He was, however, no sooner out of the house, the lofty stone hall of
which had always impressed Mr. Dunn’s fanciful eye as being like a
“holocaust”--by which he meant “mausoleum,” for Mr. Dunn had received
the education proper to an English gentleman, and one can’t know
everything--when he was sensible of a peculiar, unhomely feeling within
his person; which he was not long in recognising as the prickings of his
conscience, a disorder by which he was seldom assailed, for Mr. Dunn was
a good young man.
His thoughts, never profound but frequently vivid, quickly passed beyond
his control. He thought of the lady on whom he had brought such cruel
discomfiture. He saw her again as she sat at the table, her great blue
eyes swept with astonished distaste, her sweet sad face white with
sudden fear, whilst her husband sneered at her exquisite breeding as
though all the seven devils were dancing on his poisoned antipodean
tongue.
“And all, dear God,” frantically thought Mr. Dunn, “about absolutely
nothing!”
For let us at once state frankly, and once and for all, that there was
absolutely nothing between Mr. Dunn and Lady Vest. Mr. Dunn was a man of
honour. While the Lady Vest was a lady of noble birth and fastidious
habits, to whom the idea of the smallest infidelity must necessarily be
repellent to a degree far beyond the soiled understanding of those
society novelists who write sensationally about the state of inconstancy
prevalent among people of condition.
Among her high-minded habits, however, Lady Vest had always included,
until her marriage to Lord Vest, the inoffensive distraction of dancing,
at which she was notably graceful. But Lord Vest had revealed, on the
very night of his marriage, the fact that he could not dance; had
excused his disgusting reticence on that point until it was too late for
her to change her mind on the ground of his love for her; which was so
great, he had protested, that he did not know what he would do should he
ever discover her dancing with any man; adding that in the frenzy of
such a discovery he would not care to take long odds against the
probability of his strangling her; so dark were the obsessions that
clouded the Australian nobleman’s mind.
Until the recent engagement of Mr. Dunn as his lordship’s private
secretary Lady Vest had not so much as wavered from the letter of her
promise to her husband, that she would dance nevermore. But chancing one
afternoon on Mr. Dunn in the neighbourhood of Bond Street, and Mr. Dunn
happening to say that he was partial to dancing, Lady Vest had, as
though in a flash, realised the narrow tyranny of her husband’s
prohibition, and had acceded to Mr. Dunn’s request that she should take
a turn with him round the floor of a neighbouring dance-club.
The path of temptation is sweet to tread, and the air about it is
fragrant with the lovely scents of forbidden flowers. Never once did
Lady Vest and Mr. Dunn waver from the exercise of those formalities that
are bred in the bone of the county families of England and come as
naturally to the meanest cadet of the landed gentry as writing good
plays to a dramatic critic: she was ever Lady Vest to him, he Mr. Dunn
to her; but insensibly they fell into the habit of dancing a while every
afternoon (except, of course, on Sundays), and had come to no harm
whatsoever, but had rather gained in the way of exercise, had it not
been for the fact that the monstrous suspicions of my lord were never at
rest.
For, to their indignant amazement, Lord Vest had informed them just
before dinner on the night we tell of that he had for some time past
been having his lady watched by detectives; that he was fully informed
of their goings-on; and was now awaiting dinner with some impatience,
for after dinner he was prepared, he said, to be very interested to hear
what steps they, his lady and Mr. Dunn, were going to take about it.
And it was at that moment before dinner that Mr. Dunn had first decided
that he, for his part, would prefer to take steps of a purely material
nature, and those in a direction opposite from any that Lord Vest might
be treading at that moment. Nor was he in any way weakened in his
decision when Lord Vest, whilst pressing on Mr. Dunn a second
cocktail--so that, said my lord, Mr. Dunn should have no excuse for not
enjoying a dinner that promised to be very entertaining in the way of
table-talk, in which Mr. Dunn as a rule excelled--related how he had
that afternoon suborned the saxophone player in the orchestra of the
dance-club into allowing him, his lordship, to take the man’s place; and
therefore had had, whilst emitting to the best of his ability those
screams and noises that are expected of a saxophone player, an
unrivalled opportunity of judging whether his lady and Mr. Dunn were
proficient in those offensive irregularities of the legs, hips, and
teeth which, said my lord crudely, were dignified with the name of
dancing.
Mr. Dunn had then sworn at his luck, which never had been but rotten;
for on this afternoon of all he had taken the liberty to introduce Lady
Vest to certain movements recently imported from the Americas; and he
had no doubt but that the instruction of those quite delightful and
original movements might have appeared, to one playing the saxophone in
a hostile frame of mind, compromising to a degree.
Such thoughts as these, before and during dinner, had confirmed Mr. Dunn
in his decision to take the steps already referred to at the earliest
possible moment. Nor can we really blame the poor young gentleman: the
occasion was decidedly domestic: Mr. Dunn was in a cruelly false
position: and the degraded mentality of his lordship was never less
amenable to polite argument than on that fateful night.
Yet, now that he had taken them, now that he stood beneath the trees on
the other side of Carlton House Terrace and stared at the great house
from which he had but a moment before fled like a poltroon, he
discovered within himself a profound repugnance for his, Mr. Dunn’s,
person. The picture of the gentle lady, on whom his innocent partiality
for the latest movements in dancing had brought this discomfiture,
preyed on his mind; the wrath of his lordship must by now, thought Mr.
