THE BROAD HIGHWAY
Had Dulcie consulted me before accepting Mrs. Stapleton's invitation to
dinner I should have improvised some plausible excuse for declining. She
had not, however, given me the chance of refusing, for she had then and
there accepted for both of us unconditionally, so that I could not,
without being rude, make any excuse for staying away.
"Dulcie," I said, when we were again alone, "I wish you hadn't accepted
that invitation without first of all consulting me. I really am not
keen to go."
"Oh, don't be silly!" she exclaimed joyously, and, putting her arms
about my neck, she gave me three delicious kisses. "We have quarrelled
all the afternoon—you were perfectly horrid to me, you know you
were—and if we mope here together all the evening we shall most likely
fall out again, and that will be absurd. Besides, I feel just in the
humour for a jolly dinner party, and I'm sure any party given by Connie
is bound to be jolly, just as jolly as she is. I _do_ think she is such
a fascinating person, don't you, Mike? Oh, I am sorry; I quite forget
you don't like her."
"I have not said I don't like her—I do like her, Dulcie, in a sense,
and up to a point. But I still hold to the opinion I formed of her when
I met her first—I wouldn't trust her implicitly."
"Never mind, Mike," she cried in high spirits. "We'll set all your
prejudices aside to-night, and try to enjoy ourselves. I wonder who'll
be there. I quite forgot to ask her."
"Probably nobody you know, or she would have told you. She said 'friends
from town,' so there are not likely to be any of our friends from about
here. We ought to start soon after seven, as she said dinner would be at
eight; with the snow as thick as it is it may take us quite an hour to
get to Newbury—twelve miles, remember."
We were the last to arrive, and I confess that the moment we were shown
into the room and I realized who Mrs. Stapleton's other guests were I
mentally upbraided myself for having come, or rather, for having let
Dulcie come. The first to whom our hostess introduced Dulcie was "Mrs.
Gastrell," and directly afterwards she presented to Dulcie "Mrs.
Gastrell's cousin," as she called him—none other than Hugesson
Gastrell, who was standing by. To my surprise Easterton and Jack Osborne
were there, and the widow seemed pleased at finding that I knew them—I
guessed it was owing to Easterton's being there that Jasmine Gastrell
was made to pass as Gastrell's cousin.
With singular formality she made Dulcie and me acquainted with
everybody, which struck me as odd in these days when introductions at
dinner parties, receptions and balls have gone quite out of fashion.
"Mr. Berrington," Mrs. Stapleton said, taking me across the room to two
men engaged apparently in earnest conversation, "I want to make you and
Lord Cranmere and Mr. Wollaston known to one another," and,
interrupting them, she introduced us.
There was nothing striking about the Earl of Cranmere. A man past middle
age, he had, I thought a rather weak face. A small, fair beard, neatly
trimmed and pointed, concealed his chin: as I looked at him I wondered
whether, were that beard removed, I should see any chin at all. The
short upper lip was hidden by a fair moustache; he had also whiskers.
The fair hair, which was rather thin on the top, was carefully parted in
the middle, and plastered down on both sides. His complexion was clear,
the complexion of a man who lives a good deal in the open, and his eyes
were pale blue, with almost golden lashes and eye-brows. He inclined to
stoutness, and spoke with a slight lisp. This then was the man, or
rather one of the men, I thought, as I noted these points about him
while we exchanged remarks, concerning whom Jack Osborne had been so
mysteriously questioned while he lay bound upon the bed in that dark
room in Grafton Street. I knew Lord Cranmere to be a particular friend
of Jack's, though in appearance no two men could have presented a
greater contrast.
What mostly kept my thoughts busy, however, was the presence of Hugesson
Gastrell.
Since his name had been mentioned by Harold Logan on his dying bed, I
had carefully debated whether or not to tell Easterton, who had let him
his house, what I now knew about him; also whether to tell Sir Roland
Challoner that Osborne and I had actually met Gastrell. Unable to
decide, I had put the case to Osborne, and eventually we had decided to
say nothing, at any rate for the moment, to anybody at all.
"What would be the good?" Jack had argued. "You have the word of a
dying man, and that's all; and what is there that you can prove against
this man Gastrell—at present? Besides, if you say anything, you may
find yourself forced to reveal that you know who the dead man was, that
you know him to have been Lord Logan's son, and you told me that Sir
Roland wants particularly to avoid doing that. No, keep silent and await
developments, that's my advice, as you have asked for it. He'll probably
end by hanging himself if you give him rope enough. I wouldn't tell even
Dulcie, if I were you."
I was thinking of all this again, when my train of thought was suddenly
cut by a voice at my elbow:
"Mr. Berrington, I want to introduce you to Mrs. Gastrell. Come with me,
will you?"
