A SOCIETY SENSATION
“Have you heard the latest sensation, Lady Rotherfield?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Greetland. Do tell me. It’s not the scandal about Lord
Barnoldby and Infanta Turnour? Of course every one knows all about
that.”
“Hardly all, dear lady,” Greetland simpered. He was one of the
cohort of smart diners-out; the social bagmen who all travel in the
same commodity, for which there is universal demand--scandal. “The
Barnoldby-Turnour affair is never-ending. Nobody ever will hear the
last of that.”
“The Infanta is old enough to know better,” observed Mrs. Hargrave on
the other side of him, scandalized but interested.
“She is big enough at any rate,” Greetland smirked.
“To be ashamed of herself,” supplemented Lady Rotherfield illogically.
“Perhaps she has out-grown the sense of shame,” suggested Greetland,
whose stature matched his ambition. “But that wasn’t what I was
referring to. Something much more thrilling.”
“Mr. Greetland!”
The society purveyor glanced round to see whether he had an audience
worthy of the news. People on each side seemed to be pricking up
their ears. There was evidently something of interest going forward;
the spasmodic tea-table talk languished; Dormer Greetland was always
interesting; even men who itched to kick him admitted that. “A
curiously marked caterpillar” had once been Gastineau’s correction when
some one spoke of Greetland as a worm. He was too sleek and foppish to
be a human exemplar of the more coarse and naked invertebrate.
A pretty piece of scandal was evidently forthcoming, and he got an
audience to his liking--almost every one of importance in the room,
with one notable exception, the hostess, Countess Alexia von Rohnburg,
who was listening to a prosy Russian diplomat.
“What is it? You have some news for us, Greetland?” cried the
high-pitched voice of Baron de Daun, as he came across the floor
and stood over the group. In his way the Baron was as great a
scandal-monger and _blagueur_ as the other man, but he tore reputations
to shreds with greater violence than his English _confrère_, who was,
after all, more of an artist. On the other hand, the Baron had greater
justification in peeping through the chinks in society’s shutters, for
was he not a diplomatist?
“A very extraordinary thing has come to light,” Greetland said, with
an air befitting the communication. “It is really quite dramatic, and
Heaven only knows what will be the end of it.”
“What? What?” Baron de Daun’s temper was impatient of preliminaries, a
circumstance which, however, was not so great a drawback as it would
seem in his profession, where due weight is given to considerations
other than individual fitness.
“You remember,” Greetland proceeded, still deliberately--on his own
ground it took more than the representative of a second-rate power to
flurry him--“you remember the affair of poor Beauty Martindale?”
“Oh, yes; the poor fellow who died so tragically at the ball at--where
was it? Yes?”
To Lady Rotherfield details were unimportant; but to Greetland they had
their value. “Vaux House,” he supplied.
“Yes? yes?”
“Let’s see. He was supposed to have died of heart disease, but it was
doubted----”
“There was no doubt about it,” de Daun asserted quickly. The subject
was too interesting for more diplomatic contradiction.
“Of course,” corroborated Sir Perrott Aspall, who had been in
Australia at the time and was consequently well qualified to give an
authoritative dictum. “He was murdered, done to death by one of his
partners, eh? That’s the idea.”
“I recollect,” put in Mrs. Hargrave breathlessly. “Half the smart women
in town were suspected.”
“Many of whom were not at the dance,” de Daun laughed.
“It’s years ago,” Lady Rotherfield said, as an excuse for general
vagueness.
“Well, what of it? What has come to light?” the Baron demanded. “Get
on, my dear fellow, if you have anything to tell us.”
Greetland, master of the situation, was content to wait till the
chatter stopped. “The facts were these. Reggie Martindale, the
handsomest man in town, was found dead at the Lancashires’ dance.
You are quite right, dear lady, it was at first supposed and given
out that it was heart disease. Then, almost by accident, and after
the certificate had been given, a tiny wound, scarcely bigger than a
pin-prick, was found in his left side near the heart. That was hushed
up; luckily the Lancashires’ medico, who found it out, happened to
be Martindale’s as well, and so had the matter in his own hands; and
naturally the Duchess did not want a scandal. It was said that Dr.
Blaydon handed the Duke three-eights of an inch of broken steel which
he had found imbedded in poor Beauty’s heart, and received in return a
cheque which established a record price for the metal. But old Blaydon
knew himself to be a dying man at the time; an _exposé_ could hardly
hurt him, and he had a large family to provide for. As a matter of fact
he died a few months afterwards, to the dear Duchess’s great content.
It’s extraordinary how fussy some good people can be over the idea of a
scandal.”
“You see,” observed Mrs. Hargrave, “the Duchess does not require
advertisement for herself or her dances.”
