“LO! ’TWAS A GALA NIGHT!”
Paris. And not merely Paris, but Paris _en fête_, Paris decorated,
Paris idle, Paris determined to enjoy itself, and succeeding
brilliantly. Venetian masts of red and gold lined the gay pavements
of the _grand boulevard_ and the Avenue de l’Opéra; and suspended
from these in every direction, transverse and lateral, hung garlands
of flowers whose petals were of coloured paper, and whose hearts were
electric globes that in the evening would burst into flame. The effect
of the city’s toilette reached the extreme of opulence, for no expense
had been spared. Paris was welcoming monarchs, and had spent two
million francs in obedience to the maxim that what is worth doing at
all is worth doing well.
The Grand Hotel, with its eight hundred rooms full of English and
Americans, at the upper end of the Avenue de l’Opéra, looked down at
the Grand Hôtel du Louvre, with its four hundred rooms full of English
and Americans, at the lower end of the Avenue de l’Opéra. These two
establishments had the best views in the whole city; and perhaps the
finest view of all was that obtainable from a certain second floor
window of the Grand Hotel, precisely at the corner of the Boulevard
des Capucines and the Rue Auber. From this window one could see the
boulevards in both directions, the Opéra, the Place de l’Opéra, the
Avenue de l’Opéra, the Rue du Quatre Septembre, and the multitudinous
life of the vivid thoroughfares--the glittering _cafés_, the dazzling
shops, the painted kiosks, the lumbering omnibuses, the gliding trams,
the hooting automobiles, the swift and careless cabs, the private
carriages, the suicidal bicycles, the newsmen, the toy sellers, the
touts, the beggars, and all the holiday crowd, sombre men and radiant
women, chattering, laughing, bustling, staring, drinking, under the
innumerable tricolours and garlands of paper flowers.
That particular view was a millionaire’s view, and it happened to be
the temporary property of Cecil Thorold, who was enjoying it and the
afternoon sun at the open window, with three companions. Eve Fincastle
looked at it with the analytic eye of the journalist, while Kitty
Sartorius, as was quite proper for an actress, deemed it a sort of
frame for herself, as she leaned over the balcony like a Juliet on the
stage. The third guest in Cecil’s sitting-room was Lionel Belmont, the
Napoleonic Anglo-American theatrical manager, in whose crown Kitty
herself was the chief star. Mr. Belmont, a big, burly, good-humoured,
shrewd man of something over forty, said he had come to Paris on
business. But for two days the business had been solely to look after
Kitty Sartorius and minister to her caprices. At the present moment his
share of the view consisted mainly of Kitty; in the same way Cecil’s
share of the view consisted mainly of Eve Fincastle; but this at least
was right and decorous, for the betrothal of the millionaire and the
journalist had been definitely announced. Otherwise Eve would have been
back at work in Fleet Street a week ago.
“The gala performance is to-night, isn’t it?” said Eve, gazing at the
vast and superbly ornamented Opera House.
“Yes,” said Cecil.
“What a pity we can’t be there! I should so have liked to see the young
Queen in evening dress. And they say the interior decorations----”
“Nothing simpler,” said Cecil. “If you want to go, dear, let us go.”
Kitty Sartorius looked round quickly. “Mr. Belmont has tried to get
seats, and can’t. Haven’t you, Bel? You know the whole audience is
invited. The invitations are issued by the Minister of Fine Arts.”
“Still, in Paris, anything can be got by paying for it,” Cecil insisted.
“My dear young friend,” said Lionel Belmont, “I guess if seats were to
be had, I should have struck one or two yesterday. I put no limit on
the price, and I reckon I ought to know what theatre prices run to.
Over at the Metropolitan in New York I’ve seen a box change hands at
two thousand dollars, for one night.”
“Nevertheless----” Cecil began again.
“And the performance starting in six hours from now!” Lionel Belmont
exclaimed. “Not much!”
But Cecil persisted.
“Seen the _Herald_ to-day?” Belmont questioned. “No? Well, listen. This
will interest you.” He drew a paper from his pocket and read: “Seats
for the Opéra Gala. The traffic in seats for the gala performance at
the Opéra during the last Royal Visit to Paris aroused considerable
comment and not a little dissatisfaction. Nothing, however, was
done, and the traffic in seats for to-night’s spectacle, at which
the President and their Imperial Majesties will be present, has, it
is said, amounted to a scandal. Of course, the offer so suddenly
made, five days ago, by Madame Félise and Mademoiselle Malva, the two
greatest living dramatic sopranos, to take part in the performance,
immediately and enormously intensified interest in the affair, for
never yet have these two supreme artists appeared in the same theatre
on the same night. No theatre could afford the luxury. Our readers may
remember that in our columns and in the columns of the _Figaro_ there
appeared four days ago an advertisement to the following effect: ‘_A
box, also two orchestra stalls, for the Opéra Gala, to be disposed
of, owing to illness. Apply, 155, Rue de la Paix._’ We sent four
several reporters to answer that advertisement. The first was offered
a stage-box for seven thousand five hundred francs, and two orchestra
stalls in the second row for twelve hundred and fifty francs. The
second was offered a box opposite the stage on the second tier, and
two stalls in the seventh row. The third had the chance of four stalls
in the back row and a small box just behind them; the fourth was
offered something else. The thing was obviously, therefore, a regular
agency. Everybody is asking: ‘How were these seats obtained? From the
Ministry of Fine Arts, or from the _invités_?’ Echo answers ‘How?’
The authorities, however, are stated to have interfered at last, and
to have put an end to this buying and selling of what should be an
honourable distinction.”
“Bravo!” said Cecil.
“And that’s so!” Belmont remarked, dropping the paper. “I went to 155,
Rue de la Paix myself yesterday, and was told that nothing whatever
was to be had, not at any price.”
