In brilliant sunshine, with the larks singing merrily in the cloudless
vault of blue, and the air heavy with the scent of hay, I drove from
Horsham station along the old turnpike road to Warnham Hall. A carriage
had been sent for me, as usual, and as I sat back moodily, I fear I saw
little of interest in the typical English landscape. The joys of the
world were dead to me, consumed as I was by the one great sorrow of my
life. My mind was full of the tristful past. I had reached London from
Paris on the previous night, and in response to a telegram from the
Earl, saying he had left Osborne and gone to the Hall, I had travelled
down by the morning train.
As we entered the park and drove up the broad, well-kept drive, the
startled deer bounded away, and the emus raised their small heads with
resentful, inquiring glance, but dashing along, the pair of spanking
bays quickly brought me up to the great grey portico. As soon as I
alighted I handed over my traps to one of the servants and walked
straight to the great oak-panelled dining-room.
As I paused at the door, it suddenly opened, and a man emerged so
quickly that he almost stumbled over me. Our eyes met. I stood aghast,
staring as if I had seen an apparition. In the semi-darkness of the
corridor I doubt whether my face was quite distinguishable, but upon his
there shone the slanting rays of light from an old diamond-paned window.
In a instant I recognised the features, although I had only seen them
once before.
It was the foppish young man who had been Ella's companion on that
lonely walk in Kensington Gardens.
Why he had visited the Earl was an inscrutable mystery. He regarded me
in surprise for a single instant, then, thrusting both hands negligently
into his trousers pockets, strode leisurely away along the corridor, a
straw hat with black and white band placed jauntily at the back of his
head. I watched him until he had turned the corner and disappeared,
then I entered the great old-fashioned apartment.
"Well, Deedes!" exclaimed the Earl, in a voice that was unusually
cheerful. He was standing at the window gazing across the park, but my
presence caused him to turn sharply. "Back again, then?"
"Yes. I think I have fulfilled the mission," I managed to exclaim.
Truth to tell, this extraordinary encounter had caused me considerable
perplexity and annoyance.
"You have done excellently," he said. "A telegram this morning from
Lord Worthorpe shows with what tact you put matters to him, and I am
glad to tell you that his interview with the President proved entirely
satisfactory. I wired the news to Her Majesty only half-an-hour ago."
"I did my best," I observed, perhaps a trifle carelessly, for there was
another matter upon which I was anxious to consult my eccentric
benefactor.
"The task was one of unusual difficulty, I admit, Deedes, and you have
shown yourself fully qualified for a post abroad. You shall have one
before long."
At other times I should have warmly welcomed the enthusiasm of this
speech, and thanked him heartily for the promise of a more lucrative
position, but now, crushed and hopeless, I felt that joy had left my
soul for ever, and merely replied,--
"I am quite satisfied to be as I am. I do not care for the Continent."
"Why?" he inquired, surprised. "If you remain in the Service here you
will have but little chance of distinguishing yourself, whereas in Rome,
Constantinople or Berlin, you might obtain chances of promotion."
"I have been already in St Petersburg, you remember," I said.
"Ah, of course. But you didn't get on very well there," he said. "It
is a difficult staff for younger men to work amongst. You'd be more
comfortable in Vienna, perhaps. Viennese society would suit you,
wouldn't it?"
"No," I replied, very gravely. "I fear that henceforward I shall be,
like yourself, a hater of society and all its ways."
"Oh?" he exclaimed, placing his hands beneath his coat-tails, a habit of
his when about to enter any earnest consultation. "Why?"
"Well, if you desire to know the truth," I said, "it concerns my
marriage."
"Ah, of course!" he observed, with deep sorrow. "I had quite forgotten
that unfortunate affair. Yet time will cause you to forget. You are
young, remember, Deedes--very young, compared with an old stager like
myself."
"It is scarcely likely that I shall forget so easily," I said, after a
slight pause. "Since I have been in Paris I have made a discovery that
has bewildered me. I confide in you because you are the only person who
knows the secret of my wife's flight."
"Quite right," he said, regarding me with those piercing eyes shaded by
their grey shaggy, brows. "If I can assist you or give you advice I am
always pleased, for the romance of your marriage is the strangest I have
ever known."
"Yes," I acquiesced, "and the truth I have accidentally learnt still
stranger. I have discovered that my wife was never Ella Laing, as I had
believed, but that she really is the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna
of Russia."
"The Grand Duchess!" he cried, amazed, his eyes aflame in an instant.
"Are you certain of this; have you absolute proof?"
"Absolute. I have seen her, and she has admitted it, and told me that
she masqueraded in England as Ella Laing because she desired to avoid
Court etiquette for a time," I said.
"Grodekoff lied," he growled in an ebullition of anger. "I recognised
her at the Embassy ball when you pointed her out, yet the Ambassador
assured me that Her Highness was at that moment in Russia. We have both
been tricked, Deedes. But he who laughs last laughs longest."
He had folded his arms and was standing resolutely before me, gazing
upon the dead green carpet deep in thought.
"The mystery becomes daily more puzzling," he said at length, seating
himself. "Tell me all that transpired between you."
I sank into a chair opposite the renowned chief of the Foreign Office
and repeated the conversation that had taken place at our interview,
while he listened attentively without hazarding a single remark.
"Then again she would tell you nothing," exclaimed the Earl, when I had
concluded. "She refused absolutely to divulge her secret."
"Yes," I said. "I promised to forgive if she would only tell me the
truth. She refused; so we have parted."
"And what do you intend doing?"
"I intend to seek the truth for myself," I answered with fierce resolve.
"How?"
"I have not yet decided," I said. "The reason she took such infinite
pains to conceal her identity is incomprehensible, but her firm
resolution to preserve her secret at all hazards appears as though she
is in deadly fear of exposure by some person or other who can only be
conciliated by absolute silence."
"Then we must discover who that person is."