Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the
Web Archive (The Library of Congress)
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: The Web Archive,
https://archive.org/details/yellowface00whit
(The Library of Congress)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
3. Hyphenation of compound words is as presented in the original
book.
THE YELLOW FACE
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
The Crimson Blind
The Corner House
The Weight of the Crown
THE YELLOW FACE
BY
FRED M. WHITE
Author of
"_The Crimson Blind_," "_The Corner House_,"
"_The Midnight Guest," etc_.
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
18 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK
------------------------------------
F. V. WHITE & CO., LONDON
Copyright, 1907
By R. F. Fenno & Company
"_The Yellow Face_"
CONTENTS
I. Nostalgo.
II. The Chopin Nocturne.
III. The Mystery of the Strings.
IV. The Speaking Likeness.
V. A Vanished Clue.
VI. Vanished!
VII. No. 4, Montrose Place.
VIII. The Chopin Fantasie.
IX. The Man with the Fair Moustache.
X. What Did She Know?
XI. The Shadow on the Wall.
XII. Locked In!
XIII. The Parable.
XIV. Nostalgo Again.
XV. Lady Barmouth.
XVI. The Bosom of Her Family.
XVII. Which Man Was It?
XVIII. The Empty Room.
XIX. A Broken Melody.
XX. The Mouse in the Trap.
XXI. A Leader of Society.
XXII. The Portrait.
XXIII. Face to Face.
XXIV. In the Square.
XXV. On the Track.
XXVI. Serena Again.
XXVII. In the Smoking Room.
XXVIII. The Lamp Goes Out.
XXIX. The Silver Lamp.
XXX. Bedroom 14.
XXXI. A Chance Encounter.
XXXII. Lady Barmouth's Jewels.
XXXIII. Gems Or Paste?
XXXIV. In the Vault.
XXXV. The Cellini Plate.
XXXVI. A Stroke Of Policy.
XXXVII. A Pregnant Message.
XXXVIII. The Cry in the Night.
XXXIX. Preparing The Way.
XL. The Magician Speaks.
XLI. The Worm Turns.
XLII. A Piece of Music.
XLIII. The Trap is Baited.
XLIV. The Substitute.
XLV. Caught.
XLVI. The Music Stops.
XLVII. "A Woman Scorned."
XLVIII. The Proof of the Camera.
XLIX. Proof Positive.
L. On the Brink.
LI. Against the World.
LII. The End of it All.
THE YELLOW FACE
THE YELLOW FACE
CHAPTER I.
NOSTALGO.
The flickering firelight fell upon the girl's pretty, thoughtful face;
her violet eyes looked like deep lakes in it. She stood with one small
foot tapping the polished brass rail of the fender. Claire Helmsley
was accounted fortunate by her friends, for she was pretty and rich,
and as popular as she was good-looking. The young man by her side, who
stood looking moodily into the heart of the ship-log fire, was also
popular and good-looking, but Jack Masefield was anything but rich. He
had all the brain and all the daring ambition that makes for success,
but he was poor and struggling yet, and the briefs that he dreamed of
at the Bar had not come.
But he was not thinking of the Bar now as he stood by Claire
Helmsley's side. They were both in evening dress, and obviously
waiting for dinner. Jack's arm was around Claire's slender waist, and
her head rested on his shoulder, so that by looking up she could just
see the shadow on his clean-cut face. Though the pressure of his arm
was strong and tender, he seemed as if he had forgotten all about the
presence of the girl.
"Why so silent?" the girl said. "What are you thinking about, Jack?"
"Well, I was thinking about you, dearest," Jack replied. "About you
and myself. Also of your guardian, Anstruther. I was wondering why he
asks me so often and leaves us so much together when he has not the
slightest intention of letting me marry you."
The girl colored slightly. The expression in her violet eyes was one
of pain.
"You have never asked my guardian," she said. "We have been engaged
now for over six months, Jack, and at your request I have kept the
thing a dead secret. Why should we keep the matter a secret? You are
certain to get on in your profession, and you would do no worse if the
world knew that you had a rich wife. My guardian is kindness itself.
He has never thwarted me in a single wish. He would not be likely to
try and cross my life's happiness."