“Perhaps you didn’t offer enough,” said Cecil.
“Moreover, I notice the advertisement does not appear to-day. I guess
the authorities have crumpled it up.”
“Still----” Cecil went on monotonously.
“Look here,” said Belmont, grim and a little nettled. “Just to cut it
short, I’ll bet you a two-hundred-dollar dinner at Paillard’s that you
can’t get seats for to-night--not even two, let alone four.”
“You really want to bet?”
“Well,” drawled Belmont, with a certain irony, slightly imitating
Cecil’s manner, “it means something to eat for these ladies.”
“I accept,” said Cecil. And he rang the bell.
II.
“Lecky,” Cecil said to his valet, who had entered the room, “I want you
to go to No. 155, Rue de la Paix, and find out on which floor they are
disposing of seats for the Opéra to-night. When you have found out, I
want you to get me four seats--preferably a box. Understand?”
The servant stared at his master, squinting violently for a few
seconds. Then he replied suddenly, as though light had just dawned on
him. “Exactly, sir. You intend to be present at the gala performance?”
“You have successfully grasped my intention,” said Cecil. “Present my
card.” He scribbled a word or two on a card and gave it to the man.
“And the price, sir?”
“You still have that blank cheque on the Crédit Lyonnais that I gave
you yesterday morning. Use that.”
“Yes, sir. Then there is the question of my French, sir, my feeble
French--a delicate plant.”
“My friend,” Belmont put in. “I will accompany you as interpreter. I
should like to see this thing through.”
Lecky bowed and gave up squinting.
In three minutes (for they had only to go round the corner), Lionel
Belmont and Lecky were in a room on the fourth floor of 155, Rue de la
Paix. It had the appearance of an ordinary drawing-room, save that it
contained an office table; at this table sat a young man, French.
“You wish, messieurs?” said the young man.
“Have the goodness to interpret for me,” said Lecky to the Napoleon of
Anglo-Saxon theatres. “Mr. Cecil Thorold, of the Devonshire Mansion,
London, the Grand Hotel, Paris, the Hôtel Continental, Rome, and the
Ghezireh Palace Hotel, Cairo, presents his compliments, and wishes a
box for the gala performance at the Opéra to-night.”
Belmont translated, while Lecky handed the card.
“Owing to the unfortunate indisposition of a Minister and his wife,”
replied the young man gravely, having perused the card, “it happens
that I have a stage-box on the second tier.”
“You told me yesterday----” Belmont began.
“I will take it,” said Lecky in a sort of French, interrupting his
interpreter. “The price? And a pen.”
“The price is twenty-five thousand francs.”
“Gemini!” Belmont exclaimed in American. “This is Paris, and no
mistake!”
“Yes,” said Lecky, as he filled up the blank cheque, “Paris still
succeeds in being Paris. I have noticed it before, Mr. Belmont, if you
will pardon the liberty.”
The young man opened a drawer and handed to Lecky a magnificent gilt
card, signed by the Minister of Fine Arts, which Lecky hid within his
breast.
“That signature of the Minister is genuine, eh?” Belmont asked the
young man.
“I answer for it,” said the young man, smiling imperturbably.
“The deuce you do!” Belmont murmured.
So the four friends dined at Paillard’s at the rate of about a dollar
and a-half a mouthful, and the mystified Belmont, who was not in the
habit of being mystified, and so felt it, had the ecstasy of paying
the bill.
III.
It was nine o’clock when they entered the magnificent precincts of the
Opéra House. Like everybody else, they went very early--the performance
was not to commence until nine-thirty--in order to see and be seen to
the fullest possible extent. A week had elapsed since the two girls
had arrived from Algiers in Paris, under the escort of Cecil Thorold,
and in that time they had not been idle. Kitty Sartorius had spent
tolerable sums at the best _modistes_, in the Rue de la Paix and the
establishments in the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, while Eve had bought
one frock (a dream, needless to say), and had also been nearly covered
with jewellery by her betrothed. That afternoon, between the bet and
the dinner, Cecil had made more than one mysterious disappearance. He
finally came back with a diamond tiara for his dear journalist. “You
ridiculous thing!” exclaimed the dear journalist, kissing him. It thus
occurred that Eve, usually so severe of aspect, had more jewels than
she could wear, while Kitty, accustomed to display, had practically
nothing but her famous bracelet. Eve insisted on pooling the lot, and
dividing equally, for the gala.
Consequently, the party presented a very pretty appearance as it
ascended the celebrated grand staircase of the Opéra, wreathed to-night
in flowers. Lionel Belmont, with Kitty on his arm, was in high spirits,
uplifted, joyous; but Cecil himself seemed to be a little nervous, and
this nervousness communicated itself to Eve Fincastle--or perhaps Eve
was rather overpowered by her tiara. At the head of the staircase was a
notice requesting everyone to be seated at nine-twenty-five, previous
to the arrival of the President and the Imperial guests of the Republic.
The row of officials at the _controle_ took the expensive gilt card
from Cecil, examined it, returned it, and bowed low with an intimation
that he should turn to the right and climb two floors; and the party
proceeded further into the interior of the great building. The immense
corridors and _foyers_ and stairs were crowded with a collection of the
best-known people in Paris. It was a gathering of all the renowns. The
garish, gorgeous Opéra seemed to be changed that night into something
new and strange. Even those shabby old harridans, the box-openers, the
_ouvreuses_, wore bows of red, white and blue, and smiled effusively in
expectation of tips inconceivably large.
“_Tiens!_” exclaimed the box-opener who had taken charge of Cecil’s
party, as she unlocked the door of the box.
And well might she exclaim, for the box (No. 74--no possible error)
was already occupied by a lady and two gentlemen, who were talking
rather loudly in French! Cecil undoubtedly turned pale, while Lionel
Belmont laughed within his moustache.
