EXPERT OPINION
Every mile of the eight to Middleham, Fitz was as gloomy as the grave.
In spite of the confidence he had been led to repose in my judgment, he
seemed wholly unable to extend it to that of Coverdale. He had a
morbid dread of the police and of the publicity that would invest any
dealings with them. The preservation of his wife's incognito was
undoubtedly a matter of paramount importance.
It was half-past twelve when we reached Middleham. We were lucky
enough to find Coverdale at his office at the sessions hall.
"Well, what can I do for you?" said the Chief Constable, heartily.
"You can do a great deal for us, Coverdale," said I. "But the first
thing we shall ask you to do is to forget that you are an official. We
come to you in your capacity of a personal friend. In that capacity we
seek any advice you may feel able or disposed to give us. But before
we give you any information, we should like to have your assurance that
you will treat the whole matter as being told to you in the strictest
secrecy."
Coverdale has as active a sense of humour as his exalted station allows
him to sustain. There was something in my mode of address that seemed
to appeal to it.
"I will promise that on one condition, Arbuthnot," said he; "which is
that you do not seek to involve me in the compounding of a felony."
"Oh no, no, no, no!" Fitz burst out.
Fitz's exclamation and his tragic face banished the smile that lurked
at the corners of Coverdale's lips.
I deemed it best that Fitz should re-tell the story of his tragedy, and
this he did. In the course of his narrative the sweat ran down his
face, his hands twitched painfully, and his bloodshot eyes grew so wild
that neither Coverdale nor I cared to look at them.
Coverdale sat mute and grave at the conclusion of Fitz's remarkable
story. He had swung round in his revolving chair to face us. His legs
were crossed and the tips of his fingers were placed together, after
the fashion that another celebrity in a branch of his calling is said
to affect.
"It's a queer story of yours, Fitzwaren," he said at last. "But the
world is full of 'em--what?"
"Help me," said Fitz, piteously. His voice was that of a drowning man.
"I think we shall be able to do that," said Coverdale. He spoke in the
soothing tones of a skilful surgeon.
"The first thing to know," said the Chief Constable, "is the number of
the car."
"G.Y. 70942 is the number."
Coverdale jotted it down pensively upon his blotting-pad.
"Have you a portrait of Mrs. Fitzwaren?" he asked.
"I have this," said Fitz.
In the most natural manner he flung open his overcoat, pulled away his
evening tie, tore open his collar, and produced from under the rumpled
shirt front a locket suspended by a fine gold chain round his neck. It
contained a miniature of the Princess, executed in Paris. Both
Coverdale and I examined it curiously, but as we did so I fear our
minds had a single thought. It was that Fitz was a little mad.
"Will you entrust it to me?" said Coverdale.
Fitz's indecision was pathetic.
"It's the only one I've got," he mumbled. "I don't suppose I shall
ever be able to get another. I ought to have had a replica while I had
the chance."
"I undertake to return it within three days," said Coverdale, with a
simple kindliness for which I honoured him.
Fitz handed the locket to him impulsively,
"Of course take it, by all means," he said, hurriedly. "I know you
will take care of it. Fact is, you know, I'm a bit knocked over."
"Naturally, my dear fellow," said Coverdale. "So should we all be.
But I shall go up to town this afternoon and have a talk with them at
Scotland Yard.
"I was afraid that would have to happen. I wanted it to be kept an
absolute secret, you know."
"You can depend upon the Yard to be the soul of discretion. It is not
the first time they have been entrusted with the internal affairs of a
reigning family. If the Princess is still in this country and she is
still alive, and there is no reason to think otherwise, I believe we
shall not have to wait long for news of her."
Coverdale spoke in a tone of calm reassurance, which at least was
eloquent of his tact and his knowledge of men. Overwrought as Fitz
was, it was not without its effect upon him.
"Ought not the ports to be watched?" he said.
"I hardly think it will be necessary. But if Scotland Yard thinks
otherwise, they will be watched of course. Whatever happens,
Fitzwaren, you can be quite sure that nothing will be left undone in
our endeavour to find out what has really happened to the lady we shall
agree to call Mrs. Fitzwaren. Further, you can depend upon it that
absolute discretion will be used."
