_The Lost Duchess_
I
"Has the duchess returned?"
"No, your grace."
Knowles came farther into the room. He had a letter on a salver. When the
duke had taken it, Knowles still lingered. The duke glanced at him.
"Is an answer required?"
"No, your grace." Still Knowles lingered. "Something a little singular has
happened. The carriage has returned without the duchess, and the men say
that they thought her grace was in it."
"What do you mean?"
"I hardly understand myself, your grace. Perhaps you would like to see
Barnes."
Barnes was the coachman.
"Send him up." When Knowles had gone, and he was alone, his grace showed
signs of being slightly annoyed. He looked at his watch. "I told her she'd
better be in by four. She says that she's not feeling well, and yet one
would think that she was not aware of the fatigue entailed in having the
prince come to dinner, and a mob of people to follow. I particularly
wished her to lie down for a couple of hours."
Knowles ushered in not only Barnes, the coachman, but Moysey, the footman,
too. Both these persons seemed to be ill at ease. The duke glanced at them
sharply. In his voice there was a suggestion of impatience.
"What is the matter?"
Barnes explained as best he could.
"If you please, your grace, we waited for the duchess outside Cane and
Wilson's, the drapers. The duchess came out, got into the carriage, and
Moysey shut the door, and her grace said, 'Home!' and yet when we got home
she wasn't there."
"She wasn't where?"
"Her grace wasn't in the carriage, your grace."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Her grace did get into the carriage; you shut the door, didn't you?"
Barnes turned to Moysey. Moysey brought his hand up to his brow in a sort
of military salute--he had been a soldier in the regiment in which, once
upon a time, the duke had been a subaltern.
"She did. The duchess came out of the shop. She seemed rather in a hurry,
I thought. She got into the carriage, and she said, 'Home, Moysey!' I shut
the door, and Barnes drove straight home. We never stopped anywhere, and
we never noticed nothing happen on the way; and yet when we got home the
carriage was empty."
The duke started.
"Do you mean to tell me that the duchess got out of the carriage while you
were driving full pelt through the streets without saying anything to you,
and without you noticing it?"
"The carriage was empty when we got home, your grace."
"Was either of the doors open?"
"No, your grace."
"You fellows have been up to some infernal mischief. You have made a mess
of it. You never picked up the duchess, and you're trying to palm this
tale off on me to save yourselves."
Barnes was moved to adjuration:
"I'll take my Bible oath, your grace, that the duchess got into the
carriage outside Cane and Wilson's."
Moysey seconded his colleague.
"I will swear to that, your grace. She got into that carriage, and I shut
the door, and she said, 'Home, Moysey!'"
The duke looked as if he did not know what to make of the story and its
tellers.
"What carriage did you have?"
"Her grace's brougham, your grace."
Knowles interposed:
"The brougham was ordered because I understood that the duchess was not
feeling very well, and there's rather a high wind, your grace."
The duke snapped at him:
"What has that to do with it? Are you suggesting that the duchess was more
likely to jump out of a brougham while it was dashing through the streets
than out of any other kind of vehicle?"
The duke's glance fell on the letter which Knowles had brought him when he
first had entered. He had placed it on his writing table. Now he took it
up. It was addressed:
"_To His Grace the Duke of Datchet_.
_Private!_
VERY PRESSING!!!"
The name was written in a fine, clear, almost feminine hand. The words in
the left-hand corner of the envelope were written in a different hand.
They were large and bold; almost as though they had been painted with the
end of the penholder instead of being written with the pen. The envelope
itself was of an unusual size, and bulged out as though it contained
something else besides a letter.
The duke tore the envelope open. As he did so something fell out of it on
to the writing table. It looked as though it was a lock of a woman's hair.
As he glanced at it the duke seemed to be a trifle startled. The duke read
the letter:
"Your grace will be so good as to bring five hundred pounds in
gold to the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade within an
hour of the receipt of this. The Duchess of Datchet has been
kidnaped. An imitation duchess got into the carriage, which was
waiting outside Cane and Wilson's, and she alighted on the road.
Unless your grace does as you are requested, the Duchess of
Datchet's left-hand little finger will be at once cut off, and
sent home in time to receive the prince to dinner. Other portions
of her grace will follow. A lock of her grace's hair is inclosed
with this as an earnest of our good intentions.
"_Before_ 5:30 p.m. your grace is requested to be at the
Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade with five hundred pounds
in gold. You will there be accosted by an individual in a white
top hat, and with a gardenia in his buttonhole. You will be
entirely at liberty to give him into custody, or to have him
followed by the police, in which case the duchess's left arm, cut
off at the shoulder, will be sent home for dinner--not to mention
other extremely possible contingencies. But you are _advised_ to
give the individual in question the five hundred pounds in gold,
because in that case the duchess herself will be home in time to
receive the prince to dinner, and with one of the best stories
with which to entertain your distinguished guests they ever
heard.
"Remember! _not later than_ 5:30, unless you wish to receive her
grace's little finger."
The duke stared at this amazing epistle when he had read it as though he
found it difficult to believe the evidence of his eyes. He was not a
demonstrative person, as a rule, but this little communication astonished
even him. He read it again. Then his hands dropped to his sides, and he
swore.