“These people have made a mistake,” Cecil was saying to the _ouvreuse_,
when a male official in evening dress approached him with an air of
importance.
“Pardon, monsieur. You are Monsieur Cecil Thorold?”
“I am,” said Cecil.
“Will you kindly follow me? Monsieur the Directeur wishes to see you.”
“You are expected, evidently,” said Lionel Belmont. The girls kept
apart, as girls should in these crises between men.
“I have a ticket for this box,” Cecil remarked to the official. “And I
wish first to take possession of it.”
“It is precisely that point which Monsieur the Directeur wishes to
discuss with Monsieur,” rejoined the official, ineffably suave.
He turned with a wonderful bow to the girls, and added with that
politeness of which the French alone have the secret: “Perhaps, in the
meantime, these ladies would like to see the view of the Avenue de
l’Opéra from the balcony? The illuminations have begun, and the effect
is certainly charming.”
Cecil bit his lip.
“Yes,” he said. “Belmont, take them.”
So, while Lionel Belmont escorted the girls to the balcony, there to
discuss the startling situation and to watch the Imperial party drive
up the resplendent, fairy-like, and unique avenue, Cecil followed the
official.
He was guided along various passages and round unnumbered corners to
the rear part of the colossal building. There, in a sumptuous bureau,
the official introduced him to a still higher official, the Directeur,
who had a decoration and a long, white moustache.
“Monsieur,” said this latter, “I am desolated to have to inform you
that the Minister of Fine Arts has withdrawn his original invitation
for Box No. 74 to-night.”
“I have received no intimation of the withdrawal,” Cecil replied.
“No. Because the original invitation was not issued to you,” said the
Directeur, excited and nervous. “The Minister of Fine Arts instructs
me to inform you that his invitation to meet the President and their
Imperial Majesties cannot be bought and sold.”
“But is it not notorious that many such invitations have been bought
and sold?”
“It is, unfortunately, too notorious.”
Here the Directeur looked at his watch and rang a bell impatiently.
“Then why am I singled out?”
The Directeur gazed blandly at Cecil. “The reason, perhaps, is best
known to yourself,” said he, and he rang the bell again.
“I appear to incommode you,” Cecil remarked. “Permit me to retire.”
“Not at all, I assure you,” said the Directeur. “On the contrary. I am
a little agitated on account of the non-arrival of Mademoiselle Malva.”
A minor functionary entered.
“She has come?”
“No, Monsieur the Directeur.”
“And it is nine-fifteen. _Sapristi!_”
The functionary departed.
“The invitation to Box No. 74,” proceeded the Directeur, commanding
himself, “was sold for two thousand francs. Allow me to hand you notes
for the amount, dear monsieur.”
“But I paid twenty-five thousand,” said Cecil, smiling.
“It is conceivable. But the Minister can only concern himself with the
original figure. You refuse the notes?”
“By no means,” said Cecil, accepting them. “But I have brought here
to-night three guests, including two ladies. Imagine my position.”
“I imagine it,” the Directeur responded. “But you will not deny that
the Minister has always the right to cancel an invitation. Seats ought
to be sold subject to the contingency of that right being exercised.”
At that moment still another official plunged into the room.
“She is not here yet!” he sighed, as if in extremity.
“It is unfortunate,” Cecil sympathetically put in.
“It is more than unfortunate, dear monsieur,” said the Directeur,
gesticulating. “It is unthinkable. The performance _must_ begin at
nine-thirty, and it _must_ begin with the garden scene from ‘Faust,’ in
which Mademoiselle Malva takes _Marguerite_.”
“Why not change the order?” Cecil suggested.
“Impossible. There are only two other items. The first act of
‘Lohengrin,’ with Madame Félise, and the ballet ‘Sylvia.’ We cannot
commence with the ballet. No one ever heard of such a thing. And do you
suppose that Félise will sing before Malva? Not for millions. Not for
a throne. The etiquette of sopranos is stricter than that of Courts.
Besides, to-night we cannot have a German opera preceding a French one.”
“Then the President and their Majesties will have to wait a little,
till Malva arrives,” Cecil said.
“Their Majesties wait! Impossible!”
“Impossible!” echoed the other official, aghast.
Two more officials entered. And the atmosphere of alarm, of being
scotched, of being up a tree of incredible height, the atmosphere which
at that moment permeated the whole of the vast region behind the scenes
of the Paris Opéra, seemed to rush with them into the bureau of the
Directeur and to concentrate itself there.
“Nine-twenty! And she couldn’t dress in less than fifteen minutes.”
“You have sent to the Hôtel du Louvre?” the Directeur questioned
despairingly.
“Yes, Monsieur the Directeur. She left there two hours ago.”
Cecil coughed.
“I could have told you as much,” he remarked, very distinctly.
“What!” cried the Directeur. “You know Mademoiselle Malva?”
“She is among my intimate friends,” said Cecil smoothly.
“Perhaps you know where she is?”
“I have a most accurate idea,” said Cecil.
“Where?”
“I will tell you when I am seated in my box with my friends,” Cecil
answered.
“Dear monsieur,” panted the Directeur, “tell us at once! I give you my
word of honour that you shall have your box.”
Cecil bowed.
“Certainly,” he said. “I may remark that I had gathered information
which led me to anticipate this difficulty with the Minister of Fine
Arts----”
“But Malva, Malva--where is she?”
“Be at ease. It is only nine-twenty-three, and Mademoiselle Malva is
less than three minutes away, and ready dressed. I was observing that
I had gathered information which led me to anticipate this difficulty
with the Minister of Fine Arts, and accordingly I took measures to
protect myself. There is no such thing as absolute arbitrary power,
dear Directeur, even in a Republic, and I have proved it. Mademoiselle
Malva is in room No. 429 at the Grand Hotel, across the road.... Stay,
she will not come without this note.”