“If it had been that terrible Oglander woman, now, she would have
paid the doctor to call in the Coroner, and sent out invitations for
the inquest, with reserved seats and champagne for the Press.” Lady
Rotherfield never missed an opportunity, even when she was in a hurry,
of girding at her especial abomination among the many parvenues who
beset her path.
“Well? well?” Baron de Daun’s sharp voice split the air like the crack
of a whip. “And now, after all, the affair has come out, eh?”
“Something more than that,” Greetland returned, with all the
superiority of the man who knows. “A good many people knew that much
already. You see, after Blaydon’s death, when she felt they were safe,
the dear Duchess allowed herself to be a little indiscreet, of course
only in her own set.” His tone included himself by implication in the
select band who shared the ducal secret. De Daun saw it was no use
trying to hurry him, and worked off his impatience by pulling viciously
at his moustache.
“What I am going to tell you,” Greetland proceeded, “happened only a
day or two ago. They were doing something to the little room where
Beauty was found dead, just off the ball-room, putting up new cornices
or something--not before they were wanted, they say the curtains at
Vaux House were hung in Queen Anne’s time; probably the poles date from
the Conquest--well, in pulling the old window trappings about, the men
found a long jewelled hair-pin, a tiny sword, the hilt set in diamonds
and with the point broken off.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Sir Perrott.
“They found this in the cornice?” de Daun asked intently. It was
important for him to get the story correctly.
“Somewhere stuck away in the curtains or behind the shutter; anyhow,
hidden by the window.”
“And who found it? A workman, eh?”
“One of the Duke’s men.”
“And what is to be the upshot?” Mrs. Hargrave’s turn of mind was
practical and anticipatory.
“Well, the whole thing will come out,” Greetland asserted.
“No? Be made public?” Lady Rotherfield was dead against the publicity
of to-day. A scandal to which the mob had access lost all its piquancy
and was not worth discussing. The world was becoming less interesting
every hour.
“To-morrow,” Greetland confidently affirmed, “the man in the street
will know as much of the affair as we do.”
Lady Rotherfield gave a shrug of despair. The world where the man in
the street is as well posted as the Duchess in the Square was scarcely
worth living in.
“Then the Duke can’t hush it up this time, eh?” de Daun demanded,
showing his malicious teeth.
“No,” Greetland purred on. “He is in an awful way about it, and the
Duchess is having a bad time.”
“Poor woman!” cried Mrs. Hargrave with cynical sympathy.
“Well, it is all her fault, so Lady Helen says,” the Society Newsman
went on, as suavely as though he were referring to no greater tragedy
than a failure on the Matrimonial Exchange. “The dear Duchess would
dismiss one of her carriage footmen because he was three-quarters of an
inch shorter than his fellow. Lady Helen’s maid tells her that the man
wore cork wedges in his boots till he could hardly keep his balance,
and was quite willing to meet her views and obliging, but the other
day he had to go out unexpectedly, and in his hurry forgot the corks;
the Duchess’s eagle eye caught the disparity, her artistic sense was
outraged, and the poor Duke had to give the man notice. She said that
so long as Nature continued occasionally to turn out human beings six
feet two inches in height she would not put up with a trumped-up,
inferior article, only six feet one, of which a quarter only was
genuine flesh and blood and the rest cork, and who looked as though
liable to fall on his nose. Men of her standard height were to be had,
and she meant to have them, all through alike; the cork-tipped variety
she would leave to Bishop’s wives, dowager Countesses, and other
latitudinarians.”
“So like the dear Duchess,” Lady Rotherfield laughed. “Poor Duke, what
could he say?”
“There was only one thing he could say to the man. Well, the fellow
resented his dismissal, which was rather absurd of him.”
“He ought to have been thankful to get rid of the corks,” was Sir
Perrott’s opinion.
“Instead of which he appears to have declared that the proper thing
for the Duchess to have done was to have sacked his tall colleague
and replaced him by a man to match himself, minus the corks. This
was flat treason in the face of the fact that the standard height of
the Lancashires’ carriage footmen was settled for all time in the
second year of the reign of William and Mary. When the _lèse-majesté_
was repeated to the Duchess she became livid. The sacredness of the
Lancashire traditions to be scoffed at by a cork-mounted flunkey!
Should the ducal glory be belittled by a creature whose only claim for
notice rested upon a pair of false heels? The consequence was that the
wretched man was told to go on the spot, and that happened just after
the discovery of the compromising hair-pin.”
“Oh, I see,” said Sir Perrott.
