THE MAN WHO GUESSED
Countess Alexia of Rohnburg had had a few of her intimate friends to
luncheon at the house in Green Street, and the last of them, Mary
Riverdale, was still sitting with her in cosy chat when a note was
brought in. That her hostess did not like the look of the handwriting
on the envelope, Miss Riverdale was sure. But she forbore the comment
to which her intimacy might have entitled her, and contented herself
with running through a picture book while Alexia read the note.
“Is--any one waiting?” the Countess had asked.
“No, madame,” answered the man, unsatisfyingly laconic, as became his
position.
Alexia read the note, restored it to its envelope and put it, address
downwards, on the table. Her visitor threw aside the _Graphic_, and
for a few moments there was a constrained silence, a pause of mental
self-consciousness, almost awkward, considering how intimate the
two were. But both of them, young though they might be, were too
experienced players in that everyday game of social diplomacy to let an
embarrassment become manifest. Yet there will assert itself, in spite
of tact and artifice, a certain instinct which tells us our companions
are reading our thoughts and gauging our dilemmas.
“I wonder what the next development of the Vaux House mystery will
be,” Miss Riverdale observed, quoting the headline of the _Daily Comet_.
The affair had, as was natural, been the subject of animated discussion
at luncheon, and it seemed scarcely worth while to reopen it.
The Countess gave a shrug. “We must wait and see,” she answered
mechanically. “The poor Duchess! One almost feels one ought to leave
cards of enquiry.”
“The poor Duke,” laughed her friend. “They will get more fun out of him
than ever. Not but what this is a serious matter.”
“You really think so?” The talk was being sustained by an effort on
both sides, and Alexia’s question sounded suspiciously like covering a
yawn.
“Don’t you?” the other returned, in languid surprise.
“Oh, yes, I suppose so. If it is all true.”
“Of course if it isn’t true we shall have a disclaimer from the
Lancashires to-morrow.”
“I mean the connection between the broken ornament, the little sword,
or whatever it is, and poor Captain Martindale’s death. You knew him,
Mary?”
“Only by sight. You did, dear, didn’t you?”
“Casually. Meeting him about. As a matter of fact I was to have danced
with him at the very time he was found dead.”
“Alix! You never told me that. How awful!”
“It might have been,” the Countess responded composedly. “But I did not
see him. It was late; a good many people had gone. He did not come for
his dance; then there was a fuss: we were told, at least I was, that
Captain Martindale had had a fit, and people went off. I fancy most of
the men knew the real state of the case.”
Miss Riverdale gave a little shudder. “Horrible! At a dance, too.”
“Yes. It was upsetting, even to us who did not know the truth. As we
were going, a doctor bustled in, shivering in a great-coat buttoned up
to hide the fact that he was only half dressed. I have often thought
that great-coat in the ball-room brought home the idea of a tragedy
more vividly than the sight of the dead man could have done. Ugh! Don’t
let’s talk about it any more, or I shall get the blues.”
Her visitor rose. “You look, my dear Alix, as though you had them
already. Come across the Park with me. I am going that way home; we are
pretty sure to meet some one to enliven us.”
Alexia shook her head. “I was out all the morning and am rather tired.
I feel too dull even to ask you to stay.”
Miss Riverdale scarcely needed a hint to see that she had suddenly
become _de trop_. She wondered whether her hostess’s sudden
preoccupation was not due to the letter just received; but to wonder
was all that was permitted her.
Scarcely had the door closed upon her visitor when Alexia took up the
note and read it through again, and this time there was no need for her
to hide her disquietude. The words were few.
“DEAR COUNTESS,--
“I have something of great importance to say to you; if you read the
papers you will doubtless guess to what I refer. Will you, in your
own interest, be good enough to remove for once the embargo you have
laid on my visits, and be at home when I call at four this afternoon?
“Yours sincerely,
“AUBREY PLAYFORD.”
She read it through twice, and as she did so, she seemed to be
struggling to evade the grip of a strong will that lurked beneath the
words. Then, mechanically, she put the note back into its envelope and
turned to glance at the clock. It was nearly four. She hesitated for a
few moments, as taking counsel with herself; then rang the bell.
“I am at home to Mr. Playford when he calls this afternoon,” she told
the man, giving the order with a plain-spoken authority which disarmed
all suspicion of an impropriety.
She had not long to wait before the expected visitor was announced.
Playford came in deferentially confident and inscrutable, and as Alexia
rose to receive him her eyes met his boldly in a look of challenge.
“Bring tea,” she said casually to the man as he left the room. She was
not going to indue this unwelcome visit with any mysterious importance.
“It was good of you, Countess, to grant my request,” Playford said,
as he sat down, and let his eyes rest with covetous admiration on the
beautiful woman before him. “I hope it has not been inconvenient; but
the matter on which it was necessary to see you was urgent.”
“Not at all,” she answered coolly. “I have had some people to luncheon,
and they have only just gone. What did you want to tell me?”
“I gave you a hint, Countess, in my note.”
“Please explain it.”
“You did not understand it?” The tone was incredulous; coupled with the
sly look, almost offensively so.