He handed out a small, folded letter from his waistcoat pocket.
Then he added: “Adieu, Monsieur the Directeur. You have just time to
reach the State entrance in order to welcome the Presidential and
Imperial party.”
At nine-thirty, Cecil and his friends were ushered by a trinity of
subservient officials into their box, which had been mysteriously
emptied of its previous occupants. And at the same moment the monarchs,
with monarchical punctuality, accompanied by the President, entered
the Presidential box in the middle of the grand tier of the superb
auditorium. The distinguished and dazzling audience rose to its feet,
and the band played the National Anthem.
“You fixed it up then?” Belmont whispered under cover of the National
Anthem. He was beaten, after all.
“Oh, yes!” said Cecil lightly. “A trivial misconception, nothing more.
And I have made a little out of it, too.”
“Indeed! Much?”
“No, not much! Two thousand francs. But you must remember that I have
been less than half an hour in making them.”
The curtain rose on the garden scene from “Faust.”
IV.
“My dear,” said Eve.
When a woman has been definitely linked with a man, either by betrothal
or by marriage, there are moments, especially at the commencement,
when she assumes an air and a tone of absolute exclusive possession of
him. It is a wonderful trick, which no male can successfully imitate,
try how he will. One of these moments had arrived in the history of
Eve Fincastle and her millionaire lover. They sat in a large, deserted
public room, all gold, of the Grand Hotel. It was midnight less a
quarter, and they had just returned, somewhat excited and flushed,
from the glories of the gala performances. During the latter part of
the evening, Eve had been absent from Cecil’s box for nearly half an
hour.
Kitty Sartorius and Lionel Belmont were conversing in an adjoining
_salon_.
“Yes,” said Cecil.
“Are you quite, quite sure that you love me?”
Only one answer is possible to such a question. Cecil gave it.
“That is all very well,” Eve pursued with equal gravity and charm. “But
it was really tremendously sudden, wasn’t it? I can’t think what you
see in me, dearest.”
“My dear Eve,” Cecil observed, holding her hand, “the best things, the
most enduring things, very often occur suddenly.”
“Say you love me,” she persisted.
So he said it, this time. Then her gravity deepened, though she smiled.
“You’ve given up all those--those schemes and things of yours, haven’t
you?” she questioned.
“Absolutely,” he replied.
“My dear, I’m so glad. I never could understand why----”
“Listen,” he said. “What was I to do? I was rich. I was bored. I had
no great attainments. I was interested in life and in the arts, but
not desperately, not vitally. You may, perhaps, say I should have taken
up philanthropy. Well, I’m not built that way. I can’t help it, but
I’m not a born philanthropist, and the philanthropist without a gift
for philanthropy usually does vastly more harm than good. I might have
gone into business. Well, I should only have doubled my millions, while
boring myself all the time. Yet the instinct which I inherited from my
father, the great American instinct to be a little cleverer and smarter
than someone else, drove me to action. It was part of my character, and
one can’t get away from one’s character. So finally I took to these
rather original ‘schemes,’ as you call them. They had the advantage
of being exciting and sometimes dangerous, and though they were often
profitable, they were not too profitable. In short, they amused me and
gave me joy. They also gave me _you_.”
Eve smiled again, but without committing herself.
“But you have abandoned them now completely?” she said.
“Oh, yes,” he answered.
“Then what about this Opéra affair to-night?” She sprang the question
on him sharply. She did her best to look severe, but the endeavour
ended with a laugh.
“I meant to tell you,” he said. “But how--how did you know? How did
you guess?”
“You forget that I am still a journalist,” she replied, “and still on
the staff of my paper. I wished to interview Malva to-night for the
_Journal_, and I did so. It was she who let out things. She thought
I knew all about it; and when she saw that I didn’t she stopped and
advised me mysteriously to consult you for details.”
“It was the scandal at the gala performance last autumn that gave
me an action for making a corner in seats at the very next gala
performance that should ever occur at the Paris Opéra,” Cecil began his
confession. “I knew that seats could be got direct from more or less
minor officials at the Ministry of Fine Arts, and also that a large
proportion of the people invited to these performances were prepared
to sell their seats. You can’t imagine how venal certain circles are
in Paris. It just happened that the details and date of to-night’s
performance were announced on the day we arrived here. I could not
resist the chance. Now you comprehend sundry strange absences of mine
during the week. I went to a reporter on the _Echo de Paris_ whom I
knew, and who knows everybody. And we got out a list of the people
likely to be invited and likely to be willing to sell their seats. We
also opened negotiations at the Ministry.”
“How on earth do these ideas occur to you?” asked Eve.
“How can I tell?” Cecil answered. “It is because they occur to me that
I am I--you see. Well, in twenty-four hours my reporter and two of
his friends had interviewed half the interviewable people in Paris,
and the Minister of Fine Arts had sent out his invitations, and I had
obtained the refusal of over three hundred seats, at a total cost of
about seventy-five thousand francs. Then I saw that my friend the
incomparable Malva was staying at the Ritz, and the keystone idea of
the entire affair presented itself to me. I got her to offer to sing.
Of course, her rival Félise could not be behind her in a patriotic
desire to cement the friendliness of two great nations. The gala
performance blossomed into a terrific boom. We took a kind of office in
the Rue de la Paix. We advertised very discreetly. Every evening, after
bidding you ‘Good-night,’ I saw my reporter and Lecky, and arranged the
development of the campaign. In three days we had sold all our seats,
except one box, which I kept, for something like two hundred thousand
francs.”
“Then this afternoon you merely bought the box from yourself?”
“Exactly, my love. I had meant the surprise of getting a box to come a
little later than it did--say at dinner; but you and Belmont, between
you, forced it on.”
