He was dead.
Then I faced Vernon.
“Murderer!” I said. “Murderer!”
“But—he was only a black spaniel!” Vernon said, laying the revolver
down on the table.
“Murderer!” I repeated.
Then I lifted up the corpse of the spaniel, and went out into the night
carrying it in my arms.
_THE MISSION OF MR. EUSTACE GREYNE_
I
Mrs. Eustace Greyne (pronounced Green) wrinkled her forehead—that
noble, that startling forehead which had been written about in the
newspapers of two hemispheres—laid down her American Squeezer pen,
and sighed. It was an autumn day, nipping and melancholy, full of
the rustle of dying leaves and the faint sound of muffin bells, and
Belgrave Square looked sad even to the great female novelist who had
written her way into a mansion there. Fog hung about with the policeman
on the pavement. The passing motor cars were like shadows. Their
stertorous pantings sounded to Mrs. Greyne’s ears like the asthma of
dying monsters. She sighed again, and murmured in a deep contralto
voice: “It must be so.” Then she got up, crossed the heavy Persian
carpet which had been bought with the proceeds of a short story in her
earlier days, and placed her forefinger upon an electric bell.
Like lightning a powdered giant came.
“Has Mr. Greyne gone out?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Where is he?”
“In his study, ma’am, pasting the last of the cuttings into the new
album.”
Mrs. Greyne smiled. It was a pretty picture the unconscious six-footer
had conjured up.
“I am sorry to disturb Mr. Greyne,” she answered, with that gracious,
and even curling suavity which won all hearts; “but I wish to see him.
Will you ask him to come to me for a moment?”
The giant flew, silk-stockinged, to obey the mandate, while Mrs. Greyne
sat down on a carved oaken chair of ecclesiastical aspect to await her
husband.
She was a famous woman, a personage, this simply-attired lady. With
an American Squeezer pen she had won fame, fortune, and a mansion
in Belgrave Square, and all without the sacrifice of principle.
Respectability incarnate, she had so dealt with the sorrows and evils
of the world that she had rendered them utterly acceptable to Mrs.
Grundy, Mr. Grundy, and all the Misses Grundy. People said she dived
into the depths of human nature, and brought up nothing that need
scandalise a curate’s grandmother, or the whole-aunt of an archdeacon;
and this was so true that she had made a really prodigious amount of
money. Her large, her solid, her unrelenting books lay upon every
table. Even the smart set kept them, uncut—like pretty sinners who have
never been “found out”—to give an air of hap-hazard intellectuality to
frisky boudoirs. All the clergy, however unable to get their tithes,
bought them. All bishops alluded to them in “pulpit utterances.”
Fabulous prices were paid for them by magazine editors. They ran
as serials through all the tale of months. The suburbs battened on
them. The provinces adored them. Country people talked of no other
literature. In fact, Mrs. Eustace Greyne was a really fabulous success.
Why, then, should she heave these heavy sighs in Belgrave Square? Why
should she lift an intellectual hand as though to tousle the glossy
chestnut bandeaux which swept back from her forcible forehead, and
screw her reassuring features into these wrinkles of perplexity and
distress?
The door opened, and Mr. Eustace Greyne appeared, “What is it,
Eugenia?” upon his lips.
Mr. Greyne was a number of years younger than his celebrated wife,
and looked even younger than his years. He was a very smart man, with
smooth, jet-black hair, which he wore parted in the middle; pleasant,
dark eyes that could twinkle gently; a clear, pale complexion; and a
nice, tall figure. One felt, in glancing at him, that he had been an
Eton boy, and had at least thought of going into the militia at some
period of his life. His history can be briefly told.
Scarcely had he emerged into the world before he met and was married
to Mrs. Eustace Greyne, then Miss Eugenia Hannibal-Barker. He had had
no time to sow a single oat, wild or otherwise; no time to adore a
barmaid, or wish to have his name linked with that of an actress; no
time to do anything wrong, or even to know, with the complete accuracy
desired by all persevering young men, what was really wrong. Miss
Eugenia Hannibal-Barker sailed upon his horizon, and he struck his
flag to matrimony. Ever since then he had been her husband, and had
never, even for one second, emerged beyond the boundaries of the most
intellectual respectability. He was the most innocent of men, although
he knew all the important editors in London. Swaddled in money by his
successful wife, he considered her a goddess. She poured the thousands
into Coutts’ Bank, and with the arrival of each fresh thousand he was
more firmly convinced that she was a goddess. To say he looked up to
her would be too mild. As the Cockney tourist in Chamonix peers at the
summit of Mont Blanc, he peered at Mrs. Greyne. And when, finally, she
bought the lease of the mansion in Belgrave Square, he knew her Delphic.
So now he appeared in the oracle’s retreat respectfully, “What is it,
Eugenia?” upon his admiring lips.
“Sit down, my husband,” she murmured.
Mr. Greyne subsided by the fire, placing his pointed patent-leather
toes upon the burnished fender. Without the fog grew deeper, and the
chorus of the muffin bells more plaintive. The fire-light, flickering
over Mrs. Greyne’s majestic features, made them look Rembrandtesque.