He took up the lock of hair which had fallen out of the envelope. Was it
possible that it could be his wife's, the duchess? Was it possible that a
Duchess of Datchet could be kidnaped, in broad daylight, in the heart of
London, and be sent home, as it were, in pieces? Had sacrilegious hands
already been playing pranks with that great lady's hair? Certainly,
_that_ hair was so like _her_ hair that the mere resemblance made his
grace's blood run cold. He turned on Messrs. Barnes and Moysey as though
he would have liked to rend them.
"You scoundrels!"
He moved forward as though the intention had entered his ducal heart to
knock his servants down. But, if that were so, he did not act quite up to
his intention. Instead, he stretched out his arm, pointing at them as if
he were an accusing spirit:
"Will you swear that it was the duchess who got into the carriage outside
Cane and Wilson's?"
Barnes began to stammer:
"I'll swear, your grace, that I--I thought--"
The duke stormed an interruption:
"I don't ask what you thought. I ask you, will you swear it was?"
The duke's anger was more than Barnes could face. He was silent. Moysey
showed a larger courage.
"I could have sworn that it was at the time, your grace. But now it seems
to me that it's a rummy go."
"A rummy go!" The peculiarity of the phrase did not seem to strike the
duke just then--at least, he echoed it as if it didn't. "You call it a
rummy go! Do you know that I am told in this letter that the woman who
entered the carriage was not the duchess? What you were thinking about, or
what case you will be able to make out for yourselves, you know better
than I; but I can tell you this--that in an hour you will leave my
service, and you may esteem yourselves fortunate if, to-night, you are not
both of you sleeping in jail."
One might almost have suspected that the words were spoken in irony. But
before they could answer, another servant entered, who also brought a
letter for the duke. When his grace's glance fell on it he uttered an
exclamation. The writing on the envelope was the same writing that had
been on the envelope which had contained the very singular
communication--like it in all respects, down to the broomstick-end
thickness of the "Private!" and "Very pressing!!!" in the corner.
"Who brought this?" stormed the duke.
The servant appeared to be a little startled by the violence of his
grace's manner.
"A lady--or, at least, your grace, she seemed to be a lady."
"Where is she?"
"She came in a hansom, your grace. She gave me that letter, and said,
'Give that to the Duke of Datchet at once--without a moment's delay!' Then
she got into the hansom again, and drove away."
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"Your grace!"
The man seemed surprised, as though the idea of stopping chance visitors
to the ducal mansion _vi et armis_ had not, until that moment, entered
into his philosophy. The duke continued to regard the man as if he could
say a good deal, if he chose. Then he pointed to the door. His lips said
nothing, but his gesture much. The servant vanished.
"Another hoax!" the duke said grimly, as he tore the envelope open.
This time the envelope contained a sheet of paper, and in the sheet of
paper another envelope. The duke unfolded the sheet of paper. On it some
words were written. These:
"The duchess appears so particularly anxious to drop you a line, that one
really hasn't the heart to refuse her.
"Her grace's communication--written amidst blinding tears!--you will find
inclosed with this."
"Knowles," said the duke, in a voice which actually trembled, "Knowles,
hoax or no hoax, I will be even with the gentleman who wrote that."
Handing the sheet of paper to Mr. Knowles, his grace turned his attention
to the envelope which had been inclosed. It was a small, square envelope,
of the finest quality, and it reeked with perfume. The duke's countenance
assumed an added frown--he had no fondness for envelopes which were
scented. In the center of the envelope were the words, "To the Duke of
Datchet," written in the big, bold, sprawling hand which he knew so well.
"Mabel's writing," he said, half to himself, as, with shaking fingers, he
tore the envelope open.
The sheet of paper which he took out was almost as stiff as cardboard. It,
too, emitted what his grace deemed the nauseous odors of the perfumer's
shop. On it was written this letter:
"MY DEAR HEREWARD--For Heaven's sake do what these people
require! I don't know what has happened or where I am, but I am
nearly distracted! They have already cut off some of my hair, and
they tell me that, if you don't let them have five hundred pounds
in gold by half-past five, they will cut off my little finger
too. I would sooner die than lose my little finger--and--I don't
know what else besides.
"By the token which I send you, and which has never, until now,
been off my breast, I conjure you to help me.
"Hereward--_help me_!"
When he read that letter the duke turned white--very white, as white as
the paper on which it was written. He passed the epistle on to Knowles.
"I suppose that also is a hoax?"
Mr. Knowles was silent. He still yielded to his constitutional disrelish
to commit himself. At last he asked:
"What is it that your grace proposes to do?"
The duke spoke with a bitterness which almost suggested a personal
animosity toward the inoffensive Mr. Knowles.
"I propose, with your permission, to release the duchess from the custody
of my estimable correspondent. I propose--always with your permission--to
comply with his modest request, and to take him his five hundred pounds in
gold." He paused, then continued in a tone which, coming from him, meant
volumes: "Afterwards, I propose to cry quits with the concocter of this
pretty little hoax, even if it costs me every penny I possess. He shall
pay more for that five hundred pounds than he supposes."