“I’ll bet he doesn’t hand that about,” he muttered.
Then he copied his letter on to the back of Mr. Blatchbourne’s and
restored the latter to its drawer.
When he had prepared an envelope and covered his reply he lighted a
cigarette and left the shop.
* * * * *
Mrs. Cheviot had had a most gorgeous time.
Never had idleness seemed so full of spice.
Her fortnight in Paris had grown into three fat weeks of merry-making.
Parties, dances and plays had all contributed to the delicious orgy, but
by far the handsomest contribution had been made by fashion parades.
Indeed, with Madge Willoughby to pace her upon the track of models,
Blanche had broken all her records of extravagance. When she rolled out
of the gay capital in her luxurious car bound for Boulogne she had
expended upon clothes alone very nearly six thousand pounds.
The prospect of returning to work was none too engaging. But while she
loathed the thought of working ten hours a day, the reflection that Mrs.
Willoughby had been left standing went far to cure her melancholy.
Indeed, by the time she had crossed the Channel and was sliding through
Kent she had come to the conclusion that Titus was right and that ‘not
to see the boom out would be the act of a fool.’
Then a lorry came out of a by-road at thirty-five and knocked her
limousine into a quickset hedge. . . .
By the time assistance arrived Blanche, who had recovered her wits, was
able not only to direct her extrication, but to resist all endeavours to
convey her to hospital.
“I should like to sit down somewhere,” she said faintly. “Perhaps
there’s a house somewhere near where they’d give me some tea or
something, and let me sit down. I’m not a bit hurt. What about the
chauffeur?”
The chauffeur, who should have been killed, was safe and sound and more
than occupied. It is good to think that he was kneeling upon the stomach
of the driver of the motor-lorry, at once reciting the latter’s lineage
and failings and compressing his windpipe until the delinquent’s
eyeballs started from his head.
Twenty-five yards away an imposing gateway argued the presence of a
mansion, so two very civil strangers offered Mrs. Cheviot their arms and
assisted her up the drive.
Then a bell was rung, and when a servant arrived shelter was asked.
The man went running for his master, and two minutes later Blanche was
seated in a deep chair before a fire, sipping a brandy-and-soda and
absently listening to her host’s explosive indignation while her two
assistants were relating the manner of her mishap.
The spirit worked wonders.
By the time the strangers had departed and her host was excusing his
wife, who was indisposed, Mrs. Cheviot felt able and wishful to proceed
on her way.
“If you would be so kind as to telephone for a car. The nearest garage,
you know. I’d ring up my husband, but it’s no good frightening him for
nothing, and he would be certain to think, whatever I said, that I was
more or less hurt.”
“You’re sure you mean this?” said her host, a giant of about fifty with
a handsome but choleric manner and the physique of a smith. “Because, if
you feel the least shaky—and I’m very sure I should—I’ll be happy to
put you up and your husband too.”
“You’re most awfully good,” said Blanche, “but——”
“Nonsense, my dear lady, nonsense. When a crime is committed at my very
door, the least I can do is to offer the victim such shelter as she
cares to accept. I say ‘a crime.’ If I had my way, madam, that swine
should be drawn and quartered. But for the mercy of God you would be in
the mortuary instead of in that chair conversing with me. Why? Because a
blackguard in charge of a waggon deliberately chooses to convert it into
an engine of destruction so that he can be done with the labour for
which he is paid twenty minutes before his just time.” He broke off to
stamp violently about the floor. Presently he swallowed his wrath and
came to rest. “A car, you say. Very well. I think you’re very well
plucked, but I’ll do as you say. And while it’s coming the servants will
bring you some tea.”
He strode to a door and passed out.
It was when Mrs. Cheviot had made the most of a mirror and had lighted a
cigarette that she noticed the room.
This appeared to be a hall of fine proportions.
The walls had been painted black and then varnished. They gave the
impression of having been japanned. Above them was a frieze, six feet in
depth, of the colour of chocolate and as glossy as the black walls. The
ceiling was more remarkable, presenting a pale brown surface covered
with what appeared to be a rash and somewhat resembling linoleum which
has been lightly waxed. The doors had been painted bright pink picked
out with white, and the chimney-piece, which was of steel and must have
weighed about three tons, was suggesting that a power-house had been
spoiled of some doubtless locally useful but ungainly member of its
plant.
As first one and then another of these peculiarities attracted her
attention, Mrs. Cheviot began to wonder whether, after all, she had been
killed and this was the antechamber of another world. The furniture,
however, seemed normal, and the sudden appearance of a butler with
tea-things was less supernatural than anything she could imagine. When
the man addressed her there was no longer room for doubt.
