An instant later the telephone, upon my table, rang. Involuntarily, I
took up the receiver and answered.
“Hulloa, Lionel!” cried Joan, whose merry voice I recognized
instantly. “I got your excuse for not writing and I forgive you. So
you’re back at last! You were due from Rome two days ago. Are you
seeing me to-night, or are you too tired?”
“Tired! I am never too tired to see you, dearest,” I cried, in as
gallant a manner as my poor, perturbed brain would allow. “Where shall
we meet?”
“Mother and father are going to the Lord Chancellor’s reception at ten
o’clock. Come here at half-past, eh?”
“Very well,” I replied. “I’ll dine at the club, and come on after ten
o’clock.”
“Did you have a good journey?” she asked. “I hope you won’t be in one
of your moods, you know. The last time you came to see me you were
horrible. But I know, dear, you won’t be to-night, will you--for my
sake?”
“I was really unconscious of being horrible,” I laughed, “so do
forgive me. I’ll try and behave better to-night.”
“Righto! And don’t forget your promise--eh?” laughed the girl I so
dearly loved. Then she rang off.
Another mystery! What quarrel had ensued between us? Of what bad
behavior had I been unconsciously guilty--and when?
After two years I was to see Joan again! And yet, I was already
married--married to a woman I had never consciously seen.
Imagine my feelings as I sat that evening eating my dinner alone in
the St. James’s Club, torn by a thousand apprehensions of having
betrayed my best friends by making undesirable acquaintances, and,
furthermore, by contracting a hazardous and incomprehensible marriage.
What was I to say to Joan?
A little soup, and I could eat nothing more. It was half-past eight,
and, in order to carry out my promise to the Contessina, I went into
the hall and rang up Mr. Roddy Owen, at Harrington Court.
A man who spoke with a foreign accent and who was evidently a servant
answered, and asked who I was. My reply was that I desired to speak
with Mr. Owen himself.
In a few moments a man’s gruff voice said, “Owen speaking. What do you
want?”
“I want to see you this evening,” I replied. “You do not know me, but
I am bearer of a verbal message to you--from a friend of yours in
Rome.”
“Rome?” he echoed. “Oh, yes, thanks. I’ll be delighted to meet
you--what name?”
“Hipwell,” I replied. “May I call--say in half an hour?”
“Certainly,” he replied. “I’ll wait in for you, Mr. Hipwell. Thanks
for taking the trouble to find me. About nine o’clock, eh? Good-bye.”
And I hung up the receiver.
With memory of my unknown wife’s warning, I had put my Browning into
my pocket, and resolved always to keep it there. Yet surely there
could be no plot in my rather quixotic promise to help a young girl in
distress.
I felt in my waistcoat-pocket. My passport, the beautiful little
pendant of carved and pierced aquamarine, was there. So I took my
coffee and cigarette, and just after nine a taxi set me down before
Harrington Court, that great block of flats in Park Lane.
The elevator took me to the fourth-floor. When the elevator-man
pressed the bell at one of the doors, an elderly servant bowed me in.
Next moment, a tall, rather fair-haired man of about thirty, in
dinner-jacket, advanced to meet me with a welcoming smile. He was a
clean-limbed young man of athletic build, and somewhat hatchet-faced,
without much color, but with an eye like a gimlet.
“Mr. Hipwell, I presume,” he said. “Come along in.” And he conducted
me to a fine and beautifully furnished sitting-room, with soft lounge
chairs and several precious works of art. “You have come from Rome,”
he said, offering me a cigarette from a large silver box. “And you are
good enough to call on me. At the outset I thank you very sincerely.”
He spoke with great refinement, his speech being reminiscent of
Oxford, where I myself had been.
“I am carrying out a promise which I made to a lady who is our mutual
friend,” I explained.
I looked around the handsome apartment, but could see no evidence of
the plot of which I had been so mysteriously forewarned.
“From Angela, I suppose,” he said, in a low, intense voice, his manner
altering instantly. “You have seen her, eh?”