Jack Masefield made no reply for a moment. It was perhaps a singular
prejudice on his part, but he did not like the brilliant and volatile
Dr. Spencer Anstruther, who was Claire's guardian. He would have found
it impossible to account for this feeling, but there it was.
"My guardian has plenty of money of his own," Claire said, as if
reading his thoughts.
"There you are mistaken," Jack replied. "This is a fine old house,
filled with beautiful old things. Anstruther goes everywhere; he is a
favorite in the best society. Men of letters say he is one of the
finest talkers in the world. But I happen to know that he has very
little money, for a lawyer told me so. That being so, the £2,000 a
year you pay him till you marry or come of age is decidedly a thing to
take care of. On the whole, dearest, we had better go on as we are."
Claire had a smile for her lover's prejudices. Personally she saw
nothing amiss with her guardian. She crossed over to the window, the
blinds of which had not yet been drawn, and looked out. She looked
across the old-fashioned garden in front of the house to the street
beyond, where a few passengers straggled along. On the far side of the
road stood an electric standard holding a flaring lamp aloft. The
house opposite was being refaced, so that it was masked in a high
scaffold.
As was the custom in London, the scaffolding had been let out to some
enterprising bill-posting company. It was a mass of gaudy sheets and
placards puffing a variety of different kinds of wares. In the centre,
bordered by a deep band of black, was one solitary yellow face with
dark hair and starting eyes. At the base was the single word
"Nostalgo."
An extraordinary vivid and striking piece of work for a poster. The
face was strong and yet evil, the eyes were full of a devilish
malignity, yet there was a kind of laugh in them too. Artists spoke
freely of the Nostalgo poster as a work of positive genius, yet nobody
could name the author of it. Nobody knew what it meant, what it
foreshadowed. For two months now the thing had been one of the
sensations of London. The cheap Press had built up legends round that
diabolically clever poster; the head had been dragged into a story.
The firm who posted Nostalgo professed to know nothing as to its inner
meaning. It had become a catchword; actors on the variety stage made
jokes about it. But still that devilish yellow face stared down at
London with the malignant smile in the starting eyes.
"Jack, they have put up a fresh 'Nostalgo' poster on the hoarding
opposite," Claire said. "I wish they hadn't. That face frightens me.
It reminds me of somebody."
"So it does me," Jack replied, with sudden boldness. "It reminds me of
your guardian."
Claire smiled at the suggestion. The guardian was a large, florid man,
well-groomed and exquisitely clean. And yet as Jack spoke the yellow
face opposite seemed to change, and in some way the illusion was
complete. It was only for an instant, and then the starting eyes and
the queer smile that London knew so well were back again.
"You make me shudder," Claire said in a half-frightened way. "I should
never have thought of that. But as you spoke the face seemed to
change. I could see my guardian dimly behind it. Jack, am I suddenly
growing nervous or fanciful? The thing is absurd."
"Not a bit of it," Jack said stoutly. "The likeness is _there_. It may
be a weird caricature, but I can see it quite plainly. Don't you
recall how Anstruther breaks out into yellow patches when he is
excited or angry? I tell you I hate that man. I may be nonsensical,
but----"
Jack paced up and down the room as if lost in thought. The light was
shining on the face on the hoarding--it seemed to look at him with
Spencer Anstruther's eyes.
"There is something wrong in this house," he said. "I feel it. You may
laugh at me, you may say that I am talking nonsense, but there it is.
The strange people who come here----"
"Sent by the police mainly. Don't forget that my guardian is one of
the greatest criminologists of our time. There is no man in London who
can trace the motive of a crime quicker than Mr. Anstruther. There was
that marvelous case of those missing children, for instance----"
"Oh, I know," Jack said, with some suggestion of impatience in his
voice. "And yet, if you don't mind, we will say nothing of our
engagement at present."
Claire contested the point no longer. After all she was very happy as
things stood. She had plenty of chances of meeting her lover, and Mr.
Anstruther seemed to be altogether too wrapped up in his scientific
studies to notice what was going on under his very eyes. He came into
the room at the same moment humming a fragment of some popular opera.
