Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Dramatis Personæ]
[Frontispiece: Assassination of the King of Illyria]
MRS. FITZ
BY
J. C. SNAITH
HODDER & STOUGHTON'S
SEVENPENNY LIBRARY
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON -- NEW YORK -- TORONTO
1912
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
ACCORDING TO REUTER
CHAPTER II
TRIBULATIONS OF A M.F.H.
CHAPTER III
THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION
CHAPTER IV
THE MIDDLE COURSE
CHAPTER V
ABOUNDS IN SENSATION
CHAPTER VI
EXPERT OPINION
CHAPTER VII
COVERDALE'S REPORT
CHAPTER VIII
PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER IX
ON THE EVE
CHAPTER X
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
CHAPTER XI
THE ORDERS FOR THE DAY
CHAPTER XII
THE MAN OF DESTINY
CHAPTER XIII
FURTHER PASSAGES AT NO. 300 PORTLAND PLACE
CHAPTER XIV
A DEPLORABLE INCIDENT
CHAPTER XV
AN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE
CHAPTER XVI
HORSE AND HOUND
CHAPTER XVII
A GLARE IN THE SKY
CHAPTER XVIII
MRS. ARBUTHNOT BEGINS TO TAKE NOTICE
CHAPTER XIX
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS RECEIVES A LETTER
CHAPTER XX
A LITTLE DIPLOMACY
CHAPTER XXI
THE EXPECTED GUEST
CHAPTER XXII
A VISIT TO BRYANSTON SQUARE
CHAPTER XXIII
PROVIDES AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE THEORY THAT
THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM
CHAPTER XXIV
HIS ILLYRIAN MAJESTY FERDINAND THE TWELFTH
CHAPTER XXV
THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE
CHAPTER XXVI
A WALK IN THE GARDEN
CHAPTER XXVII
PROVIDES A LITTLE FEMININE DIVERSION
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
CHAPTER XXIX
THE CAST OF THE DIE
CHAPTER XXX
REACTION
CHAPTER XXXI
NEWS FROM ILLYRIA
CHAPTER XXXII
MORE ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
CHAPTER XXXIII
IN THE BALANCE
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE CREATURES OF PERRAULT
CHAPTER I
ACCORDING TO REUTER
"It is snowing," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"Worse luck!" growled I from behind my newspaper. "This unspeakable
climate! Why can't we sack the Clerk of the Weather?"
"Because he is a permanent official," said Joseph Jocelyn De Vere
Vane-Anstruther, who was coming into the room. "And those are the
people who run the benighted country."
Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther was in rather smart kit. It was
December the First, and the hounds--there is only one pack in the
United Kingdom--were about to pay an annual visit to the country of a
neighbour. With conscious magnificence my relation by marriage took a
bee-line to the sideboard. He paused a moment to debate to which of
two imperative duties he should give the precedence: i.e. to make his
daily report upon the personal appearance of his host, or to find out
what there was to eat. The state of the elements enabled Mother Nature
"to get a cinch" on an honourable æstheticism. Jodey began to forage
slowly but resolutely among the dish covers.
"Kedgeree! Twice in a fortnight. Look here, Mops, it won't do."
Mrs. Arbuthnot was perusing that journal which for the modest sum of
one halfpenny purveys the glamour of history with only five per cent.
of its responsibilities. She merely turned over a page. Her brother,
having heaped enough kedgeree upon his plate to make a meal for the
average person, peppered and salted it on a scale equally liberal and
then suggested coffee.
"Tea is better for the digestion," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with her
natural air of simple authority.
"I know," said Jodey, "that is why I prefer the other stuff."
"Men are so reasonable!"
"Do you mind 'andin' the sugar?"
"Sugar will make you a welter and ruin your appearance."
A cardinal axiom of my friend Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, née Ogbourne,
late of Brownville, Mass., is "Horse-sense always tells." Among the
daughters of men I know none whose endowment of this felicitous quality
can equal that of the amiable participator in my expenditure. It told
in this case.