Dunn, have been confined within reasonable limits; and, with set face
and determined mind, he was again approaching the house when its great
doors were flung open and the second butler, with a look of agonised
fear on his low face, was hurled forth by Lord Vest into the night. Mr.
Dunn fled.
V
Nor did he abate his pace so much as to take breath until he was some
distance up that stretch of Regent Street which sweeps nobly upwards to
meet Piccadilly Circus at a point marked by the imperious façade of the
new Criterion Restaurant; and he was in the very act of passing a
handkerchief over his deranged forehead when from behind him he was
startled to hear a low cry:
“Mr. Dunn! Mr. Dunn!”
“Good God!” said he, swinging about. “And thank God! For at least you
are safe!”
For there by his elbow, prettily panting for breath, was my lady; and
never did she look to a manly eye so fragile and gentle, for she was
enwrapped in the fairy elegance of a cloak of white ermine.
“Oh,” she sighed softly, “and I did so want to dance once again! Just
once again!”
“But what happened? The man is mad!” cried Mr. Dunn. “Did you soothe
him, Lady Vest? Did he see the absurdity of his suspicions, did he
apologise for his behaviour?”
But it was as though the lady was not heeding his words. As they made to
walk on up Regent Street she smiled absently into his concerned face and
sighed: “And, oh, I did so want to dance with you just once again! But
just imagine my indiscretion, running after you like this! and all
because of my overpowering desire to dance with you once again. It will
not occur again, I promise you, Mr. Dunn. But, oh, just to do those new
movements of the Blues once again!”
“Dear Lady Vest,” said Mr. Dunn sincerely, “there is nothing I would
enjoy more. Besides, it will soothe us. See, here we are at the doors of
the Criterion, where, I am told, one may dance with comfort and
propriety. But won’t you tell me first about the issue of Lord Vest’s
temper? He was very angry? And you soothed him?”
“Oh, yes, yes! I soothed him, indeed. Look, Mr. Dunn! Oh, look! There is
an owl perched on the fountain yonder, on the left wing of Eros! Just
fancy, Mr. Dunn, an owl! Did you ever hear of such a thing!”
“Holy smoke, you’re right!” said Mr. Dunn. “An owl, or I’m a Dutchman!
There’s never been an owl there before, that I’ll swear.”
“See,” cried Lady Vest with a strange exaltation, “see, it is staring at
us! Mr. Dunn, do you know what that owl, a bird of wise omen, means? Can
you imagine, Mr. Dunn! It means the doom of my lord. And what a doom!”
“Holy smoke!” said Mr. Dunn, starting back from her. “Lady Vest, you
haven’t--you haven’t kil----”
“Listen, Mr. Dunn!” And she held him by the arm, looking into his eyes
with sweet, sad dignity, whilst all about them passed the gay crowds
that love to throng Piccadilly Circus, and the electric advertisements
lit the scene with a festive glamour; nor ever did the owl stir from its
station on the fountain.
“Listen, Mr. Dunn! When you had made your escape, my husband revealed
the true state of his mind by drawing a revolver. He was mad. I did not
know what to do. I screamed, and on the second butler’s rushing into the
room without knocking on the door the poor fellow was hurled from the
house. But in the meanwhile I had managed to grab hold of the revolver.
What could I do, Mr. Dunn? I ask you, what could I do?”
“Holy smoke!” said Mr. Dunn. “I don’t know. But----”
“The madman advanced on me. His face livid, his eyes mad, and his hands
arranged before him in such a way as to leave one no room to doubt that
his immediate intention was to strangle me. I threatened to fire. Can
you, can anyone, blame me? Was I wrong, may one not defend one’s life?”
“Holy smoke!” said Mr. Dunn. “Certainly. But----”
“My threat to fire did not discommode his mad approach. I kept on making
it. But did he stop?”
“Did he?” gasped Mr. Dunn.
“Mr. Dunn, he did not. I fired.”
“You didn’t!” said Mr. Dunn.
“I did,” said my lady.
“But holy smoke!” cried Mr. Dunn. “You killed him!”
“No,” she whispered sadly. “I missed. Mr. Dunn, he killed me.”
And it was at that moment, even as the phantom of the unfortunate lady
faded before his eyes and Mr. Dunn let out an appalling yell, that the
owl on the fountain hooted thrice with marvellous dolour and fled, to be
lost almost on the instant among the lofty shadows of the Regent’s
Palace Hotel.
Amateurs of history and students of privilege should note that
additional point is lent to this already interesting chronicle by the
fact that the late Lord Vest was the first Australian marquess to be
hanged by the neck in the year of grace 1924. A vast concourse attended
outside the prison gates on the morning of the execution, some of whom
were photographed by pressmen in the act of gnashing their teeth, which
is to be explained by the fact that they had brought their breakfast
with them in the form of sandwiches. The executioners were Lovelace,
Lovibond and Lazarus. The drop given was sixteen feet. The criminal died
unrepentant, thus denying his soul the grace of salvation and directing
it with terrible velocity and unerring aim to the fires of eternal
damnation, where he will no doubt continue to burn miserably as a
warning for all time to gentlemen who will not dance with their wives.