GATHERING CLOUDS.
Henley week is said to be fine once in eight years, so presumably it
was an eighth year, for the weather was perfect.
Captain Preston, an old blue, had made a point of attending the
historic regatta ever since he had been at school; then had come a gap,
due to the war, and then the regatta had been once more held.
To celebrate the event, also because he thought Yootha would like it,
Preston had this year rented a houseboat which he kept moored near
Maidenhead. Several times before they were engaged Yootha had spent
a day with him on this boat, though he had not even then made up his
mind to propose to her. But now the boat was moored at Henley, for the
regatta week, and he had asked a few of his friends to come and lunch
on board any day they felt inclined to. It was his intention then to
announce his engagement, and to present them to his future wife.
None of his friends, however, put in an appearance. Some telegraphed
their inability at the last moment to get out of town; others stayed
away without sending an excuse.
Preston was surprised.
“Curious,” he said thoughtfully, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe
about lunch time on the second day of the regatta. “I thought some of
them would turn up to-day. Cooper and Atherton are down here, I know,
because I saw them in a punt together half an hour ago.”
Yootha, lying back near him in a deck chair, partly concealed by the
overhead awning, did not reply.
“You seem silent to-day, my darling,” he said after a pause. “Is
anything the matter?”
He bent down as he stopped speaking, and peered under the awning.
The troubled look in her eyes disconcerted him.
“Darling, what is it?” he asked anxiously. “Is something worrying you?”
“Not worrying me, exactly,” she answered, with rather a wan smile,
“only----”
“Yes? Only what?”
“I think I can guess why your friends have stayed away. It isn’t hard
to guess.”
“Isn’t it? Well, I wish I knew the reason--ah----”
His expression had suddenly changed.
“So now you know,” she went on. “Personally I am not surprised. You
know how people have cold-shouldered me since that dreadful affair at
the ball. Now it has become known we are engaged, people want less than
ever to meet me. Had you been here alone, your friends would probably
all have come to lunch.”
“‘Friends,’ you call them?” Preston exclaimed with a black look. “They
are no longer friends of mine, I can assure you, if they are that sort.”
“Oh, I don’t blame them,” Yootha answered with a hard smile. “One has
to pay the penalty of notoriety, even though the notoriety may have
come unsought. I dare say I shall live it down,” and she gave a little
shrug.
A tiny boat was sailing past, and the young man seated in the stern of
it hailed Preston.
“Can I come aboard a moment?” he called out. “I want to speak to you.”
“Come along,” Preston answered, though without enthusiasm, for the
young man was Archie La Planta. Half a minute later the little boat was
alongside.
“I hope I am not intruding,” La Planta said, discovering suddenly, or
pretending to discover, that nobody else besides Yootha was aboard.
“I heard you had a luncheon party. By the way,” he added, “have I to
congratulate you? I heard the news only to-day.”
“Thanks,” Preston said, concealing the annoyance the unlooked-for
intrusion caused him. “Who told you we were engaged?”
“Oh, one or two people. That last race was a fine finish--what?”
“Very. Did you say there was something you wanted to ask me?”
“One or two things. The first is a message from Jessica. She wants to
know if you and Miss Hagerston will come to tea on her houseboat--it’s
that big boat, _The Apex_, disguised to look like a warship, with guns
and all complete. They’ve a jolly party aboard and Jessica says she
would love to see you both. I was instructed not on any account to let
you say ‘No,’” and he laughed.
Preston did not answer for a moment.
“What do you say, Yootha?” he said at last, with a significant look
which she understood. “Shall we go, or shan’t we?”
“I should like to go,” she replied, taking her cue from his expression.
“Have you had lunch, Mr. La Planta?”
“In point of fact I have not,” he said carelessly, and lit a cigarette.
“Then you had better stay and lunch,” Preston put in. “Others may drop
in presently.”
“Awfully good of you,” La Planta said quietly. “The second thing I want
to ask is whether you happen to have seen Madame Camille Lenoir of the
Metropolitan Secret Agency anywhere about to-day. I know she is here,
with friends, and I want particularly to catch her.”
“I have not noticed her in any of the boats.”
Archie La Planta made a little gesture of annoyance.
“How tiresome,” he said. “Several people have caught sight of her
to-day, but nobody can tell me where she is to be found. By the way,
has the house with the bronze face found anything out as yet about the
pearl necklace?”
“Nothing as yet, but they seem hopeful. They think that in a week or
so they may be able to tell me something.”
“Good. Stothert is not an optimist, and would not have told you that
unless he had good reason to.”
He turned to Yootha.
“By the way, I have not seen you since the ball,” he said. “And for
that matter I didn’t see you at the ball, because I couldn’t identify
you. That was a rotten experience you had--perfectly disgraceful to
treat you as they did. I hear it made you quite ill, and I am not
surprised. I hope that by now you have quite recovered?”
“Thank you,” she answered, and in spite of her effort to speak
naturally she could not prevent a certain coldness from betraying
itself in her voice.
“Yes, I have recovered--though I don’t think all my friends have!”
“Indeed? I think I don’t follow you.”
“Oh, it’s of no consequence,” she replied, flushing slightly; then she
changed the subject.
Jessica was surprisingly genial and friendly when she greeted Yootha
and Captain Preston on her houseboat a couple of hours later. Preston
had availed himself of her invitation for a reason which he had not
yet confided to Yootha, though, had he known it, the same reason had
prompted Yootha to ask La Planta if he had lunched.