"Better give me tea."
"Without sugar?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with great charm of manner.
"A small lump," said Jodey as a concession to his force of character.
The young fellow stirred his tea with so much diligence that the small
lump really seemed like a large one. And then, with a gravity that was
somewhat sinister, he fixed his gaze on my coat and leathers.
"By a local artist of the name of Jobson," said I, humbly. "The second
shop on the right as you enter Middleham High Street."
"They speak for themselves."
"My father went there," said I. "My grandfather also. In my
grandfather's day I believe the name of the firm was Wiseman and
Grundy."
"It's not fair to 'ounds. If I was Brasset I should take 'em 'ome."
"If you were Brasset," I countered, "that would hardly be necessary.
They would find their way home by themselves."
"Mops is to blame. She has been brought up properly."
"It comes to this, my friend. We can't both wear the breeches. Hers
cost a pretty penny from those thieves in Regent Street."
"Maddox Street," said a bland voice from the recesses of the _Daily
Courier_.
"Those bandits in Maddox Street," said I, with pathos. "But for all I
know it might be those sharks in the Mile End Road. I am a babe in
these things."
"No, my dear Odo," said the young fellow, making his point somewhat
elaborately, "in those things you are a perisher. An absolute
perisher. I'm ashamed to be seen 'untin' the same fox with you. I
should be ashamed to be found dead in the same ditch. I hate people
who are not serious about clothes. It's so shallow."
My relation by marriage produced an extremely vivid yellow silk
handkerchief, and pensively flicked a speck of invisible dust off an
immaculate buckskin.
"My God, those tops!"
"By a local draughtsman," said I, "of the name of Bussey. He is
careful in the measurements and takes a drawing of the foot."
"'Orrible. You look like a Cossack at the Hippodrome."
"The Madam patronises an establishment in Bond Street. One is given to
understand that various royalties follow her example."
"They make for the King of Illyria," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"That is interesting," said I, in response to a quizzical glance from
the breakfast table. "The fact is, my amiable coadjutor in the things
of this life has a decided weakness for royalty. She denies it
vehemently and betrays it shamelessly on every possible occasion."
"Very interestin' indeed," said her brother.
In the next moment a cry of surprise floated out of the depths of the
halfpenny newspaper.
"What a coincidence!" exclaimed Mrs. Arbuthnot. "There has been an
attempt on the life of the King of Illyria. They have thrown a bomb
into his palace and killed the brother of the Prime Minister."
"In the interests of the shareholders of the _Daily Courier_," said I.
"Be serious, Odo," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "To think of that dear old
king being in danger!"
"Yes, the dear old king," said Jodey.
"I think you are horrid, both of you," said Mrs. Arbuthnot with the
spirit that made her an admired member of the Crackanthorpe Hunt.
"Those horrid Illyrians! They don't deserve to have a king. They
ought to be like France and America and Switzerland."
"They will soon be in that unhappy position," said I, turning to page
four of the _Times_ newspaper. "According to Reuter, it appears to
have been a _bonâ fide_ attempt. Count Cyszysc----"
"You sneeze twice," suggested Jodey.
"Count Cyszysc was blown to pieces on the threshold of the Zweisgarten
Palace, the whole of the south-west front of which was wrecked."
"The wretches!" said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "They are only fit to have a
republic. Such a dear old man, the ideal of what a king ought to be.
Don't you remember him in the state procession riding next to the
Kaiser?"
"The old Johnny with the white hair," said Jodey, reaching for the
marmalade.
"He looked every inch a king," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, "and Illyria is not
a very large place either."
"In a small and obscure country," I ventured to observe, "you have to
look every inch a king, else nobody will believe that you are one. In
a country as important as ours it doesn't matter if a king looks like a
commercial traveller."
"By the way," said Jodey, who had a polite horror of anything that
could be construed as _lèse majesté_, "where is Illyria?"