“Not in the least,” Alexia returned simply, so directly as to blunt the
point of the insinuation.
But Playford was not the man to show a repulse. “It is about this
business at Vaux House,” he said, with quiet incisiveness.
“Oh? What of that? How does it concern me?”
If she was playing a part, her skill called forth his grudging
admiration; grudging because he knew from her tone that, except under
duress, she was not for him.
“You know, Countess,” he replied, speaking now with forced directness;
“you have seen that the little jewelled sword, a hair ornament, with
which Reggie Martindale was killed, has been found?”
“Yes,” she responded casually; “I saw that in the paper.”
He told himself, as he watched her, that she had gone a shade paler;
that was all; and he could not be quite certain of that.
“Do you believe it?” she added, as he paused, so to speak, on the
strike.
“It is true enough,” he said, in a tone that took the question out of
the region of the debatable. “Reggie Martindale was done to death that
night; why--only one person, probably, on this earth knows; but that he
did not die a natural death has all along been almost an open secret.”
“Has it?” she observed simply, yet with the slightest touch of
contradiction. “Yes; well, I have heard as much. Mr. Dormer Greetland
was telling us a long story about it a day or two ago. Still, I don’t
see how it concerns me.”
She was better entrenched against his attack, he was forced to admit,
than he had thought to find her; still, the defence should not serve.
“I’m afraid it does concern you, Countess, very nearly,” he replied, in
a tone dark with impending mischief.
“Tell me how, Mr. Playford.”
He gave a slight bow, as accepting the challenge. “I have seen this
little weapon, the tiny sword; a dangerous ornament, Countess.”
“Yes?” There seemed little more than a half-amused curiosity in her
tone.
“The Duchess showed it to me, and--I recognized it.”
Alexia laughed. “Ah, now I know. I think I have guessed this mysterious
piece of news. I suppose you are going to say that you have recognized
this formidable ornament as belonging to me.”
Manifestly he did not like the words being taken out of his mouth, but
he could only respond, with a slight bow of assent, “You have guessed
it, Countess.”
She laughed again. “My dear Mr. Playford, what an absurd idea!” Any
one would have thought from her manner and his that she had him
discomfited; but Aubrey Playford was not the man to be so easily beaten
off.
“Hardly absurd, Countess.” That was all he could say, for the door
opened and tea was brought in.
“Is the poor Duke very much upset?” Alexia enquired, giving the
necessary turn to the conversation while the men were in the room.
Playford gave an appropriately humorous answer as to the ducal state
of mind, all the while eyeing the girl searchingly, and in spite of
himself, inclined to wonder whether, after all, he might not have made
a mistake.
When they were alone once more, their talk did not for the moment
revert to its former and more dangerous channel. Perhaps both were glad
of an armistice after the first trial of strength, of a short breathing
space now that the methods of attack and defence were declared. Alexia
poured out the two cups of tea, and did not raise her eyes from the
table until Playford had taken his cup. Then she leaned back in her
chair and faced him boldly as ever.
“You come here to tell me that?”
His eyes were on her, alert as a fencer’s. “Could I do otherwise?”
“Surely,” she returned, with something like contempt. “Even if it were
true.”
“I don’t think I have made a mistake, Countess.” He spoke slowly with a
staccato enunciation of the words.
“You have, Mr. Playford.” The cool incisiveness of her tone stung him.
“How?” he asked, with an ugly look of fight in his malicious eyes.
She was ready with her answer. “To begin with, in coming here at all;
to a house, I mean, where you might know you would not be welcome.”
“Obviously,” he retorted with a smile, “as the bearer of unwelcome
news.”
“Which, if true, would be no news.”
The hit was palpable, but he gave no sign that he felt it. “I came to
warn you,” he said, still watching her darkly.
“It was very kind of you,” she returned, with a touch of contemptuous
irony, “and quite unnecessary.”
Manifestly the time for fencing was past. Playford rose, ostensibly to
put down his cup, but he remained standing over her. “Countess,” he
began, in a tone that had a deeper vibration in it, “Alexia----”
She raised her head imperiously. “Mr. Playford, I have forbidden you to
address me in that manner.”
“I know,” he assented. “And you have forbidden me your house.”
She gave a little scornful nod of agreement.
“For no adequate reason,” he protested. “My presumption, as no doubt
you would call it----”
“Persecution,” she corrected.
“Not persecution,” he argued. “That is a hard word to use towards a man
whose love overmasters him and makes him unduly importunate.”
“A man,” she replied, and from her tone she might have been discussing
the point merely from an academical point of view, “a man who cannot
control his feelings, but allows them to get the better of him to the
annoyance of others, deserves to be kept at a distance, even as you
have been.”
The last touch perceptibly stung him. There was an unpleasant gleam in
his eye as he returned, “But I am determined my state of banishment
from you shall last no longer.”
Her dark eyes were raised in half-amused scorn. “Indeed? I think that
rests with me rather than with you, Mr. Playford.”
“It did,” he retorted viciously; “but it does no longer.” He bent over
her. “Alexia----”
She motioned him away, and rose. “No,” she said, for the first time
showing anger; “I will not allow you to call me that.”