I turned abruptly. Connie Stapleton was at my elbow, and she spoke in
soft, purring tones.
"She's the woman you asked me if I knew, the other night at Mr.
Gastrell's reception," she went on in an undertone, as we walked towards
the woman. "I was introduced to her a couple of nights later. She is a
cousin of Mr. Gastrell's."
Almost before I had time to collect my thoughts, she had introduced me,
adding, a moment later, with one of her charming smiles:
"And will you take Mrs. Gastrell in to dinner?"
I was debating whether or not to refer to our previous meeting, at
Maresfield Gardens, when Mrs. Gastrell herself solved the difficulty.
"I wonder," she said, her great eyes very wide open, her gaze resting
full on mine, "if you remember that we have met before. It was just
before Christmas. You and Mr. Osborne called in the middle of the night
to ask if Hugesson had lost his purse: we both thought it so kind
of you."
I remembered a good deal more than that, but I did not tell her so. I
remembered too that she had seemed to speak sarcastically, almost
mockingly, that night when she had said she thought it kind of Jack to
have come out "all that way" just to inquire if Gastrell had
accidentally left his purse at the club. She appeared now, however, to
mean what she said, and so I only answered:
"How, having met you once, Mrs. Gastrell, could I forget our meeting?
What rather astonishes me is that you should remember me by sight,
seeing that we spoke for a few minutes only."
She smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment, and I found myself
wondering how many men that terribly alluring smile of hers had enslaved
from first to last.
"Would you believe it," she went on almost without a pause, "we were
very nearly burnt in a dreadful fire that broke out in that house on
Christmas Eve. We only just managed to escape with a few of our
belongings; we had not, I am thankful to say, anything very valuable
there, because the house had been sub-let to us, so that the furniture
was not ours."
"You certainly were fortunate, in a sense," I answered, marvelling at
her self-possession, and mentally asking myself if she spoke with
conviction and whether I had, after all, formed a wrong opinion about
her as well as about our hostess. Then I heard Gastrell's voice behind
me, and that brought me to my senses. If such a man were a guest of Mrs.
Stapleton's it seemed quite on the cards that men and women of equally
bad character might also be included among her friends. I had several
reasons for suspecting Mrs. Gastrell of duplicity, and I determined to
remain on my guard.
The dinner, I confess, was excellent. I was glad to see that Dulcie sat
between Jack Osborne and Lord Easterton, and was thus out of harm's way.
We dined at a round table, and almost facing me were two
unintelligent-looking women—I had heard their names, but the names
conveyed nothing to me. These women, both past middle age, somehow had
the appearance of being extremely rich. They sat on either side of
Hugesson Gastrell, whose conversation appeared to be amusing them
immensely. One other woman made up the party of twelve—a dark, demure,
very quiet little person, with large, dreamy eyes, a singularly pale
complexion, and very red lips. She was dressed almost simply, which the
other two women certainly were not, and altogether she struck me as
looking somewhat out of place in that _galere_.
Champagne flowed freely, and gradually we all became exceedingly
vivacious. Once, when I glanced across at Dulcie, after conversing
animatedly for ten minutes or so with the beautiful woman at my side, I
thought I noticed a troubled look in her eyes, but instantly it
disappeared, and she smiled quite happily. Then, turning to her
neighbour, Jack Osborne, she said something to him in an undertone which
made him laugh, and he too looked across at me. It had struck me all the
evening that Jack was in exceptionally high spirits, and more than once
I had wondered if he had some special reason for being so.
It was an extraordinary dinner party. The more I looked about me, the
more astonishing it seemed. A stranger entering the room would have
noticed nothing unusual; he would have seen a number of apparently quite
ordinary men and women dining, and enjoying themselves, people rather
more sociable, perhaps, than the guests at dinner parties often are. And
yet I had reason to believe that among these ostensibly respectable
people three at least there were whose lives were veiled in a mystery of
some sort—I hoped it might be nothing worse. The opinion I had formed
of our hostess is already known. In addition there was that strange
young man, Hugesson Gastrell, who, knowing everyone in London, was, in a
sense, known by no one. For what did anybody know about him? Questioned,
people invariably answered that he came from Australia or Tasmania and
had inherited a large fortune from an uncle. That was all. They knew
naught of his parents or his antecedents; his private life was a
closed book.
My glance rested on my neighbour's white, well-manicured hands. Several
times already, during dinner, I had observed how graceful they were, and
had noticed the long, slender fingers, the well-shaped, polished
nails—fingers on which precious stones shone and sparkled as the rays
cast down from beneath the shades of the subdued electric lamps touched
them at frequent intervals. Suddenly a thought flashed in upon me, and
involuntarily I caught my breath. The voice of a dying man was calling
to me, was crying a name in my ears as it had done that day I had sat
with Sir Roland Challoner by Harold Logan's bed and watched the fearful
eyes gazing into vacancy.
