission, did look queer. Search was made by the police of New York
in vain, until a body past recognition, but wearing a watch and
identification papers belonging to Captain Sir Donald Allendale, was
found in the East River. I induced Irene to give Don the benefit of
the doubt, not to blacken his memory by connecting him with the loss of
her jewels; and she seemed to think that yielding to my persuasions was
a proof of friendship for me.
"Well," I said to myself, extracting bits of broken glass from the
frame of Don's portrait, "better let sleeping dogs lie. Irene'll get
tired of this quiet place before long, and be off to New York--or home."
I felt that it would be a relief to have her go; but I had no idea that
it was in her power, even if she wished it, to do me harm.
But while I was thinking of her presence in the hotel as a harmless
bore, the lady had instructed Pauline to make inquiries concerning me.
This I learned later: but had I guessed, I should have supposed there
would be nothing to find out. I had no idea that gossip about me and
my affairs was a dining-room amusement among the maids and valets of
the hotel guests: that all Lady Allendale's _femme de chambre_ need do
was to ask "What's the name of the girl Lord John Hasle's in love
with?" in order to have my heart bared to her eyes. That first day she
heard all about Maida--with embellishments: the beautiful Miss Odell,
adopted sister of a well-known millionaire who had lately married and
gone abroad with his bride: girl not fond of society: pledged to the
Grey Sisterhood for a year: the Sisterhood House being near Pine Cliff,
Lord John's reason for living in the one hotel of the neighbourhood.
That was enough for Irene. Her anger having brought "to the scratch"
all the cat in her nature, she made herself acquainted with the
visiting days and hours of the Grey Sisterhood. Though men were not
received, ladies interested in the alleged charitable work of the
Sisterhood were welcomed twice a week, between three and five in the
afternoon. Maida was a valuable asset to the Head Sister, as a young
hostess on these reception days, for she believed in the genuineness of
the mission, and was enthusiastic on the subject of "saving" women and
children. In her innocence she could not have been aware that most of
those "saved" were hardened thieves protected in the old house at Pine
Cliff till their "services" should be needed in New York. It was a
splendid advertisement for the Sisterhood that so important a girl as
Miss Odell should be a member, and she was always bidden to show
visitors about, even if the veiled Head Sister were able to receive
them.
So it fell out, while I was assuring myself of Irene's harmlessness,
that she was making acquaintance with the original of the portrait in
the gold frame. She wore, it seems, an open-faced locket containing a
photograph of me, painted to look like an ivory miniature: and seeing
Maida glance at it she asked if Miss Odell had ever met Lord John Hasle.
The girl admitted that she had; whereupon Lady Allendale said, "We are
_very_ good friends," and purposely said it in such a way as to convey
a false impression. I had told Maida that I loved her, but she had
given me no answer except that, if I cared, I must care enough to wait.
Many weeks had passed since then, and it was long since we had set eyes
upon each other. Lady Allendale was the most beautiful woman she had
ever seen; and the miniature in the locket, the meaning of the smile
which went with the words, were too much for the girl's faith in my
constancy. She thought, "Why should he go on loving me when I've given
him no real hope? No wonder he forgets me for such a dream of beauty!"
Perhaps no girl as lovely as Maida ever thought less of her own charm.
She believed that the one interest which had held her to the world and
given her strength to resist the Head Sister's persuasions was a false
star. It came into her mind that the best way to forget would be to
promise, as her friend the grey lady had begged her to do, that she
would become a life member of the Sisterhood.
Maida made no irrevocable decision that day: but when the Head Sister
said next time (there were many of these times), "Dear child, how happy
I should be if I could count upon you in the future!" she answered,
"Perhaps you may. I don't feel the same wish to go out into the world
that I have had."
She was praised for this concession: and it seems to me probable that
the grey lady set her intelligence to work at discovering the motive
for the change. She had seen Irene, and had without doubt noticed the
locket. She was aware that the visitor and the youngest, sweetest
member of the Sisterhood had talked in the garden. She must have put
"two and two together": and the thing that happened later proves that
she reported all she knew and all she guessed to that "great
philanthropist" Doctor Rameses. It was certain that, soon after Lady
Allendale arrived, he was informed of her presence at my hotel. There
were ways in which he could ascertain that my friendship had been for
Donald Allendale and not his wife: therefore the theatrical effect of
the locket would have been lost upon him.
Irene and I were on friendly terms, but I manoeuvred to keep her out of
the way. This was comparatively simple, as I had a lot of work to do;
but I invented extra engagements, and was never free to go anywhere
with her. I even tried to take such meals as I ate in my hotel, at
hours when she wasn't likely to be in the restaurant: but one evening,
as I stepped out of my sitting-room dressed for dinner, she appeared at
her door. It was almost as if she had been on the watch!
It was early, and I intended motoring to New York, for Carr Price and
his bride were there for a day or two. I had my overcoat on my arm,
and a hat in my hand, which advertised the fact that I was not dining
in the hotel. Lady Allendale also was dressed for the evening, and
Pauline was giving her a sable cloak.
"How do you do, stranger?" Irene exclaimed, with a kind of spurious
gaiety, more bitter than merry. "I've been here a week, and this is
the fourth time we've met."