"My dear fellow," said I, "don't you know where Illyria is?"
"I'll bet you a pony that you don't either," said Jodey, striving, as
young fellows will, to cover his ignorance by a display of effrontery.
"Haven't you been to Blaenau? Don't you know the Sveltkes?--hoch!
hoch!"
"No; do you?" said the young fellow, brazenly.
"They are the oldest reigning family in Europe," said Mrs. Arbuthnot,
severely.
"How do you know that, Mops?" said the sceptical youth.
"It says so in the German 'Who's Who,'" said the Madam, sternly, "I
looked them up on purpose."
"My dear fellow," said I, "if you knew a little less about polo, and a
little less about hunting the fox, and a little more about geography
and foreign languages and the things that make for efficiency, you
would be _au courant_ with the kingdom of Illyria and its reigning
family. Tell the young fellow where that romantic country is, old
lady."
"First you go to Paris," said the Madam, with admirable lucidity. "And
then, I'm not sure, but I think you come to Vienna, and then I believe
you cut across and you come to Illyria. And then you come to Blaenau,
the capital, where the king lives, which is five hundred miles from St.
Petersburg as the crow flies, because I've marked it on the map."
"Well, if you've really marked it on the map," said I, "it is only
reasonable to assume that the kingdom of Illyria is in a state of
being."
"You are too absurd," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "The place is well known
and its king is famous."
"I wonder if there is decent shootin' in Illyria," said Joseph Jocelyn
De Vere, with that air of tacit condescension which gained him
advancement throughout the English-speaking world. "One might try it
for a week to show one has no feelin' against it."
"Where there is a king there is always decent shooting," I ventured to
observe.
Mrs. Arbuthnot returned to her newspaper.
"They want to form a republic in Illyria," she announced, "but the old
king is determined to thwart them."
"A bit of a sportsman, evidently," said her brother. "But never mind
Illyria. Give me some more coffee. We've got to be at the Cross Roads
by eleven."
"No mortal use, I am afraid," said I. "The glass has gone right back.
And look through the window."
"Good old British climate! And on that side they've got one of the
best bits o' country in the shires, and Morton's covers are always
choke-full of foxes."
In spite of his pessimism, however, my relation by marriage continued
to deal faithfully with the modest repast that had been offered him.
Also he was fain to inquire of the mistress of the house whether
_enough_ sandwiches had been cut and whether _both_ flasks had been
filled; and from the nominal head of our modest establishment he sought
to learn what arrangements had been made for the second horsemen.
"They will not be wanted to-day, I fear."
"Pooh, a few flakes o' snow!"
It was precisely at this moment that the toot of a motor horn was
heard. A sixty-horse-power six-cylindered affair of the latest design
was seen to steal through the shrubbery _en route_ to the front door.
"Why, wasn't that Brasset?"
"His car certainly."
"What does the blighter want?"
"He has brought us the information that Morton has telephoned through
to say that there is a foot of snow on the wolds and that hounds had
better stay at the kennels."
"Pooh," said Jodey, "he wouldn't have troubled to come himself. You've
got a telephone, ain't you?"
"Doubtless he also wishes to confer with Mrs. Arbuthnot upon the state
of things in Illyria. He is a very serious fellow with political
ambitions."
Further I might have added--which, however, I did not--that the Master
of the Crackanthorpe was somewhat assiduous in his attitude of
respectful attention towards my seductive co-participator in this vale
of tears, who on her side was rather apt to pride herself upon an
old-fashioned respect for the peerage. The prospect of a visit from
the noble Master caused her to discard the affairs of the Illyrian
monarchy in favour of a subject even more pregnant with interest.
"If it is Reggie Brasset," said she, renouncing the _Daily Courier_,
"he has come about Mrs. Fitz."
"Get out!" said the scornful Jodey. "You people down here have got
Mrs. Fitz on the brain."
Out of the mouths of babes! It was perfectly true that, in our own
little corner of the world, people _had_ got Mrs. Fitz on the brain.