We left Coverdale, imbued with a sense of gratitude for his cordial
optimism, and I think we both felt that a peculiarly delicate business
could not be in more competent hands. He was a man of sound judgment
and infinite discretion. Throughout this singular interview he had
emerged as a shrewd, tactful and eminently kind-hearted fellow.
As a result of this visit to the sessions hall at Middleham, poor Fitz
allowed himself a little hope. He had been duly impressed by the man
of affairs who had taken the case in hand. However, he was still by no
means himself. He was still in a strangely excited and gloomy
condition; and this was aggravated by his friendlessness and the
feeling that the hand of every man was against him.
In the circumstances, I felt obliged to yield to his expressed wish
that I should accompany him to the Grange. As the crow flies it is
less than four miles from my house.
The home of the Fitzwarens is a rambling, gloomy and dilapidated place
enough. An air pervades it of having run to seed. Every Fitzwaren who
has inhabited it within living memory has been a gambler and a _roué_
in one form or another. The Fitzwarens are by long odds the oldest
family in our part of the world, and by odds equally long their record
is the most unfortunate. Coming of a long line of ill-regulated lives,
the heavy bills drawn by his forbears upon posterity seemed to have
become payable in the person of the unhappy Fitz. Doubtless it was not
right that one who in Mrs. Catesby's phrase was a married man, a father
of a family, and a county member, should constitute himself as the
apologist of such a man as Fitz. But, in spite of his errors, I had
never found it in my heart to act towards him as so many of his
neighbours did not hesitate to do. The fact that he had fagged for me
at school and the knowledge that there was a lovable, a pathetic and
even a heroic side to one to whom fate had been relentlessly cruel,
made it impossible for me to regard him as wholly outside the pale.
I can never forget our arrival at the Grange on this piercing winter
afternoon. My car belonged to that earlier phase of motoring when the
traveller was more exposed to the British climate than modern science
considers necessary. The snow, at the beck of a terrible north-easter,
beat in our faces pitilessly. And when we came half frozen into the
house, we were met on its threshold by a mite of four. She was the
image of her mother, with the same skin of lustrous olive, the same
mass of raven hair, and the same challenging black eyes. In her hand
was a mutilated doll. It was carried upside down and it had been
decapitated.
"I want my mama," she said with an air of authority which was
ludicrously like that of the circus rider from Vienna. "Have you
brought my mama?"
"No, my pearl of price," said Fitz, swinging the mite up to his
snow-covered face, "but she will be here soon. She has sent you this."
He kissed the small elf, who had all the disdain of a princess and the
witchery of a fairy.
"Who is dis?" said she, pointing at me with her doll.
"Dis, my jewel of the east, is our kind friend Mr. Arbuthnot. If you
are very nice to him he will stay to tea."
"Do you like my mama, Mistah 'Buthnot?" said the latest scion of
Europe's oldest dynasty, with a directness which was disconcerting from
a person of four.
"Very much indeed," said I, warmly.
"You can stay to tea, Mistah 'Buthnot. I like you vewy much."
The prompt cordiality of the verdict was certainly pleasant to a humble
unit of a monarchical country. The creature extended her tiny paw with
a gesture so superb that there was only one thing left for a courtier
to do. That was to kiss it.
The owner of the paw seemed to be much gratified by this discreet
action.
"I like you vewy much, Mistah 'Buthnot; I will tell you my name."
"Oh, do, please!"
"My name is Marie Sophie Louise Waren Fitzwaren."
"Phoebus, _what_ a name!"
"And dis, Mistah 'Buthnot, is my guv'ness, Miss Green. She is a tarn
fool."
The lady thus designated had come unexpectedly upon the scene. An
estimable and bespectacled gentlewoman of uncompromising mien, she
gazed down upon her charge with the gravest austerity.
"Marie Louise, if I hear that phrase again you will go to bed."
As Miss Green spoke, however, she gazed at me over her spectacles in a
humorously reflective fashion.
Marie Louise shrugged her small shoulders disdainfully, and in a tone
that, to say the least, was peremptory, ordered the butler, who looked
venerable enough to be her great-grandfather, to bring the tea. The
_congé_ that the venerable servitor performed upon receiving this order
rendered it clear that upon a day he had been a confidential retainer
in the royal house of Illyria.