“And that is all?”
“Not quite. The minions of the Minister of Fine Arts were extremely
cross. And they meant to revenge themselves on me by depriving me
of my box at the last moment. However, I got wind of that, and by
the simplest possible arrangement with Malva I protected myself. The
scheme--my last bachelor fling, Eve--has been a great success, and the
official world of Paris has been taught a lesson which may lead to
excellent results.”
“And you have cleared a hundred and twenty-five thousand francs?”
“By no means. The profits of these undertakings are the least part of
them. The expenses are heavy. I reckon the expenses will be nearly
forty thousand francs. Then I must give Malva a necklace, and that
necklace must cost twenty-five thousand francs.”
“That leaves sixty thousand clear?” said Eve.
“Say sixty-two thousand.”
“Why?”
“I was forgetting an extra two thousand made this evening.”
“And your other ‘schemes’?” Eve continued her cross-examination. “How
much have they yielded?”
“The Devonshire House scheme was a dead loss. My dear, why did you
lead me to destroy that fifty thousand pounds? Waste not, want not.
There may come a day when we shall need that fifty thousand pounds, and
then----”
“Don’t be funny,” said Eve. “I am serious--very serious.”
“Well, Ostend and Mr. Rainshore yielded twenty-one thousand pounds net.
Bruges and the bracelet yielded nine thousand five hundred francs.
Algiers and Biskra resulted in a loss of----”
“Never mind the losses,” Eve interrupted. “Are there any more gains?”
“Yes, a few. At Rome last year I somehow managed to clear fifty
thousand francs. Then there was an episode at the Chancellory at
Berlin. And----”
“Tell me the total gains, my love,” said Eve--“the gross gains.”
Cecil consulted a pocket-book.
“A trifle,” he answered. “Between thirty-eight and forty thousand
pounds.”
“My dear Cecil,” the girl said, “call it forty thousand--a million
francs--and give me a cheque. Do you mind?”
“I shall be charmed, my darling.”
“And when we get to London,” Eve finished, “I will hand it over to the
hospitals anonymously.”
He paused, gazed at her, and kissed her.
Then Kitty Sartorius entered, a marvellous vision, with Belmont in
her wake. Kitty glanced hesitatingly at the massive and good-humoured
Lionel.
“The fact is----” said Kitty, and paused.
“We are engaged,” said Lionel. “You aren’t surprised?”
“Our warmest congratulations!” Cecil observed. “No. We can’t truthfully
say that we are staggered. It is in the secret nature of things that a
leading lady must marry her manager--a universal law that may not be
transgressed.”
“Moreover,” said Eve later, in Cecil’s private ear, as they were
separating for the night, “we might have guessed much earlier.
Theatrical managers don’t go scattering five-hundred-pound bracelets
all over the place merely for business reasons.”
“But he only scattered one, my dear,” Cecil murmured.
“Yes, well. That’s what I mean.”
MR. PENFOUND’S TWO BURGLARS.
THE STORY OF HIS WALK WITH THEM.
The chain of circumstances leading to the sudden and unexpected return
of Mr. and Mrs. Penfound from their Continental holiday was in itself
curious and even remarkable, but it has nothing to do with the present
narrative, which begins with the actual arrival of Mr. and Mrs.
Penfound before the portal of their suburban residence, No. 7, Munster
Gardens, at a quarter before midnight on the 30th of August.
It was a detached house with a spacious triangular garden at the back;
it had an air of comfort, of sobriety, of good form, of success; one
divined by looking at it that the rent ran to about £80, and that the
tenant was not a man who had to save up for quarter days. It was a
credit to the street, which upon the whole, with its noble trees and
its pretty curve, is distinctly the best street in Fulham. And, in
fact, No. 7 in every way justified the innocent pride of the Penfounds.
“I can feel cobwebs all over me,” said Mrs. Penfound, crossly, as they
entered the porch and Mr. Penfound took out his latchkey. She was
hungry, hot, and tired, and she exhibited a certain pettishness--a
pettishness which Mr. Penfound, whenever it occurred, found a
particular pleasure in soothing. Mr. Penfound himself was seldom
ruffled.
Most men would have been preoccupied with the discomforts of the
arrival, but not George Penfound. Mr. Penfound was not, and had never
been, of those who go daily into the city by a particular train, and
think the world is coming to an end if the newsagent fails to put the
newspaper on the doorstep before 8 a.m.
Mr. Penfound had lived. He had lived adventurously and he had lived
everywhere. He had slept under the stars and over the throbbing screws
of ocean steamers. He knew the harbours of the British Empire, and the
waste places of the unpeopled West, and the mysterious environs of
foreign cities. He had been first mate of a tramp steamer, wood sawyer
in Ontario, ganger on the Canadian Pacific Railway, clerk at a Rand
mine, and land agent in California.
It was the last occupation that had happened to yield the eighty
thousand dollars which rendered him independent and established him so
splendidly, at the age of forty, in Fulham, the place of his birth.
Thin, shrewd, clear, and kindly, his face was the face of a man who has
learnt the true philosophy of life. He took the world as he found it,
and he found it good.
To such a man an unexpected journey, even though it ended at a deserted
and unprepared home, whose larder proved as empty as his stomach, was
really nothing.
By the time Mr. Penfound had locked up the house, turned out the light
in the hall, and arrived in the bedroom, Mrs. Penfound was fast asleep.
He sat down in the armchair by the window, charmed by the gentle
radiance of the night, and unwilling to go to bed. Like most men who
have seen the world, he had developed the instincts of a poet, and was
something of a dreamer. Half an hour--or it might have been an hour:
poets are oblivious of time--had passed, when into Mr. Penfound’s
visions there entered a sinister element. He straightened himself
stiffly in the chair and listened, smiling.