"Jasmine ... it is all I ask, all I want, my darling woman ... wouldn't
otherwise have killed her ... it was her fault ... oh, no, discovery is
impossible ... black, charred beyond all hope of recognition ... did
right to kill her, dear, I ..."
The sound of the voice—I seemed to hear it distinctly in spite of the
conversation and laughter all around—and the picture which rose
simultaneously into the vision of my imagination, made me recoil. My
gaze was set again upon those pale, graceful hands with their blue
veins, their scintillating gems. As in a dream I heard Jasmine Gastrell
in conversation with Cranmere, seated upon her other side; heard, too,
his silly talk, his empty laughter. Her hands seemed now completely to
hold my gaze. I could not look away. And, as I watched them, the feeling
of revulsion rose.
Conjectures, suspicions, hideous thoughts filled my brain as my eyes
remained riveted. Now the fingers looked like snakes—strange,
flesh-tinted reptiles with eyes emerald green and ruby red, cruel,
sinuous. Now great knots of muscle stood out upon her bare arms. Her
hands were clutching something—what it was I could not see. The fingers
grew twisted and distorted ... they had crimson stains upon them ... the
very nails were shot with blood and I thought I saw—
My train of thought was cut by my neighbour on my right. What she said I
hardly knew, and did not care. Still, I was glad that she had spoken.
The interruption had diverted my attention, and brought my thoughts from
dreamland back into actual life.
Then the thought came to me, What was the object of this dinner party?
Why had Connie Stapleton invited these people down to Newbury? Why, if
she wished to give a dinner party, had she not given it in town? From
the conversation during dinner I had gathered that the guests, one and
all, lived in London. It seemed strange therefore to the verge of
eccentricity to ask them to come fifty miles to dine. True, the
_cuisine_ at "The Rook" was above reproach, the hotel itself excellently
appointed, but none the less—
"Don't you agree, Mr. Berrington?" Mrs. Gastrell exclaimed, laughing as
she turned from Cranmere to me.
"I didn't catch the question," I said with a start, again brought
suddenly to earth.
"Lord Cranmere is of opinion that the man you found in hiding at Holt
must, from the descriptions which have been given of him, at some time
or other have been a gentleman. I say, 'No; that no gentleman could sink
so low as to become a common criminal of that kind.' One can understand
a gentleman, by which I mean a man of education and careful upbringing,
being driven, through force of circumstances, to rob a bank, or even to
forge a signature to a cheque; but for such a man to sink to the level
of a common housebreaker is unthinkable—don't you agree with me?"
Her eyes shone strangely as they rested upon mine. Not until now had the
wonderful intelligence in their purple-green depths struck me so
forcibly. From the orange-tinted lamps before her on the table the light
which shone up in her face seemed to increase their brilliance,
accentuate their expression and their power. It imparted, too, to her
extraordinary complexion a peculiar, livid tint, while the masses of her
burnished, red-brown hair, coiled about her head in great ropes and
dressed low in her neck, was shot with a chestnut shade which greatly
enhanced its beauty.
I paused before answering. For fully ten minutes she had not addressed
me, so deeply engaged had she been in conversation with Lord Cranmere.
Why should she all at once interrupt her talk and put this question to
me? None but Sir Roland Challoner and I were aware of the dead man's
identity; even we had no actual proof that he had been Lord Logan's son,
though our discovery of the locket, considered in relation to certain
facts known to Sir Roland, left no room for doubt. That locket Sir
Roland had appropriated in order that the dead man's identity might not
be traced and the family name tarnished. Jasmine Gastrell must of course
be aware of his identity? Did she suspect that I knew his name, and
could this be an attempt to entrap me into revealing that I knew it?
"That is a question difficult to answer," I said guardedly. "I believe
there are instances on record of men of education, of men even of good
birth, sinking to the lowest depth of degradation when once they had
begun to tread the downward path. It would be interesting to know who
that man really was. He wouldn't tell his name, wouldn't even hint
at it."
"So that of course you don't know it."
"Naturally."
Again that keen, searching expression in the large, luminous eyes. They
seemed to look right through me. They seemed to read my thoughts and
wrest my secrets from me.
"And you found nothing upon him that might have given you a clue, I
suppose; nothing in his pockets, no marks upon the body, there was
nothing he was wearing that might have put you on the track?"
"Absolutely nothing," I answered, thinking of the locket as I looked
straight into her eyes. Never before had I realized how cleverly I
could lie.
It was close on midnight when we all assembled in the hall preparatory
to leaving—those of us who were leaving. Hugesson Gastrell had left
long before, in fact immediately after dinner, as he had, he said, an
important appointment in London. Somebody nudged me lightly as he
brushed past, and glancing round I caught Osborne's eye. He made no sign
whatever, yet there was something in his look which made me think he
wanted me, and a minute later I sauntered after him into the room where
the hats and coats had been.