“Excuse me, madam, but I won’t put the table by you, for as soon as the
fire’s burned up, madam, I’m afraid you’ll ’ave to move. You see, that
steel, madam, gets practically red-’ot.”
“I thought I smelt something funny,” said Blanche, rising. “Of
course——”
“That’s right, madam. It’s the metal ’eatin’. An’ if I may advise you,
madam, don’t you forget an’ lay your ’and on it. I did it once without
thinkin’, stoopin’ to put on some coal.” He raised his eyes to heaven.
“You don’ do it twice. . . . An’ rust.”
“It must be terrible to keep.”
“Madam,” said the butler, “it’s crool. You can’t touch it with oil, or
the moment you light the fire the ’ole ’ouse reeks like a dozen
engine-rooms. It ’as to be burnished with chains to do any good. We jus’
manage to keep the front, but the top’s a mask of rust an’ so are the
sides.”
As if the remembrance of this condition was more grievous than he could
bear, the fellow turned away and fell to arranging the tea.
Blanche took another seat and, furtively regarding the apartment, began
to wonder what effect, if suffered daily, such a scheme of decoration
would have upon her mind. She also wondered if her host had ever heard
of 68, Old Bond Street. Black and pink and chocolate were pretty thick,
but there was something about the ceiling, something which was not only
repugnant, but——
Mrs. Cheviot stiffened with a shock.
Her heart gave one bound and then stopped.
Her gaze riveted upon the ceiling, her fingers clamped upon the arm of
her chair, she sat rigid and breathless as statuary itself, while her
brain plunged and flounced and refused to obey her will.
Then the spasm passed, and she faced the hideous truth.
The cipher on the ceiling was no illusion.
The hall was fully entitled to be styled ‘A Cheviot Room.’
Appalling reflections came surging into her brain.
Titus. This was his work. And he had been paid money for
conceiving—_this_. There were possibly two other chambers under this
very roof which he had—decorated. More. All over England there were
rooms with chocolate friezes and bright pink doors, bearing the Cheviot
cipher, the hall-mark of style—_the badge of infamy_. As like as not he
had done five or six to-day—_at one hundred guineas apiece_. . . . And
there he was walking about, all cheerful and unsuspecting, while battle,
murder and sudden death at the hands of infuriated clients must be
crouching to spring upon his shoulders. Any moment the storm must break.
Why hadn’t there been protests—riots? Why hadn’t Old Bond Street——
Here her host reappeared to say that a car would be ready in half an
hour.
Blanche tried to thank him and to keep her eyes on the floor. . . .
Twenty-five ghastly minutes went halting by.
Mrs. Cheviot swallowed some tea, toyed with a scone, the very sight of
which choked her, and by superhuman efforts succeeded in keeping the
slippery ball of conversation upon the field of sport. Out of doors, out
of mind. . . .
It was natural that hunting should figure, if late, upon her list.
“My husband used to hunt with the Quorn, and I’ve done a bit with the
Heythrop, but not just lately. It’s so frightfully expensive now.
There’s nothing quite like it, of course.”
“My dear lady,” said Mr. Blatchbourne, “a good day with the hounds is
more physically and mentally exhilarating than any exercise I know. It
brings out the best in every man. All his senses are regaled with the
finest and purest fare. The movement of the horse beneath him, the music
of the pack, the smell of the countryside——”
“And the colour,” cried Blanche excitedly. “You’re perfectly right. No
one can witness a meet without feeling the better for the sight. Why
will men wear pink in the evening? The only place for pink is out in the
open air on the top of a ripping horse. Then it’s just——”
“I agree,” said her host grimly. “Then it’s superb. How does it look
there?”
Blanche started violently. Then as a matter of form she suffered her
gaze to follow the damning finger.
“I—I—frankly, I don’t quite like it,” she stammered. “You know. It
seems out of place.”
“It is,” said Mr. Blatchbourne. “Those doors are of oak.” Mrs. Cheviot
shuddered. “Even if they were of deal, I should not have chosen pink.
Look at the walls,” he continued. Blanche obeyed tremulously. “Above
all, observe the ceiling. And then that chimney-piece. I was away at the
time, but I’m told they rigged up a derrick to get that in place.”
“You—you were away?”
“Unhappily—yes. Otherwise my wife would not have been bamboozled and
betrayed, madam, into seeking and then taking the advice of as arrant a
gang of scoundrels as ever bluffed a fool out of his money.”