"I am afraid, Miss Green," said I, tentatively, "that your post is no
sinecure."
"That mite of four has the imperious will of a Catherine of Russia,"
said Miss Green, with an amused smile. "If she ever attains the estate
of womanhood, I shudder to think what she will be."
Fitz entreated me to dine with him. I yielded in the hope that a
little company might help him to fight his depression. The meal was
not a cheerful one. Under the most favourable conditions Fitz is not a
cheerful individual; but I was obliged to note that of late years he
had learned to exercise his will. In many ways I thought he had
changed for the better. He had lost his coarseness of speech; he was
scrupulously moderate in what he ate and drank, and his bearing had
gained in reserve and dignity. In a word, he had grown into a more
civilised, a more developed being than I had ever thought it possible
for him to become.
It was past eleven when I returned to my own domain. The blizzard
still prevailed, and I found Mrs. Arbuthnot in the drawing-room
enthroned before a roaring fire, which happily served as some
mitigation of the arctic demeanour with which my return was greeted.
This, in conjunction with the adverse elements through which I had
already passed, was enough to complete the overthrow of the strongest
constitution.
The ruler of Dympsfield House--Dympsfield House is the picturesque name
conferred upon our ancestral home by my grandfather, Mr. George
Arbuthnot of Messrs. Arbuthnot, Boyd and Co., the celebrated firm of
sugar refiners of Bristol--the ruler of Dympsfield House was ostensibly
engaged in the study of a work of fiction of a pronounced sporting
character, with a yellow cover. Works of this nature and the
provincial edition of the _Daily Courier_, which is guaranteed to have
a circulation of ten million copies _per diem_, are the only forms of
literature that the ruler of Dymspfield House considers it "healthy" to
peruse.
When I entered the drawing-room with a free and easy air which was
designed to suggest that my conscience had nothing to conceal and
nothing to defend, the wife of my bosom discarded her novel and fixed
me with that cool gaze which all who are born Vane-Anstruther consider
it to be the hall-mark of their caste to wield.
"Where have you been, Odo?" was the greeting that was reserved for me.
"Dining with Fitz," said I, succinctly.
A short pause.
"What did you say?"
I repeated my modest statement.
A snort.
"Upon my word, Odo, I can't think----!"
It called for a nice judgment to know which opening to play.
"Fitz is in trouble," said I.
"Is that _very_ surprising?"
It is difficult to render the true Vane-Anstruther vocal inflections in
terms of literary art. A similar problem is presented by the
unwavering glint of the china-blue eye and the subtle curl of the lip.
"In the sense you wish to convey, _mon enfant_, it is surprising. Fitz
is one of the poor devils who are by no means so black as they are
painted."
A toss of the head.
"Don't forget that I have known Fitz all his life; that we were at
school together; and that one way and another I have seen a good deal
of him."
"I wouldn't boast about it, if I were you. The man is a byword; you
know that. It is not kind to me."
I was in mortal fear of tears. That dread accessory of conjugal life
is permitted by the Code De Vere Vane-Anstruther in certain situations.
However, although the weather was very heavy, for the time being that
was spared me, and I breathed more freely.
Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, who had a cigarette between his
lips, and was lying full length upon a chintz that was charmingly
devised in blue and yellow, inquired whether I had mentioned to Fitz
the subject of a meeting with the outraged Brasset.
"If the weather don't pick up," said this Corinthian, "we shall go up
to town to-morrow, and my pal in Jermyn Street will put Brasset through
his facings. With a bit of practice Brasset ought to be able to give
Fitz his gruel."
"I fail to see," said I, "why the unfortunate husband should be brought
to book for the sins of the wife."
"If you take to yourself a wife," said my relation by marriage, with a
didacticism of which he is seldom guilty, "it is for better or for
worse; and if your missus overrides the best 'ound in the pack and then
'its the Master over the head with her crop because he tells her what
he thinks of her, you are looking both ways for trouble."
"It is a hard doctrine," said I.
"If a chap is such a fool as to marry, he must stand to the
consequences."
"He must!"
Such a prompt corroboration of the young fellow's reasoning can only be
described as sinister. A flash of the china-blue eyes came from the
vicinity of the hearthrug.