They knew that in spite of the olive branch now held out by Jessica,
at heart Jessica’s dislike of them both had become, if anything,
intensified since the affair at the ball, and that her hatred of Cora
too had increased. Though not addicted to crediting gossip, so many
little remarks of Jessica’s concerning themselves had been repeated to
them by different people that they could not turn an entirely deaf ear.
All sorts of well-known people were on Jessica’s houseboat. Some Yootha
had met, and to many of the remainder she and Preston were introduced.
Indeed so friendly did everybody appear to be that presently she began
to feel quite happy and at home--the reverse of what she and Preston
had anticipated.
And of all aboard, none made himself more agreeable to Yootha and to
Captain Preston than Archie La Planta. If anything, he rather overdid
it, for he took the trouble to present several people whom they found
extremely boring. They had been aboard perhaps half an hour, when
Yootha suddenly heard her name spoken, and, turning, found herself face
to face with a dark, very intelligent-looking man approaching middle
age.
“Let me introduce Doctor Johnson,” Stapleton said. “Johnson--Miss
Hagerston.”
The doctor looked at her keenly, smiling as he raised his hat.
“Our common friend, Captain Preston, has several times mentioned your
name,” he said. “Is he with you to-day?”
“Why, yes,” Yootha answered. “He was here a minute ago. Have you only
just come aboard?”
“No, I have been here the whole afternoon, but for the last hour I have
been what I suppose is called ‘’tween decks,’ settling the nation’s
affairs with some of my cronies whom I don’t often have an opportunity
of meeting,” and he smiled. “Stapleton tells me, Miss Hagerston,
that you and Preston are engaged. May I be allowed to offer my
congratulations? I should like to congratulate you both very sincerely.”
Yootha colored as she looked over his shoulder.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “I feel as if we had met before; Charlie
has told me so much about you.”
“Well, though I have known him quite a short time, you will forgive my
saying that I like him immensely. Yet, but for the unfortunate affair
of that man’s death the other night, I suppose I should not have had
the pleasure of meeting him, or possibly you. Ah, here he comes.”
For five minutes or more the three remained in conversation, though
their talk was mostly commonplace. There were subjects all three would
have liked to broach, but to have done so amid that _entourage_ would
have been impolitic.
“Yootha and I are dining _tête-à-tête_ on my houseboat,” Preston said
after a while. “If you are not engaged, couldn’t you join us--if you
will take potluck? Do say you will, Johnson.”
Johnson reflected for some moments.
“I should like to very much,” he said at last. “It is most kind of
you.”
“Capital! Then that is arranged.”
A diversion was created by the approach of a motor-launch with a party
of masked entertainers, while the string quartette in the bows played a
popular air. As it came near it slowed down, then stopped alongside.
“Oh, those people are splendid,” Jessica exclaimed. “They were here
yesterday and played for us during lunch. Louie,” she turned to
Stapleton, “make them give us an entertainment now.”
The entertainment lasted a long time, so that Preston and Yootha were
unable to leave the houseboat, as they had been about to do when the
launch came in sight. When at last the entertainment ended they sought
out their hostess.
“But surely you are not going?” Jessica exclaimed, holding Yootha’s
hand. “We are only just beginning to enjoy ourselves! Can’t you both
stay to dinner? We want to drink your health, you know,” and she
laughed in her deep and musical voice.
“So good of you,” Yootha answered, though all the while her instinct
told her that beneath this show of friendship and hospitality there
lurked some sinister motive, “but we have a friend dining with us on
our boat.”
“Ah, in that case I suppose there is nothing further to be said,”
Jessica replied. “But I am very disappointed. Come to lunch to-morrow,
will you? And you too, Captain Preston, make her bring you with her.”
But Preston excused himself on the plea that he expected friends to
lunch.
“Sometimes, though, friends don’t turn up,” Jessica said
inconsequently. “If they don’t, mind you come, both of you.”
A few minutes after they had gone a man rowed up rapidly in a dinghy.
“Can I speak to Captain Preston, please?” he asked. “I am his servant.
I have just come from his house-boat.”
He had addressed La Planta, who, leaning against the rail, had been
watching him approach.
“Is it anything important?” La Planta inquired, eyeing the man coldly.
“It is.”
“Well, Captain Preston and Miss Hagerston have just left. You must have
passed them.”
“Have they gone back to the boat?”
“I expect so. They went down stream.”
Borne along the water came the strains of a revue waltz played further
down the river by the string quartette.
Preston’s servant pulled the dinghy round, then started to row back.
And La Planta, blowing rings of cigarette smoke, watched him, with a
look of amusement, growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
At last he straightened himself. Most of the guests had now left.
Barely a dozen remained. Some one touched his elbow, and he turned.
“Well?” Stapleton said.
La Planta nodded.
“Quite satisfactory,” he answered.
“And when will he receive it?”
La Planta glanced down at his wrist-watch.
“He may have got it already. I am glad that fellow missed him, though I
can’t think how he managed to. What fools people like Preston and that
girl of his and Cora Hartsilver and the rest of them are to pit their
wits against ours!”
“Preston is no fool, Archie. Nor, for that matter, is Cora.”
But La Planta made no reply. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders, then
tossed his cigarette into the water with a gesture of contempt.