As she spoke, and I composed a suitable answer, two messengers came
along the corridor. One was a seedy-looking individual who might, I
thought, be a messenger from Teano, and the other was a boy employed by
the Grey Sisterhood to run errands. My heart leaped at sight of an
envelope in his hand. It was of the peculiar dove grey used by the
Sisters: and I know now that it was recognised by Lady Allendale.
She'd sent money for the Sisterhood's charities, and had received their
thanks written on this paper.
"No answer, sir," said the boy, giving me the letter, pocketing a
"tip," and passing out of the way to let the shabby man advance,
directed by a page. He, too, put a letter in my hand, with a mumble of
"This is pressing."
Irene could not hide her curiosity; but she dared not stand staring in
the hall. She went on, as if to go to the lift: but I learned later
that she took refuge in the maid's room, to see (without being seen)
what I might do next.
What I did do was to return for a moment to my own room. And there,
despite the alleged "pressing" importance of the second letter, I
opened Maida's first.
"Please don't feel in any way bound to me," she wrote. "Indeed,
there's no real reason why you should: but lest there should be the
slightest shadow over your happiness, I wish to tell you that most
probably I shall become a life member of the Sisterhood. I must write
Roger before deciding, but when he knows that after these many weeks I
have less longing than ever for the world, I think he will withdraw his
objections.--Yours ever sincerely, M.O."
This was a blow over the heart. I had hoped so much, since the
wonderful night when she had let me take her home to Roger! True, she
had gone back next day to the Sisterhood House, but I had thought I
might read between the lines of the message left for me, and other
messages since then.
I did not think of any connection between Irene Allendale and Maida's
change of mind, but attributed the adverse influence wholly to the Head
Sister. I determined to see Maida somehow: and then remembered the
letter which I had not yet opened. Envelope and paper were of the
cheapest, and the handwriting was crude, most of the words being
absurdly spelt.
"If yu haven't furgot yur old friend Donald Allendale and wud like to
help him in grate truble cum at wuns with the messenger and dont wate a
secund or it may be tu late."
Nothing else could have taken me out of myself in a moment of deep
depression, as did this cry from the grave of a lost friend. I had
said to Irene "we have no proof of his death," yet I had hardly doubted
it: and it was now as if I heard the voice of a dead man. If I had
stopped to reflect I might have reasoned that the letter was more than
likely a trick of the "enemy," as I named the Egyptian doctor to myself
and Teano: but even if I had, I should have chanced it, for the call
was too urgent to admit of delays--such as telephoning Teano to meet
me, for instance. I ought to have seen (and perhaps did
sub-consciously see) that the appeal for haste was in itself
suspicious, framed in the hope of inducing me to do precisely what I
did do, rush off on the instant without taking any companion or leaving
word in the hotel that I was bound for an errand that might be
dangerous.
The man who had brought the letter had prudently gone to wait outside,
where, if needful, he could make a quick "getaway." This detail seemed
of small importance at the time, but its influence on the fate of two
others besides myself was great. If Lady Allendale had seen me
starting with the messenger, she would have known that I was not going
out in answer to the letter written on grey paper--the letter she
believed to be from Maida Odell. Pauline's window overlooked the noisy
front entrance of the otherwise quiet hotel. From behind the curtains
Irene could see anyone coming or going. If the messenger had waited
outside my door, she would have seen us together: but as he stood close
against the wall, she could see only that I stopped to speak with
someone. She could not hear the man explaining that he had been
directed to travel back to New York in the taxi which had brought him
to Long Island, and that instead of accompanying, I was to trail him.
"Somebody's afraid I might get something out of you--what?" said I.
Since argument with such a person was useless, Irene must have heard me
order a taxi, and have telephoned down for one herself. If I'd
suspected the interest she still felt in my movements, I might have
been more on the alert, and have noticed a taxi always pursuing mine:
but my eyes were for the one ahead.
When my leader's taxi drew up at last, it was the signal agreed upon
for me to do the same. The neighbourhood was unfamiliar, but as I
followed the man on foot I soon saw that we were in the heart of
Chinatown. It was agreed that I should not try to speak with him
again, but simply to go where I saw him go. He entered a Chinese
restaurant which made no pretence at picturesqueness for the attraction
of sightseers. I, close upon his heels, entered also, and had scarcely
an instant to take in the scene, so promptly did the man make for a row
of doors at the back of a large, smoke-dimmed room. Determined not to
be left behind, I too made for the little low-browed door he chose in
the row, and saw a private dining-room just comfortably big enough for
two.
"This is where you're to wait," my man announced, "and where my part of
the business is done. Good night. I expect you won't be kept long."
I offered him money, which he refused. "I've been paid, thank you," he
said; and touching his shabby cap with an attempt at a military salute,
returned to the main restaurant. He shut the door behind him, but not
quickly enough to prevent my recognising a face in the room outside:
the face of Donald Allendale's valet.
"By Jove!" I heard myself say half aloud. I remembered now that the
man--Hanson or some name like that--had left his master in England, not
wishing, he explained, to go to America. Yet here he was; and I sprang
to the rash conclusion that it was he who had sent for me with this
mysterious ceremony.