"How did Mrs. Fitz bear herself at the dinner table?" inquired the
sharer of my joys. "Did she eat with her knife and drink out of the
finger bowls?"
"No, _mon enfant_, I am compelled to say that she did not."
Mrs. Arbuthnot frowned a becoming incredulity.
"You surprise one."
"Perhaps it is not altogether remarkable."
"A matter of opinion, surely."
"Personally, I prefer to regard it as a matter of fact. You see, Mrs.
Fitz was not at the dinner table."
"Where was she, may I ask?"
"She had gone up to town."
"And was that why her husband was so upset?"
"There is reason to believe that it was."
"Oh!"
There was great virtue in that exclamation. My amiable coadjutor, as I
knew perfectly well, was burning to pursue her inquiries, but her
status as a human being did not permit her to proceed farther. There
are many advantages incident to the proud condition of a De Vere
Vane-Anstruther, but that almost inhuman eminence has its drawbacks
also. Chief among them are the limits imposed upon a perfectly natural
and healthy curiosity. It is not seemly for a member of that
distinguished clan to enter too exhaustively into the affairs of her
neighbours.
On the following morning, in spite of the behaviour of the weather, we
were favoured by an early visit from Mrs. Catesby. She was in high
feather.
"You have heard the news, of course!" she proclaimed for the benefit of
Mrs. Arbuthnot and with an expansion of manner that she does not always
permit herself. "Of course Odo has told you what brought Nevil
Fitzwaren here yesterday morning."
"Oh no, he hasn't," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, rather aggrievedly.
"Is it conceivable, my dear child, that you have _not_ heard the news?"
"I only know, Mary, that Nevil Fitzwaren is in trouble. Odo did not
think well to supply the details, and really the affairs of the
Fitzwarens interest one so little that one did not feel inclined to
inquire."
"The creature has bolted, my dear."
In spite of Mrs. Arbuthnot's determination to take no interest in the
affairs of the Fitzwarens, she was not proof against this melodramatic
announcement.
"Bolted, Mary!"
"Bolted, child. And with whom do you suppose?"
"One would say with the chauffeur," hazarded Mrs. Arbuthnot, promptly.
Mrs. Catesby's countenance fell. She made no attempt to dissemble her
disappointment.
"Then Odo _has_ told you after all."
"Not a syllable, I assure you, Mary. But I am certain that if Mrs.
Fitz has bolted with anybody, it must have been with the chauffeur."
"How clever of you, my dear child!" The Great Lady's admiration was
open and sincere. "Such a right feeling about things! She has
certainly bolted with the chauffeur."
"Odo," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, triumphant, yet imperious, "why didn't you
tell me all this?"
"_Mon enfant_," said I, in the mellowest tones of which I am master,
"you gave me clearly to understand that the affairs of the Fitzwarens
had no possible interest for you."
Mrs. Arbuthnot went to the length of biting her lip. By withholding
such a sensational bit of news, I had been guilty of an unheard-of
outrage upon human nature. But she could not deny my plea of
justification.
"Nevil Fitzwaren is far luckier than he deserves to be," said the Great
Lady. "It is a merciful dispensation that dear Evelyn did not actually
call upon her. I feel sure she would have done, had I not implored her
not to be hasty."
"But Mary, I was under the impression that you called upon her
yourself."
"So I did, Odo. But that was merely out of respect for the memory of
Nevil's mother. Besides, it was only right that somebody should see
what her home was like."
"What was it like, Mary?" said I.
Mrs. Catesby compressed her lips.
"I ask you, Mary. You alone sacrificed yourself upon the altar of
public decency; you alone are in possession of the grim facts."
"Let us be charitable, my dear Odo. After all, what can one expect of
a person from a continental circus?"
"What indeed!" was my pious objuration.
"There is only one thing, I fear, for Nevil to do now," said the Great
Lady. "He must get a divorce and marry his cook."
The august matron denied us the honour of her company at luncheon. She
was due at the Vicarage. And there was reason to believe that she
would drink tea at the Priory and dine at the Castle. It was so
necessary that the joyful tidings of the Divine justice that had
overtaken the wicked should be spread abroad.