There was nothing whatever about the man to justify Jack Masefield's
opinions. Spencer Anstruther was calculated to attract attention
anywhere. The man was tall and well set up, he had a fine commanding
face softened by a tolerant and benign expression. People looked after
him as he walked down the street and wondered which popular statesman
he was. In society Anstruther was decidedly welcome, amongst men of
learning he was a familiar figure. His scientific knowledge was great,
certain publications of his were regarded in the light of text-books.
Altogether he was a man to cultivate.
"I am afraid that I am late, young people," he said in a smooth,
polished voice. "I hope you have been able to amuse yourselves
together in my absence. You look moody, Jack. Don't those briefs come
in as freely as you would like? Or have you been quarreling?"
"No, sir," Jack replied. "We never quarrel; we are too good friends
for that. We have not the excuse in that way that lovers are supposed
to possess."
"We have been studying that awful poster," Claire said. "I wish
somebody would take it away. Jack is always seeing some likeness in
it. He says that you----"
The girl paused in some confusion. Anstruther smiled as he put up his
glasses.
"It is a complex face," he said. "Whose features does it remind you of
just now, Jack?"
"Yours," Jack said boldly. He flashed the word out suddenly. Half to
himself he wondered why he always felt a wild desire to quarrel with
this man. "I hope you won't be offended, sir, but I can see a
grotesque likeness to you in the famous repellent Nostalgo."
Claire looked up in some alarm. She was wondering how her guardian
would take it. The log fire in the grate shot up suddenly and
illuminated Anstruther's face. Perhaps it was the quick flare that
played a trick on Claire's fancy, for it seemed to her that suddenly
Anstruther's face was convulsed with rage. The benign pink expression
had gone, the features were dark with passion, the fine speaking eyes
grew black with malignant hatred. Claire could see the hands of the
man clenched so hard that the knuckles stood out white as chalk. And
there with it all was the likeness to Nostalgo that Jack had so boldly
alluded to. The fire dropped and spurted again, and when it rose for
the second time the face of Spencer Anstruther was smooth and smiling.
Claire passed her handkerchief across her eyes to concentrate the
picture of fiendish passion that she had seen. Was it possible that
imagination had played some trick on her? And yet the picture was as
vivid as a landscape picked out and fixed upon the retina by a flash
of lightning on a dark night. The girl turned away and hid her white
face.
"I should like to meet the artist who drew that face," Anstruther
said, with a smile. "One thing I am quite certain of--it is not the
work of an Englishman. Well, it has found London something to talk
about, and the advertisement is a very clever one. I dare say before
long we shall discover that it is exploited in the interest of
somebody's soap."
"I am inclined to favor the view that Nostalgo is something novel in
the way of a thought-reader or a spiritualist," Jack said. "It seems
to me----"
The dining-room door was thrown open by a woman servant, who announced
that dinner was served. They passed across the hall into a large
dark-walled room, the solitary light of which was afforded by a pair
of handsome candelabra on the table. There were not many flowers, but
they were all blood red, with a background of shiny, metallic green.
The woman who waited passed from one plate to another without making
the slightest sign. As she came into the rays of the shaded candles
from time to time Jack glanced at her curiously. She was dressed in
sombre, lustreless black, with no white showing at all. There was no
cap on her head--nothing but a tangle of raven-black hair. Her brows
were black and hairy, her skin as dark, so that her faded eyes were in
striking contrast to her swarthy appearance. Her hands were very
strong and capable, the mouth firm to the verge of cruelty. And yet
there was something subdued, something beaten about the woman, as if
she had been taken in a wild state and tamed. Anstruther seldom
addressed an order to her in words; a motion of the hand, the raising
of an eyelid seemed to be sufficient for those pale, tired eyes, which
somehow never for one instant relaxed their vigilance.
The woman was a mystery of the house; she seemed to be entirely
dominated by her master's will. And yet there were strength and
passion there, Jack felt certain. The fanatic only slumbered. A pansy
fell from one of the flower vases, and Jack started out his hand to
replace it.
"Did you ever see the evil face in the heart of a pansy blossom?" he
asked, for there was a pause in the conversation. "It is a demon
face--and familiar too. Miss Helmsley, whose face does this saffron
heart of the pansy remind you of?"
Claire took the pansy from Jack's hand and studied it with a frown on
her pretty face.
"Why, of course." she cried. "I see what you mean. It is Nostalgo, the
man with the yellow face."