“By Jove!” he whispered. “I do believe it’s a burglar. I’ll give the
beggar time to get fairly in, and then we’ll have some fun.”
It seemed to him that he heard a few clicking noises at the back of the
house, and then a sound as if something was being shoved hard.
“The dining-room window,” he said.
In a few minutes it became perfectly evident to his trained and acute
ear that a burglar occupied the dining-room, and accordingly he
proceeded to carry out other arrangements.
Removing his boots, he assumed a pair of soft, woollen house slippers
which lay under the bed. Then he went to a chest of drawers, and took
out two revolvers. Handling these lovingly, he glanced once at his
sleeping wife, and, shod in the silent woollen, passed noiselessly out
of the room. By stepping very close to the wall, so as to put as slight
a strain as possible upon the woodwork, he contrived to descend to the
half-landing without causing a sound, but on the half-landing itself
there occurred an awful creak--a creak that seemed to reverberate into
infinite space. Mr. Penfound stopped a second, but, perceiving the
unwisdom of a halt, immediately proceeded.
In that second of consternation he had remembered that only two
chambers of one revolver and one chamber of the other were loaded.
It was an unfortunate mischance. Should he return and load fully?
Preposterous! He remembered with pride the sensation which he had
caused one night ten years before in a private shooting-saloon in
Paris. Three shots to cripple one burglar--for _him_; it was a positive
extravagance of means. And he continued down the stairs, cautiously but
rapidly feeling his way.
The next occurrence brought him up standing at the dining-room door,
which was open. He heard voices in the dining-room. There were, then,
two burglars. Three shots for two burglars? Pooh! Ample! This was what
he heard:--
“Did you drink out of this glass, Jack?”
“Not I. I took a pull out of the bottle.”
“So did I.”
“Well?”
There was a pause. Mr. Penfound discovered that by putting an eye to
the crack at the hinges he could see the burglars, who had lighted one
gas jet, and were sitting at the table. They were his first burglars,
and they rather shocked his preconceived notions of the type. They
hadn’t the look of burglars--no bluish chins, no lowering eyes, no
corduroy, no knotted red handkerchiefs.
One, the younger, dressed in blue serge, with linen collar and a soiled
pink necktie, might have been a city clerk of the lower grade; he had
light, bushy hair and a yellow moustache, his eyes were large and pale
blue, his chin weak; altogether Mr. Penfound decided that had he seen
the young man elsewhere than in that dining-room he would never have
suspected him to be a burglar. The other was of middle age, neatly
dressed in dark grey, but with a ruffian’s face, and black hair, cut
extremely close; he wore a soft felt hat at a negligent poise, and
was smoking a cigarette. He was examining the glass out of which Mr.
Penfound had but recently drunk whisky.
“Look here, Jack,” the man in grey said to his companion. “You haven’t
drunk out of this glass, and I haven’t; but someone’s drunk out of it.
It’s wet.”
The young man paled, and with an oath snatched up the glass to look
at it. Mr. Penfound noticed how suddenly his features writhed into a
complicated expression of cowardice, cunning, and vice. He no longer
doubted that the youth was an authentic burglar. The older man remained
calm.
“This house isn’t so empty as we thought, my boy. There’s someone here.”
“Yes, gentlemen, there is,” remarked Mr. Penfound, quietly stepping
into the room with a revolver upraised in each hand.
The young man dropped the glass, and, after rolling along the table, it
fell on the floor and broke, making a marvellous noise in the silence.
“Well, I’m blowed!” exclaimed the burglar in grey, and turned to the
window.
“Don’t stir; put your hands up, and look slippy--I mean business,” said
Mr. Penfound steadily.
The burglar in grey made two hasty steps to the window. Mr. Penfound’s
revolver spoke--it was the one in his left hand, containing two
shots--and with a muffled howl the burglar suddenly halted, cursing
with pain and anger.
“Hands up, both of you!” repeated Mr. Penfound imperturbably.
A few drops of blood appeared on the left wrist of the older burglar,
showing where he had been hit. With evident pain he raised both hands
to the level of his shoulders; the left hand clearly was useless;
it hung sideways in a peculiar fashion. The youthful criminal was
trembling like a spray of maidenhair, and had his hands high up over
his head.
Mr. Penfound joyfully reflected that no London burglar had ever before
found himself in such a ridiculous position as these two, and he took a
genuine, artistic pleasure in the spectacle.
But what to do next.
The youth began to speak with a whine like that of a beggar.
“Silence!” said Mr. Penfound impressively, and proceeded with his
cogitations, a revolver firm and steady in each hand. The shot
had evidently not wakened his wife, and to disturb her now from a
refreshing and long-needed sleep in order to send her for the police
would not only be unchivalrous, it would disclose a lack of resource, a
certain clumsiness of management, in an affair which Mr. Penfound felt
sure he ought to be able to carry neatly to an effective conclusion.
Besides, if a revolver-shot in the house had not wakened his wife, what
could wake her? He could not go upstairs to her and leave the burglars
to await his return.
Then an idea occurred to Mr. Penfound.
“Now, my men,” he said cheerfully, “I think you understand that I am
not joking, and that I can shoot a bit, and that, whatever the laws of
this country, I _do_ shoot.” He waved the muzzle of one revolver in the
direction of the grey man’s injured wrist.
“Look here, governor,” the owner of the wrist pleaded, “it hurts
dreadful. I shall faint.”
“Faint, then. I know it hurts.”
The man’s face was white with pain, but Mr. Penfound had seen too many
strange sights in his life to be greatly moved by the sight of a rascal
with a bullet in his anatomy.
“To proceed. You will stand side by side and turn round. The young
gentleman will open the window, and you will pass out into the garden.
March! Slower, slower, I say. Halt!”