But for us, the room was now deserted. Glancing quickly to right and
left, Jack walked over to a corner where a tall screen stood. There was
nobody behind it.
He beckoned to me, and I approached.
"We are among a set of scoundrels," he said rapidly, under his breath.
"I am glad to see that you too didn't recognize him."
"Recognize whom?" I asked in astonishment, also speaking in a whisper.
"Preston, the ex-detective. I introduced him to you the last time we met
in town."
"I remember the man perfectly, but surely he isn't here."
Jack's lips stretched into a grin.
"'Lord Cranmere,'" he said. "That's Preston!"
He chuckled.
"Cranmere's own brother was actually deceived when we brought the two
together, as a test," he went on. "Preston is a genius. He doesn't
merely 'make up' to look like someone else; he doesn't, when he is made
up, just impersonate the character; for the time he _is_ the man, he
'feels like him,' he says, he shares his views, he becomes his other
ego. He has the advantage in this case of knowing Cranmere well, and he
has, in consequence, excelled himself to-night. The way he has hit off
Cranmere's lisp is marvellous. Easterton, who meets Cranmere frequently,
is at this moment in the hall arguing with Preston about land taxation
and small holdings, under the impression that he is talking to Cranmere.
It really is rather amusing."
When I had expressed my astonishment, and we had talked for a minute or
two, he suddenly grew serious.
"But remember, Mike," he said, laying his hand upon my shoulder, "nobody
knows this—nobody but you and I. Preston has assured me that the
success of our efforts to run the leaders of this gang to ground—he
tells me he is sure there is a gang working together and playing into
one another's hands very cleverly—will largely depend upon our
discreetness and our secretiveness, also upon our tact and our knowledge
of when to act. So not a word, mind; not a syllable even to Dulcie
Challoner—have I your promise?"
Dulcie and I talked but little as we sped homeward through the darkness.
She seemed depressed, I thought, though she assured me that she had
thoroughly enjoyed herself and was feeling quite well. I must say that
the "mental atmosphere" of that party had affected me unpleasantly,
though I could not have said precisely why.
On and on the car travelled, smoothly, almost noiselessly. Snow was
falling—it had been falling for two hours, the chauffeur had told us
before we started—though not very heavily. The night was quite still.
We had long passed the tiny hamlets a mile or two from Newbury and were
now on the five miles' stretch of winding road between there and Holt
Stacey. Soon we passed the sign-post close to Holt Stacey railway
station. As we sped through the village some moments later the houses
and cottages all wrapped in darkness seemed to spring forward into the
light one after another as though to peer at us as we shot by.
Now Holt Stacey lay behind us, and only four miles remained. From the
time we had left Newbury no vehicle of any kind had passed us, nor any
human being, nor had we overtaken any. Dulcie, nestling close to me in
the warm, comfortable brougham, was more than half asleep. I too felt
drowsy, and I fear that more than once my chin had dropped forward with
a jerk. Suddenly the car swerved abruptly to the right. So tightly were
the brakes applied at the same instant that we were both thrown forward
almost on to the floor. The car lurched, rose up on one side, then as I
instinctively threw my arms about Dulcie to protect her if possible from
what seemed about to be a very serious accident, the car righted itself
and stopped dead.
"Good heavens! What has happened?" I exclaimed, as the chauffeur, who
had sprung off his seat, opened the door. Dulcie still lay in my arms,
trembling with fear, though from the first she had not uttered a sound,
or in the least lost her head.
"Someone lying in the road, sir," he answered, "drunk, I shouldn't
wonder. He was half covered with snow, and I all but ran over him."
"Lying in the snow! Why, he'll die if he's left there," I exclaimed. "Go
and have a look at him, and then come back to me."
Several minutes passed, and the chauffeur did not return. Becoming
impatient, I opened the door of the brougham, and called out. A moment
later the man appeared. The electric torch he carried—one he used when
occasion arose to examine the car in the dark—was still switched on.
The hand that held it trembled a little, and in the light which shone
down inside the brougham I noticed that the chauffeur looked
singularly pale.
"Could you kindly step out for a moment, please, sir?" he said in a
curious tone.
Guessing that something serious must be amiss to prompt him to ask me
to step out into the deep snow in my evening shoes, I got out at once,
in spite of Dulcie's entreating me not to do so and get my feet soaked.
When I had shut the car door, and we had walked a few paces, the
chauffeur stopped abruptly.
"Sir," he said in a hoarse voice.
"Well, what?" I asked, also stopping.
"Sir—it's Churchill, the gardener. Poor fellow! It's awful! He's dead,
sir, quite cold. He—he's been killed—_murdered_!"