“I have,” I replied, and taking out the little pendant of clear, blue
stone, I handed it to him. “She told me to give you this.”
He took it in his trembling fingers and gazed intently at it. So
strange was the look in his eyes that it almost seemed as though sight
of the innocent looking little pendant with its two figure noughts
entwined, horrified, or even terrified him!
At that moment, something happened in my confused brain. What it was I
know not. A great weight seemed lifted from it. In a flash an
astounding truth dawned on me, and my lost consciousness became
suddenly restored.
Angela’s face had been familiar to me from the first moment I had
found myself seated at her side in Rome. Now, in a second, I realized
that the girl I knew as Angela Ugostini, “the Little Countess,” was
the same auburn-haired girl who had been so eager to put out my eyes
with a pin on that fateful night in Camberwell!
The discovery held me dumb. I had actually, in my ignorance, been
attracted by my worst enemy, Lisely Hatten, the criminal who worked as
a City typist. She had put me to the test in Rome. And finding that I
had not recognized her, she had sent me on that strange mission with
the piece of carved blue aquamarine.
I tried to remain calm, wondering whether the man I was visiting knew
the truth concerning me.
“I have a message to you from the Contessina,” I said. “She tells you
that she cannot write. The message is that it is all impossible, and
that you must forget.”
What was the nature of the romance, I wondered?
The face of the man addressed, standing in the centre of the room with
the little piece of blue shining stone in his hand, went pale as
death.
“Impossible!” he echoed breathlessly. “What--what in heaven’s name
does she mean? Why has she not written? Forget? How--how can I ever
forget?”
“That is the message. Of its meaning I am in ignorance,” I declared.
“The lady wishes to impress on you the serious peril in which she will
be placed if you write to her again. You must not write.”
“Not write!” he gasped despairingly. “Then she has ended it
all--_ended it_!”
“Not of her own free will,” I assured him. “She told me so. Of course,
I know nothing whatever of the circumstances, but she impressed on me
that it is necessary, in both your interests, to break off all
communication with you.”
“And Lisely desires it so?” he asked, in a low strained voice, his
lips trembling.
“Yes. She desires it so,” was my reply. “You call her Lisely. I know
her as Angela!” I said.
A long silence fell between us. At last Owen spoke.
“Her real name does not matter,” he said slowly, in a voice full of
emotion. “You will guess--and you will understand. A blow--a great
blow, the greatest of all my life--has fallen upon me!” Then, after a
a pause, he added: “I was a fool--all men are fools where women are
concerned. But--but I ought to have known. My own common sense ought
to have prevented me from--from----”
He swallowed, with an effort, a lump that had arisen in his throat,
and put out his hand to me, saying:
“Thank you, for bringing this message to me. But--but it is a blow
from which I can never recover--never! Instinctively I know that you
are my friend. All cosmopolitans, like you and myself, are friends.
You will know and will understand. I cannot explain the facts, because
exposure would place our mutual lady friend in serious jeopardy. I can
only thank you--yet--yet what you have told me has in a moment swept
away all my future.”
“You, no doubt, know more than I can gather from the bald, rather
cryptic message that I have brought you. I mean that it conveys to you
much more,” I said, bewildered at the discovery that Angela, the
Little Countess, and the girl criminal were one and the same. But I
kept my own counsel and allowed him to know nothing.
“Yes, much. I know exactly what she means.” Then he eagerly inquired
about her and the circumstances in which we had met. To all his
questions I replied quite frankly. So dejected and despairing was the
young fellow that I felt sorry for him. Surely he could not be acting!
I knew that I was Cupid’s messenger, yet the whole circumstances were
so romantic and mysterious that I felt an intense interest in them
all. The one thing that really puzzled me most was the reason Lady
Kingscliffe had preserved the secret of the girl’s identity.
The young man Owen had sunk into a chair, and was sitting with his
eyes fixed across the room, seeing nothing.
“I am absolutely forbidden to write to her, eh?” he asked, utterly
crushed.
“That was the message I was to deliver to you. She dare not write--and
she will be in peril if you send her a letter. She said that you would
quite understand.”