The burglars were now outside, while Mr. Penfound was still within
the room. He followed them, and in doing so stumbled over a black bag
which lay on the floor. Fortunately he recovered himself instantly. He
noticed lying on the top of the bag a small bunch of skeleton keys,
some putty, and what looked like a thong of raw hide. He also observed
that three small panes of the French window had been forced inwards.
“Turn to your left, go down the pathway, and halt when you come to the
side gate. And don’t hurry, mind you.”
They obeyed, without speaking even to each other. Mr. Penfound had no
fear of their disobedience. He was within two yards of their heels, and
he said to himself that his hands were superbly steady.
It was at this point that Mr. Penfound began to feel hungry, really
hungry. The whisky had appeased the cravings of his stomach for a short
time, but now its demands were imperious. Owing to the exigencies of
the day’s journey he had not had a satisfying meal for thirty hours;
and Mr. Penfound since settling down had developed a liking for regular
meals. However, there was nothing to be done at present.
He therefore proceeded with and safely accomplished his plan of driving
the burglars before him into the street.
“Here,” he thought, “we shall soon be seeing a policeman, or some late
bird who will fetch a policeman.” And he drove his curious team up
Munster Park Gardens towards Fulham Road, that interminable highway,
once rural but rural no longer.
The thoroughfares seemed to be absolutely deserted. Mr. Penfound could
scarcely believe that London, even in the dead of night, could be so
lonely. The gas-lamps shone steady in the still, warm air, and above
them the star-studded sky, with a thin sickle moon, at which, however,
beautiful as it was, Mr. Penfound could not look. His gaze was fixed
on the burglars. As he inspected their backs he wondered what their
thoughts were.
He felt that in their place he should have been somewhat amused by the
humour of the predicament. But their backs showed no sign of feeling,
unless it were that of resignation. The older man had dropped his
injured arm, with Mr. Penfound’s tacit consent, and it now hung loose
by his side.
The procession moved slowly eastward along Fulham Road, the two
burglars first, silent, glum, and disgusted, and Mr. Penfound with his
revolvers close behind.
Still no policeman, no wayfarer. Mr. Penfound began to feel a little
anxious. And his hunger was insufferable. This little procession of his
could not move for ever. Something must occur, and Mr. Penfound said
that something must occur quickly. He looked up at the houses with a
swift glance, but these dark faces of brick, all with closed eyelids,
gave him no sign of encouragement. He thought of firing his revolver
in order to attract attention, but remembered in time that if he did
so he would have only one shot left for his burglars, an insufficient
allowance in case of contingencies.
But presently, as the clock of Fulham parish church struck three, Mr.
Penfound beheld an oasis of waving palms and cool water in this desert;
that is to say, he saw in the distance one of those coffee-stalls which
just before midnight mysteriously dot themselves about London, only
to disappear again at breakfast time. The burglars also saw it, and
stopped almost involuntarily.
“Get on now,” said Mr. Penfound gruffly, “and stop five paces _past_
the coffee-stall. D’ye hear?”
“Yes, sir,” whined the young burglar.
“Ay,” remarked the old burglar coolly.
As Mr. Penfound approached the coffee-stall, he observed that it was no
ordinary coffee-stall. It belonged to the aristocracy of coffee-stalls.
It was painted a lovely deep crimson, and on this crimson, amid
flowers and scrolls, had been inscribed the names of the delicacies
within:--Tea, coffee, cocoa, rolls, sandwiches, toast, sausages, even
bacon and eggs. Mr. Penfound’s stomach called aloud within him at the
rumour of these good things.
When the trio arrived, the stallkeeper happened to be bending over a
tea-urn, and he did not notice the halt of the procession until Mr.
Penfound spoke.
“I say,” Mr. Penfound began, holding the revolvers about the level of
his top waistcoat button, and with his eyes fixed on the burglars--“I
say!”
“Tea or coffee?” asked the stallkeeper shortly, looking up.
“Neither--that is, at present,” replied Mr. Penfound sweetly. “The fact
is, I’ve got two burglars here.”
“Two _what_--where?”
Mr. Penfound then explained the whole circumstances. “And I want you to
fetch a couple of policemen.”
The stallkeeper paused a moment. He was a grim fellow, so Mr. Penfound
gathered from the corner of his eye.
“Well, that’s about the best story as I ever ’eard,” the stallkeeper
said. “And you want me to fetch a policeman?”
“Yes; and I hope you’ll hurry up. I’m tired of holding these revolvers.”
“And I’m to leave my stall, am I?”
“Certainly.”
The stallkeeper placed the first finger of his left hand upright
against his nose.
“Well, I just ain’t then. What d’ye take me for? A bloomin’ owl? Look
’ere, mister: no kid! Nigh every night some jokers tries to get me away
from my stall, so as they can empty it and run off. But I ain’t been in
this line nineteen year for nuthin’. No, you go and take yer tale and
yer pistols and yer bloomin’ burglars somewhere else. ’Ear?”
“As you please,” said Mr. Penfound, with dignity. “Only I’ll wait here
till a policeman comes, or someone. You will then learn that I have
told you the truth. How soon will a policeman be along?”
“Might be a ’our, might be more. There ain’t likely to be no other
people till four-thirty or thereabouts; that’s when my trade begins.”
Mr. Penfound was annoyed. His hunger, exasperated by the exquisite
odours of the stall, increased every second, and the prospect of
waiting an hour, even half an hour, was appalling.
Another idea occurred to him.
“Will you,” he said to the stallkeeper, “kindly put one of those
sausages into my mouth? I daren’t loose these revolvers.”
“Not till I sees yer money.”
Hunger made Mr. Penfound humble, and he continued--
“Will you come round and take the money out of my pocket?”
“No, I won’t. I don’t leave this ’ere counter. I know yer dodges.”
“Very well, I will wait.”
