It was one of the raids which left hellish things behind it--things
hushed with desperate combined effort to restrain panic, but which
blighted the air people strove to breathe and kept men and women
shuddering for long after and made people waken with sharp cries from
nightmares of horror. Certain paled faces belonged to those who had seen
things and would never forget them. Others strove to look defiant and
cheerful and did not find it easy. Some tried to get past policemen to
certain parts of the city and some, getting past, returned livid and
less adventurous in spirit because they had heard things it was gruesome
to hear. Lord Coombe went the next morning to the slice of a house and
found the servants rather hysterical. Feather had not returned, but they
were not hysterical for that reason. She had probably remained at the
house to which she had gone to see the Zepps. After the excitement was
over, people like the Sinclairs were rather inclined to restore
themselves by making a night of it, so to speak.
As "to-morrow" had now arrived, Lord Coombe wished to see her on her
return. He had in fact lain awake thinking of plans of defence but had
so far been able to decide on none. If there had been anything to touch,
to appeal to, there might have been some hope, but she had left taste
and fastidiousness scattered in shreds behind her. The War, as she put
it, had made her less afraid of life. She had in fact joined the army of
women who could always live so long as their beauty lasted. At the
beginning of her relations with Lord Coombe she had belonged in a sense
to a world which now no longer existed in its old form. Possibly there
would soon be neither courts nor duchesses and so why should anything
particularly matter? There were those who were taking cataclysms lightly
and she was among them. If her airy mind chanced to have veered and her
temper died down, money or jewels might induce her to keep quiet if one
could endure the unspeakable indignity of forcing oneself to offer
them. She would feel such an offer no indignity and would probably
regard it as a tremendous joke. But she could no more be trusted than a
female monkey or jackdaw.
Lord Coombe sat among the gewgaws in the drawing room and waited because
he must see her when she came in and at least discover if the weather
cock had veered.
After waiting an hour or more he heard a taxi arrive at the front door
and stop there. He went to the window to see who got out of the vehicle.
It gave him a slight shock to recognise a man he knew well. He wore
plain clothes, but he was a member of the police force.
He evidently came into the house and stopped in the hall to talk to the
immature footman who presently appeared at the drawing-room door,
looking shaken because he had been questioned and did not know what it
portended.
"What is the matter?" Lord Coombe assisted him with.
"Some one who is asking about Mrs. Gareth-Lawless. He doesn't seem
satisfied with what I tell him. I took the liberty of saying your
lordship was here and perhaps you'd see him."
"Bring him upstairs."
It was in fact a man who knew Lord Coombe well enough to be aware that
he need make no delay.
"It was one of the worst, my lord," he said in answer to Coombe's first
question. "We've had hard work--and the hardest of it was to hold
things--people--back." He looked hag-ridden as he went on without any
preparation. He was too tired for prefaces.
"There was a lady who went out of here last night. She was with a
gentleman. They were running to a friend's house to see things from the
roof. They didn't get there. The gentleman is in the hospital delirious
to-day. He doesn't know what happened. It's supposed something
frightened her and she lost her wits and ran away. The gentleman tried
to follow her but the lights were out and he couldn't find her in the
dark streets. The running about and all the noises and crashes sent him
rather wild perhaps. Trying to find a frightened woman in the midst of
all that--and not finding her--"
"What ghastly--damnable thing has happened?" Coombe asked with stiff
lips.
"It's both," the man said, "--it's both."
He produced a package and opened it. There was a torn and stained piece
of spangled violet gauze folded in it and on top was a little cardboard
box which he opened also to show a ring with a big amethyst in it set
with pearls.
"Good God!" Coombe ejaculated, getting up from his chair hastily, "Oh!
Good God!"
"You know them?" the man asked.
"Yes. I saw them last night--before she went out."
"She ran the wrong way--she must have been crazy with fright. This--"
the man hesitated a second here and pulled himself together, "--this is
all that was found except--"
"Good God!" said Lord Coombe again and he walked to and fro rapidly,
trying to hold his body rigid.
"The gentleman--his name is Delamore--went on looking--after the raid
was over. Some one saw him running here and there as if he had gone
crazy. He was found afterwards where he'd fainted--near a woman's hand
with this ring on and the piece of scarf in it. He's a strong young chap
but he'd fainted dead. He was carried to the hospital and to-day he's
delirious."
"There--was nothing more?" shuddered Coombe.
"Nothing, my lord."
* * * * *
Out of unbounded space embodied nothingness had seemed to float across
the world of living things, and into space the nothingness had
disappeared--leaving behind a trinket and a rent scrap of purple gauze.