“I think you will,” he returned. “Let us understand one another.”
“If you think there is any misapprehension,” she said, now cold again;
“there is none on my part.”
“I think there is,” he rejoined significantly.
“No,” she maintained scornfully. “I can reckon you up, Mr. Playford. I
am sorry you should have thought proper to come here to threaten me.”
“Have I?” he broke in protestingly. “Have I threatened you?”
“If not,” she answered, “I confess I do not see the drift of what you
have said.”
“In my own justification, let me tell you,” he urged. “Please.”
Alexia resumed her seat with a significant glance at the clock. “I hope
it will not take you very long.”
How he hated her, this scornful, imperious beauty, who was meeting his
attack so skilfully; hated her for her contempt and rejection of him,
yet loved her with a fierceness and pervasiveness which he was, with
all his self-control, unable to subdue; while he hated and cursed the
bands of the passion that encompassed him.
“I certainly did not come here to threaten you, Countess,” he began, in
a tone schooled almost to apology. “I should hardly have brought myself
to repay your graciousness in receiving me by an action so ill as that.
I have simply come here, led, driven by an impulse which you forbid me
to name, to make a proposition to you, or, if you prefer the word, a
bargain with you.”
Lying back in her low chair, her eyes fixed almost dreamily upon the
little gold pencil-case which she lazily pushed in and out, she just
lifted them for an instant to Playford’s face, then lowered them again.
But from the light of that instant’s glance he saw no encouragement.
“It is easy,” he went on, for the pause had been but momentary, and
Alexia showed no desire to interrupt him, “it is easy to moralize and
to propound codes of so-called honour, but when a man is possessed by
a love as desperate, as all-absorbing as mine, he is scarcely to be
blamed if, while human nature remains as it is, he seizes any advantage
which fate may give him.”
“Advantage?” she repeated thoughtfully. “You say Fate has given you an
advantage--over me?”
There was an infinity of suggestion, of latent disdain, in the question.
“Don’t let us put it that way, Countess,” he protested.
“The word was yours, not mine,” she returned.
“True. But the application was yours. Let us look the situation
squarely in the face,” he proceeded, anxious now to come to the point,
lest the interview should be interrupted before he had declared
himself. “Don’t you think that, as you and I are, presumably, the only
people in the world who know your secret, we--we might share more than
that?”
He paused for her answer, but none came. Her attitude suggested that
she was waiting for him to go on to the end, if it were not already
reached.
“Countess!”
Thus called upon, she looked up.
“With regard to your proposal,” she said, in quite a matter-of-fact
tone, “it has the disadvantage of being based upon false premises.”
“How?”
“You talk of my secret--dangerous secret, I think you called it. I
have no secret, dangerous or harmless, that can be shared by you--or
anything else.”
He took a step nearer and lowered his tone as he replied, “This is
absurd, Countess. You will not put me off so. The little weapon with
which Martindale was killed belonged to you.”
“Indeed?” She gave a laugh. “I do not admit that for an instant; but,
supposing it did, what then?”
He had scarcely expected this unwavering defence, this absence of any
sign of fear in her. He was bound now to fight without compunction.
“It would, naturally, coupled with other circumstances, raise a very
ugly suspicion against you.”
“What other circumstances?”
“Won’t you render it unnecessary for me to mention them?”
“How?”
“By letting me be no longer out of favour with you,” he pleaded.
“I prefer to hear the other circumstances.” She was hatefully cold and
contemptuous, he told himself; wishing almost that he had not come on
this errand which promised him as little satisfaction as honour.
“You were in that little room with Martindale,” he said, with an effort
to save the situation. “You were seen to come out of it not long before
his death was discovered.”
“Seen? By whom?”
“By me, for one.”
“Ah!” There was infinite significance in the exclamation.
“He was known to be an admirer of yours.”
“Do I kill my admirers?” She rose. “You are giving me a terrible, a
really mediæval character, Mr. Playford. I wonder you trusted yourself
here alone. But perhaps you left word with the police before you
ventured to knock at the door. Is there anything more you have to say
to me? It is getting late.”
She had beaten him at every point, turned every lunge he had thought
to make with deadly effect. The sting of her sarcasm made him furious;
as furious as a man of his self-contained temperament could ever show
himself to be.
He could hardly prolong the interview now, after her unmistakable hint;
and if he did, it must be with little hope of gaining his point. She
meant fighting, if it were forced upon her, and, so far, her defence
had been perfect.
“Then do I understand you to deny, Countess, that the little dagger is
yours?” he asked bluntly, with an expression of rankling defeat on his
face.
“I know nothing of it,” she answered, with contemptuous indifference;
“and if I did, I should scarcely be inclined, after your somewhat
objectionable proposal, to discuss the matter with you.”
As she made a move towards the bell, he put forth a restraining hand.
“Then you reject me and my suggestion, Countess,” he demanded sullenly.
“It is your final answer?”
“My final answer,” she assured him. “I am only sorry that you should
have been so ill-advised as to invite it.” And she rang the bell.
“Very well,” he returned darkly. “Time will show which of us has been
the more ill-advised.”
She had turned her back upon him, and so, without any leave-taking, he
went away.