“The man thought he would get what he could out of the ducal _ménage_,
and went straight off with his secret to Hepplethwaite. Hepplethwaite
gave him twenty pounds for it, and resold it within the hour to the
Duke for a hundred and an invitation for his wife to the next reception
at Vaux House.”
“I must remember not to go,” Lady Rotherfield murmured. “That odious
pushing woman tries to work her way everywhere.”
“It would have been a grand _coup_ for the Hepplethwaite group of
papers,” Greetland said; “and would have set up their circulation
phenomenally, but Hepplethwaite wants something more than money now.
The Brailsfords of the _Daily Comet_ somehow succeeded in dining
at Montford House last week. Montford wants advertisement for that
ass of a son of his, Darsingham, who is by way of taking up the New
Hibernian question in the House to keep him out of mischief; and so the
Hepplethwaites were bound to go one better.”
“They say,” observed Mrs. Hargrave, “that Hepplethwaite and Brailsford
were office boys together in a tea warehouse.”
“And,” put in Sir Perrott, “they are now running it neck and neck for a
Peerage.”
“Shocking!” Lady Rotherfield groaned.
“Then the Vaux House affair is not to be public property at all?” de
Daun asked. So long as he could add it to his _dossier_ the stock of
public knowledge might just as well be the poorer by that pungent
scandal.
“Won’t it come out, though?” Greetland returned. “I haven’t finished
my story. The footman on finding that the news did not appear in the
Hepplethwaite rags took it to Brailsford, got fifteen pounds for
it this time; and it is going to burst upon a jaded reading public
to-morrow morning. They were to have had it to-day, only special-sized
type had to be cast, and they were not ready.”
“What is this thrilling announcement which is being prepared for us,
Mr. Greetland?”
The tatler looked up with almost a start. The question had been put
by Countess Alexia von Rohnburg, their young hostess, who had joined
the group, unnoticed by Greetland or his listeners, intent as they
were upon the new sensation. The Russian proser had come to a pause in
that flow of shallow talk with which diplomatists are wont to disguise
their thoughts and to cover the watchful observation of their fellows,
and the Countess, who had caught above the suave murmur a word or
two in de Daun’s high-pitched voice that had arrested her, had risen
and crossed the room. There was nothing in her handsome, animated
face, the index of a susceptive mind, that showed more than an almost
languid curiosity, as of one who lived in an atmosphere filled with
tales concerning the great names of the day, and whose appetite was
slightly blunted by the familiar fare. Nevertheless Greetland, the most
studiously composed man of his world, looked up with an expression of
greater embarrassment than he often permitted himself. And it was de
Daun, not he, who answered the question.
“Mr. Greetland was telling us of the discovery of a hair ornament, a
small jewelled dagger with the point broken off, in the room at Vaux
House where Captain Martindale met his death two years ago.”
“Ah! How thrilling!” If the speaker were really thrilled the mobile
face must surely have indicated it more vividly. A wave of interest
passed across it; the dark curves of the eyebrows rose and fell, that
was all. Dormer Greetland, watching the face intently for a man in
whose social balance-sheet manners stood as a notable asset, saw no
more.
“Is it quite true, Mr. Greetland?” The tone implied an amount of
incredulity which compelled a spirited justification.
“Absolutely, Countess. I was just saying that the discovery will be in
the papers to-morrow.”
His questioner smiled. “Does that make it true?”
“It will at least bring the story to its proof. The Duchess won’t let
it pass if it is a canard: she doesn’t need advertisement. But I happen
to know it is quite true.”
“I am sure Mr. Greetland would rather be dull than unauthentic, as the
lesser of the two crimes.” The sarcasm was none the less stinging from
being shot through the sweetest of smiles.
“The Duke has been trying to hush it up,” Lady Rotherfield put in.
Countess Alexia laughed. “All the details complete. And of course the
owner of the sword has been found.”
“I think not,” said Greetland.
“Probably the Duke knows, as he was so anxious to hush up the affair,”
the Countess continued, in her fascinating banter. “Poor Duke, he had
better be careful, or he will be arrested as what you call an accessory
after the fact, which would be a sensation, if you like. Always
supposing, that is, that poor Reggie Martindale did not die of heart
disease.”
“That has been clearly proved, Countess,” Greetland said, glad of one
firm foothold in stemming the increasing flow of increduilty.
Alexia gave a shrug. “I never heard it, and I’m afraid I hear most
things.”
“The Duke hushed that up,” explained Sir Perrott.
“How clever of him! With that talent for hushing tiresome tongues what
a perfect nursemaid he might have been if he hadn’t been born a Duke
and a man. How lucky he has failed this time, or we should not be
having the sensation of the jewelled dagger, the false lover and the
fair assassin. What hard lines! What a warning to inconstant young men
and fussy Dukes. And we are to see it all in print to-morrow?”