Her large, oxlike eyes were fixed and thoughtful. After a pause, she
said:
“Eustace, I shall have to send you upon a mission.”
“A mission, Eugenia!” said Mr. Greyne in great surprise.
“A mission of the utmost importance, the utmost delicacy.”
“Has it anything to do with Romeike & Curtice?”
“No.”
“Will it take me far?”
“That is my trouble. It will take you very far.”
“Out of London?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Out of—not out of England?”
“Yes; it will take you to Algeria.”
“Good gracious!” cried Mr. Greyne.
Mrs. Greyne sighed.
“Good gracious!” Mr. Greyne repeated after a short interval. “Am I to
go alone?”
“Of course you must take Darrell.” Darrell was Mr. Greyne’s valet.
“And what am I to do at Algiers?”
“You must obtain for me there the whole of the material for book six
of ‘Catherine’s Repentance.’” “Catherine’s Repentance” was the gigantic
novel upon which Mrs. Greyne was at that moment engaged.
“I will not disguise from you, Eustace,” continued Mrs. Greyne, looking
increasingly Rembrandtesque, “that, in my present work, I am taking a
somewhat new departure.”
“Well, but we are very comfortable here,” said Mr. Greyne.
With each new book they had changed their abode. “Harriet” took them
from Phillimore Gardens to Queensgate Terrace; “Jane’s Desire” moved
them on to a corner house in Sloane Street; with “Isobel’s Fortune”
they passed to Curzon Street; “Susan’s Vanity” landed them in Coburg
Place; and, finally, “Margaret’s Involution” had planted them in
Belgrave Square. Now, with each of these works of genius Mrs. Greyne
had taken what she called “a new departure.” Mr. Greyne’s remark is,
therefore, explicable.
“True. Still, there is always Park Lane.”
She mused for a moment. Then, leaning more heavily upon the carved
lions of her chair, she continued:
“Hitherto, although I have sometimes dealt with human frailty, I have
treated it gently. I have never betrayed a Zola-spirit.”
“Zola! My darling!” cried Mr. Eustace Greyne. “You are surely not going
to betray anything of that sort now!”
“If she does we shall soon have to move off to West Kensington,” was
his secret thought.
“No. But in book six of ‘Catherine’ I have to deal with sin, with
tumult, with African frailty. It is inevitable.”
She sighed once more. The burden of the new book was very heavy upon
her.
“African frailty!” murmured the astonished Eustace Greyne.
“Now, neither you nor I, my husband, know anything about this.”
“Certainly not, my darling. How should we? We have never explored
beyond Lucerne.”
“We must, therefore, get to know about it—at least you must. For I
cannot leave London. The continuity of the brain’s travelling must not
be imperiled by any violent bodily activity. In the present stage of my
book a sea journey might be disastrous.”
“Certainly you should keep quiet, my love. But then⸺”
“You must go for me to Algiers. There you must get me what I want. I
fear you will have to poke about in the native quarters a good deal for
it, so you had better buy two revolvers, one for yourself and one for
Darrell.”
Mr. Greyne gasped. The calmness of his wife amazed him. He was not
intellectual enough to comprehend fully the deep imaginings of a
mighty brain, the obsession work is in the worker.
“African frailty is what I want,” pursued Mrs. Greyne. “One hundred
closely-printed pages of African frailty. You will collect for me
the raw material, and I shall so manipulate it that it will fall
discreetly, even elevatingly, into the artistic whole. Do you
understand me, Eustace?”
“I am to travel to Algiers, and see all the wickedness to be seen
there, take notes of it, and bring them back to you.”
“Precisely.”
“And how long am I to stay?”
“Until you have made yourself acquainted with the depths.”
“A fortnight?”
“I should think that would be enough. Take Brush’s remedy for
seasickness and plenty of antipyrin, your fur coat for the crossing,
and a white helmet and umbrella for the arrival. You have lead pencils?”
“Plenty.”
“A couple of Merrin’s exercise-books should be enough to contain your
notes.”
“When am I to go?”
“The sooner the better. I am at a standstill for want of the material.
You might catch the express to Paris to-morrow; no, say the day after
to-morrow.” She looked at him tenderly. “The parting will be bitter.”
“Very bitter,” Mr. Eustace Greyne replied.
He felt really upset. Mrs. Greyne laid the hand which had brought them
from Phillimore Gardens to Belgrave Square gently upon his.
“Think of the result,” she said. “The greatest book I have done yet. A
book that will last. A book that will⸺”
“Take us to Park Lane,” he murmured.
The Rembrandtesque head nodded. The noble features, as of a strictly
respectable Roman emperor, relaxed.
“A book that will take us to Park Lane.”
At this moment the door opened, and the footman inquired:
“Could Mademoiselle Verbèna see you for a minute, ma’am?”
Mademoiselle Verbèna was the French governess of the two little
Greynes. The great novelist had consented to become a mother.
“Certainly.”
In another moment Mademoiselle Verbèna was added to the group beside
the fire.