“Understand?” he cried suddenly, his eyes gleaming. “Understand? Yes,
I understand. I--I understand--only--too--well,” he added, with the
bitterness of despair in his voice. “Forgive me, Mr. Hipwell,” he
craved next second. “I--I’m much obliged to you for troubling to come
here. If you knew--knew what all this means to both of us--if you knew
the truth, you would understand.”
“But can’t you tell me? I’m so completely in the dark,” I said,
absolutely mystified and full of eagerness to obtain a clue to the
mystery.
“No,” he replied in a low voice. “I have to respect the wishes of
Lisely.” Then after a pause, he muttered to himself:
“So she is in Italy! Why, in heaven’s name, did she venture there? It
was foolish--very foolish and dangerous! But I suppose there is some
motive for it. There is always a motive in a woman’s fancies.”
“Remember,” I said, “that in sending you that message she is acting
against her will.”
“I know. I pity her. Poor Lisely! She is acting under compulsion. Some
people are born to despair. We are of those. And she is in Rome! I
wonder why? I was there with her a year ago when--when I thought--I
believed--I dreamed----”
He clenched his fists fiercely and, springing from his chair, crossed
to the window.
“Forgive me, Mr. Hipwell,” he said again.
And soon afterwards I left.
CHAPTER TEN.
THE WIND OF CIRCUMSTANCE
Reader, I beg of you to put yourself for a moment in my place. My
unfortunate position, as a straw blown upon the adverse wind of
circumstance, had become intolerable.
As I sat back in the taxi which took me down Knightsbridge towards
Queen’s Gate, I felt myself bordering on madness, aroused by the sea
of perplexity and doubt into which I found myself plunged.
What could I say in explanation to Joan? She was my fiancée. And yet
I had a mysterious “wife” who, from her letters, “adored” me, and was
living in Lausanne!
She had warned me against a man who was blind.
And a sightless man had been a constant caller at Sackville Street.
Was his presence part of a plot against me?
On reflection, I could discern no reason or motive why I should be
followed and done to death by the obscure plotters of whom the unknown
Illona had warned me. Her letters were missives full of affection, and
apparently she loved me. At least, she showed herself keenly
solicitous of my welfare. Yet, as the taxi sped along amid the lights
of London, I found myself smiling that there was a woman who, against
my knowledge and inclination, was able to pose before the world as
Mrs. Lionel Hipwell!
What an interesting tangle for the President of the Admiralty and
Divorce Division!
I alighted at the big, deep portico at Queen’s Gate, and, on ringing
the bell, old Forbes, the faithful servant of the eminent King’s
Counsel, admitted me, saying:
“Glad to see you back, sir. I hope you’ve had a nice journey.”
“Thanks, Forbes, yes. Is Miss Joan upstairs?”
“In the drawing-room, sir,” replied the white-headed old man, taking
my hat and coat, and leaving me to ascend the broad flight of thickly
carpeted stairs.
“My darling Lionel!” cried my fiancée, rushing up to meet me as I
opened the door of the long, handsome room. “Oh! I’m so glad you are
back again safely!” and placing her soft, bare arms around my neck,
she drew down my head, and kissed me fondly upon the lips, as I
reciprocated. She was in a sleeveless dress of plain black which
enhanced the whiteness of her chest and arms.
“Come and sit in our usual corner,” she said, inviting me to a cozy
nook near one of the windows. “Poor dear! You must be horribly tired
after your long journey. I telephoned to the inquiry office at
Victoria, and they told me that the boat train was late because of
heavy weather in the Channel.”
“Bad weather very fortunately does not affect me,” I laughed. “I only
suffer from delay, not from _mal-de-mer_, or I’d not be doing
messenger work for the Foreign Office, I suppose!”
“Darling, you ought to have taken that post of attaché at Madrid
which was offered you. I can’t understand why you refused it.”
I remained silent. Never to my knowledge had such a post been offered
to me. What could I, in my ignorance, reply?
“I suppose the governor was furious--eh?” I laughed nervously.