“Get the _Daily Comet_ for choice, Countess,” de Daun grinned.
“I will, indeed. I am so sorry for the poor Duke.”
“And the lady, the owner of the tell-tale weapon?” Greetland suggested.
“Ah, yes. But it is so long ago. Our sympathy by this time is probably
superfluous. Our tragedies to-day are almost as short-lived as our
comedies.”
“And almost as amusing.”
“Much more, to the spectators. Having left the art of pure comedy
behind us with the days of patches and powder and red heels, we have
taken a lesson from our stage managers and learnt to turn a tiresome
tragedy into a roaring farce. It is easy enough. Play with a light
touch, and exaggerate the sentiment, that’s the way to get your laughs
and your audience; the world must be amused at any cost. Oh, Prosper”;
she broke off, and called to her brother, Count Prosper von Rohnburg,
who had just come in with a scientific-looking man, “have you heard
anything of the wonderful tale Mr. Greetland has been telling us, how
they have found at Vaux House the weapon with which that poor Captain
Martindale is supposed to have been killed? Isn’t it thrilling?”
“No,” he answered, speaking with a foreign accent far more pronounced
than his sister’s. “I am behind the world to-day. There was no time to
go to the Clubs, we have been absurdly busy at the Embassy. Here, Alix,
let me present to you Doctor Hallamar who has come to spend a little
time in England.”
Doctor Hallamar bent his leonine head with its mass of obstreperous
hair low till his lips touched the Countess’s hand. Manifestly he was
a man of power, the keen, resolute face was of the kind that makes one
glad to think its indicative strength has taken up arms against our
common enemy, disease.
“You are taking a holiday in England, Doctor,” Alexia enquired.
“Hardly.” The deep tones sounded in unison with the rest of the man’s
heroic fibre. “My visit is professional primarily, but I hope to see
something of England during my enforced stay; if not of its scenery, at
least of its scientific side.”
“Doctor Hallamar means the hospitals,” the Count laughed. “He would
rather see an interesting operation than the finest view in the world.
You know the Doctor is the only man in Europe who can cure a certain
form of disease.”
Hallamar smiled deprecatingly. “Let us say, treat it, Count. I fear I
cannot often undertake to cure it.”
“Oh, you are modest, Doctor,” Alexia laughed. “And you have come over
to attend a special case?”
Hallamar bowed assent. “A lady who has lost the use of her limbs
through an accident. As a diplomatist’s sister, Countess, you will not
expect me to say more.” He beamed inscrutably through his spectacles.
“My mission may be a failure, and then the less we shall have said
about it the better.”
“I can’t imagine you a failure, Doctor,” Alexia said, and truly, as her
eyes rested with admiration on the strong, resourceful face.
Hallamar’s smile had a touch of regret now.
“I would, Countess, that your gracious words did not carry with them
to me the sting of unintended satire.”
“What is all this about the discovery at Vaux House?” Count Prosper
asked.
“Oh, we are to have the whole account to-morrow in the papers,” his
sister replied. “We can scarcely trouble Mr. Greetland to go over the
story again.”
The Mayfair newsman seemed not disinclined to repeat the recitation
to a, perhaps, more appreciative listener; but the Count, accustomed
to take his sister’s slightest hint, abandoned any further show of
curiosity. But he said presently, “We were at that ball at Vaux House,
weren’t we, Alix? Yes; I recollect poor Martindale. Good-looking fellow
he was.”
“You remember the sensation his death caused,” Sir Perrott said. “Half
the smart women in town, married and single, were supposed to be hit by
it.”
Doctor Hallamar’s smile had faded. He was not interested and he showed
it.
* * * * *
Baron de Daun and Dormer Greetland rose to go at the same time.
Greetland’s adieux were the more lengthy; he had so many social loose
ends to tie up. It seemed when he reached the hall that de Daun must
have been waiting for him. They went out together.
“Serious thing this about Vaux House,” the Baron remarked, in quite
a concerned voice. “I say, Greetland, between ourselves, was the
Countess,” he gave a jerk of the head in the direction of the house
they had just left, “one of the women talked of with Martindale?”
“I fancy she was,” the other answered, looking straight in front of
him.
Tatler as he was, he knew de Daun, and did not care to be pumped to
serve the thirst of that blatant young diplomat.
“It seemed rather curious, to say the least of it,” his companion
persisted, “her affecting to doubt the truth of the story. I wonder if
the sword hair-pin was hers.”
He looked round at Greetland with the quick turn of a bird of prey.
“Oh, that’s going too far,” Greetland cried, throwing up his hand half
way in protest, then full length to hail a passing hansom.