The door was shut in my face before I could even jump up from the chair
into which I had subsided; and when I threw the door open again to look
out, the face had vanished. A number of Europeans of middle-class and
a few Chinese, apparently respectable merchants, were dining at little
tables. Some were already going: others were coming in: and I saw at
the street door a tall woman in a long dark cloak and a kind of motor
bonnet covered with a thick blue veil. She had the air of peering
about through the veil, to find someone she expected to meet: and if I
had ever happened to see Lady Allendale's maid Pauline in automobile
get-up, when motoring with her mistress, my thoughts might possibly
have flashed to Irene. They did not, however, and I should have passed
the woman without remark if she had not darted at a man just making his
exit. I didn't recall Don's valet well enough from Indian days to be
as sure of his back as of his face, but I wondered if it were Hanson
whom the veiled woman sought. I was half inclined to step out and
accost him: but I knew by experience what errors arise from a change in
the programme when an appointment has been planned. Possibly Hanson
was not the person who should meet me here, and in following the valet
I might miss my aim. After a few seconds' hesitation I went back into
the tiny room and reluctantly closed the door.
It was a dull little hole, though clean. The walls or partitions which
divided the place from others of its kind seemed to be of thin wood,
papered with red and hung with cheap Chinese banners. Even the back
wall was of wood, and boasted as decoration a large, ugly picture of a
Chinese hunter, in a bamboo frame. The only furniture consisted of two
chairs, and a small table laid for two persons. In one of these chairs
I sat, staring at the door, hoping that it might soon open for Hanson
or another.
Hanson, I learned afterwards, had never intended to meet me or be seen
by me. His business in the restaurant concerned me, to be sure, but
only indirectly: and catching sight of my face in the door of the
private room, he had made a dash for the door of the street, to be
stopped by the veiled woman on the threshold. The veil was
impenetrable, but recognising the voice that spoke his name, he tried
to shove her aside and escape. She seized his arms, however, obliging
him to stop inside the restaurant or risk a street scene. She inquired
why he had come to America, and if he had been with Sir Donald.
"No, your ladyship," the man stolidly answered to both questions,
doubtless longing to ask some of his own in return. He mumbled that he
had come to New York after his master died, for no object connected
with Sir Donald--merely wishing to "find a good job with some rich
American," a wish not yet realised. When asked if he had seen and
recognised in the restaurant his master's old friend Lord John Hasle,
at first he said, "No, he hadn't noticed anyone like him." But the
next words, following swiftly and excitedly, for some reason quickened
his memory as if by magic.
"Well, he is there. I saw him go in!" the veiled Lady Allendale
insisted. "I believe you know he is there. I'm sure there's a _woman_
in the case!"
On this, Hanson admitted that he had seen "a man who looked a bit
_like_ his lordship," and there was a woman with him, _not_ the kind of
woman her ladyship would want to know.
"I've got to get somewhere in a hurry," he added, "but if I might
advise, the best thing for your ladyship is to do the same--go
somewhere else, most _anywhere_ else, in a hurry too."
With this, he took advantage of a relaxed hold on his arm, and was off
like a frightened rabbit, old custom forcing him to touch his hat as he
fled.
He doubtless hoped that Lady Allendale would be terrified into
abandoning her project, whatever it might be: and intended to disclaim
responsibility if she lingered. As it happened she did linger,
summoning courage to enter the restaurant and take a table close to the
door where, for an instant, she had seen me appear.
"He was looking for _her_!" Irene said to herself; and as no woman had
passed in while she talked to Hanson in the street, she determined to
wait close to the door. It was almost incredible that Maida Odell
should come from the house of the Grey Sisterhood to such a place as
this, but Lady Allendale was in a mood when anything seemed possible.
Anyhow, if it were not Maida, it was some other--some other about whose
existence she might let Maida know--since Maida continued to write
letters to the guilty one! Irene ordered food as an excuse to keep the
table; but when it came she did little more than pretend to eat.
Alternately she consulted her wrist-watch and frowned at the closed
door.
All this time she supposed me to be sitting alone, fuming with
impatience for the arrival of an unexpected woman: but as a matter of
fact while she questioned Hanson the door had quickly opened and shut.
It had admitted a man: and that man was with me when Lady Allendale sat
down at her table near by to watch.
In appearance he was a Chinaman, a very tall, respectably dressed
Chinaman with a flat-brimmed hat shading his eyes, and a generous
pigtail whipping his back. But his long dark eyes were not Chinese
eyes, though Eastern they might be. He was magnificently made up, so
well that my impression of his falseness came by instinct rather than
by reason. I would have given much if my brain had carried away a
clearer picture of the "man with the scar" from the theatre, on the
first night of the play. If I could have got nearer to him then, the
difficulty of identifying him with Doctor Rameses might have
disappeared altogether, despite the Egyptian's genius for establishing
an alibi whenever I clamoured to the police. Now, in trying to pierce
the surface calm of the dark eyes I should have had certainty to go
upon, one way or the other. As it was I could only ask myself, "Is
this the everlasting enemy? Or--am I a monomaniac on that subject?"