“Your father was extremely angry. He had arranged everything, and you
would have started on a very fine diplomatic career; yet, to his great
disappointment, you blankly refused.”
“It would have ended all my ambitions to sit in Parliament,” I said,
for want of any other explanation to offer.
“But has not your present position as King’s Foreign Service
Messenger--highly responsible as it certainly is--ended your chance of
putting up for election?” she asked, her white soft arm still clinging
around me.
As I looked into her wonderful, fathomless eyes, all my lost passion
for her instantly returned. Yes, I was still as deeply in love with
her as I had been before that night of my lost consciousness. Yet what
had occurred between us while I had been in that vague and incompetent
state of mind?
I wondered. Because of my bewilderment I spoke little, leaving my
beloved to talk, and hoping to glean from her words the secret of the
past void in my life. What else could I do?
She gave me a cigarette from her pretty mother-of-pearl case, lit one
herself, and then, leaning back upon the crimson silk couch, looked up
into my eyes and chattered on. At first she told me how she had spent
the last fortnight at a country house down in Devonshire, and
afterwards with the Mellors, who had, as usual, a gay house-party. She
spoke of many people whose names I vaguely remembered, and told me
how, in the long vacation, her father had promised to take her to
Norway.
“We go first to Copenhagen, then to Stockholm, then by train to Oslo,
and up to Bergen, where we catch the steamer right up the fiords to
Tromsö, and back to Hull. Won’t it be delightful? I do wish you could
come with us.”
“I wish I could, darling, but I fear that while others are by the sea
this summer, I shall be upon the railways of Europe, half stifled in
those trains of luxury, as they are termed. I agree that they are
luxury for one night only, but when one is doomed to spend half one’s
days in them, life becomes horribly tedious, with the same faces of
the brown-uniformed attendants, the same fleeting landscape that you
have seen a hundred times, and the never-changing restaurant menu,
gobbled down by a rambling host of summer tourists. Certainly there is
the _cabane diplomatique_--the two-berth compartment reserved on every
_train-de-luxe_ across the Continent--but days and nights alone in it
are very tedious and monotonous, I assure you,” I said.
“I know what it must be,” my darling responded with sympathy, “but you
must remember that you chose your life yourself after your unfortunate
accident.”
Accident? I knew of no accident! What, I wondered, could have happened
to me?
“Yes,” I faltered. “I know. But I’m not quite clear, even now, as to
what actually happened.”
“Well, you very nearly lost your life. That is quite evident,” Joan
said. “And ever since, Lionel, permit me to say so, you have not been
the same, either to your father, to me, or to any of your friends.”
“I really didn’t know that,” I laughed faintly.
“I know you don’t. You’ve told me so a dozen times. But the fact
remains. You don’t even remember what happened,” she said. “All we
know is, that one very foggy night two years ago you were seen
stumbling along the Old Kent Road, and suddenly you left the pavement,
evidently in an attempt to cross the road. Your gait was very uneven,
according to a woman who saw you, and she believed you to be drunk.
Next moment a taxi, creeping along through the fog, caught you. The
wing hit you and flung you some distance, and when you were picked up,
you were unconscious. You were seriously injured, and the police took
you to Guy’s Hospital, where I saw you, as soon as we got back from
the Riviera a month later. You were there six weeks, and when you were
discharged, darling, you seemed to me to be a changed man.”
“I suppose I really am changed,” I said in all sincerity. What she had
revealed to me was entirely new. I had certainly no knowledge of any
such occurrence on that night of horror.
“You puzzled all the doctors as well as us. How came you dressed as a
working-man, and what could possibly have taken you to such a poor
quarter of London? Do tell me, Lionel. I’ve asked you dozens of times,
and you have never told me the truth.”
“Because I myself am unaware of what really happened,” I assured her.
“I know no more how I came to be in the Old Kent Road that night than
you do.”
I paused in the manner of one groping for something more convincing to
add.
“Really, darling, that sounds most absurd. You surely know what caused
you to assume the clothes of a working-man, and the motive of your
visit to South London.”