“Steady on, governor. You aren’t the only chap that’s hungry.”
Mr. Penfound turned sharply at the voice. It was the elder burglar
who spoke, and the elder burglar had faced him and was approaching
the stall, regardless of revolvers. Mr. Penfound noticed a twinkle in
the man’s eye, a faint appreciation of the fact that the situation
was funny, and Mr. Penfound gave way to a slight smile. He was being
disobeyed flatly, but for the life of him he could not shoot. Besides,
there was no occasion to shoot, as the burglar was certainly making no
attempt to escape. The fellow was brave enough, after all.
“Two slabs and a pint o’ thick,” he said to the stallkeeper, and
was immediately served with a jug of coffee and two huge pieces of
bread-and-butter, for which he flung down twopence.
Mr. Penfound was astounded--he was too astounded to speak--by the
coolness of this criminal.
“Look here,” the elder burglar continued, quietly handing one of the
pieces of bread-and-butter to his companion in sin, who by this time
had also crept up, “you can put down them revolvers and tuck in till
the peeler comes along. We know when we’re copped, and we aren’t going
to skip. You tuck in, governor.”
“Give it a name,” said the stallkeeper, with an eye to business.
Mr. Penfound, scarcely knowing what he did or why he did it, put down
one revolver and then the other, fished a shilling from his pocket, and
presently was engaged in the consumption of a ham sandwich and coffee.
“You’re a cool one,” he said at length, rather admiringly, to the elder
burglar.
“So are you,” said the elder burglar; and he and Mr. Penfound both
glanced somewhat scornfully at the other burglar, undersized, cringing,
pale.
“Ever been caught before?” asked Mr. Penfound pleasantly.
“What’s that got to do with you?”
The retort was gruff, final--a snub, and Mr. Penfound felt it as such.
He had the curious sensation that he was in the presence of a superior
spirit, a stronger personality than his own.
“Here’s a policeman,” remarked the stallkeeper casually, and they all
listened, and heard the noise of regular footfalls away round a distant
corner.
Mr. Penfound struggled inwardly with a sudden overmastering impulse,
and then yielded.
“You can go,” he said quietly to the elder burglar, “so clear off
before the policeman sees you.”
“Straight?” the man said, looking him in the eyes to make sure there
was no joking.
“Straight, my friend.... Here, shake.”
So it happened that Mr. Penfound and the elder burglar shook hands. The
next instant Mr. Penfound was alone with the stallkeeper; the other
two, with the celerity born of practice, had vanished into the night.
“Did you ever see such a man?” said Mr. Penfound to the stallkeeper,
putting the revolvers in his pocket, and feeling strangely happy, as
one who has done a good action.
“Yer don’t kid me,” was the curt reply. “It was all a plant. Want
anythink else? Because if not, ye’d best go.”
“Yes, I do,” said Mr. Penfound, for he had thought of his wife. He
spent sevenpence in various good things, and was just gathering his
purchases together when the policeman appeared.
“Good night, officer,” he called out blithely, and set off to run home,
as though for his life.
As he re-entered the bedroom at No. 7 his wife sat up in bed, a
beautiful but accusing figure.
“George,” she said, “where have you been?”
“My love,” he answered, “I’ve been out into the night to get you this
sausage, and this cake, and this sandwich. Eat them. They will do you
good.”
MIDNIGHT AT THE GRAND BABYLON.
I.
Well, said the doctor, you say I’ve been very secretive lately. Perhaps
I have. However, I don’t mind telling you--just you fellows--the whole
history of the affair that has preoccupied me. I shan’t assert that
it’s the most curious case in all my experience. My experience has been
pretty varied, and pretty lively, as you know, and cases are curious
in such different ways. Still, a poisoning business is always a bit
curious, and this one was extremely so. It isn’t often that a person
who means to commit murder by poison calls in a physician to assist him
and deliberately uses the unconscious medico as his tool. Yet that is
exactly what happened. It isn’t often that a poisoner contrives to hit
on a poison which is at once original, almost untraceable, and to be
obtained from any chemist without a doctor’s prescription. Yet that,
too, is exactly what happened. I can assure you that the entire episode
was a lesson to me. It opened my eyes to the possibilities which lie
ready to the hand of a really intelligent murderer in this twentieth
century. People talk about the masterpieces of poisoning in the middle
ages. Pooh! Second-rate! They didn’t know enough in the middle ages
to achieve anything which a modern poisoner with genius would deem
first-rate; they simply didn’t know enough. Another point in the matter
which forcibly struck me was the singular usefulness of a big London
hotel to a talented criminal. You can do precisely what you please in a
big hotel, and nobody takes the least notice. You wander in, you wander
out, and who cares? You are only an item in a crowd. And when you have
reached the upper corridors you are as lost to pursuit and observation
as a needle in a haystack. You may take two rooms, one after the other,
in different names, and in different parts of the hotel; the servants
and officials will be none the wiser, because the second floor knows
not the third, nor the third the fourth; you may oscillate between
those two rooms in a manner to puzzle Inspector Anderson himself. And
you are just as secure in your apartments as a mediæval baron in his
castle--yes, and more! On that night there were over a thousand guests
in the Grand Babylon Hotel (there was a ball in the Gold Rooms, and a
couple of banquets); and in the midst of all that diverse humanity,
unperceived, unsuspected, a poignant and terrible drama was going on,
and things so occurred that I tumbled right into it. Well, I’ll tell
you.
II.
I was called in to the Grand Babylon about nine p.m.; suite No. 63,
second floor, name of Russell. The outer door of the suite was opened
for me by a well-dressed woman of thirty or so, slim, with a face
expressive and intelligent rather than handsome. I liked her face--I
was attracted by its look of honesty and alert good-nature.
“Good evening, doctor,” she said. She had a charming low voice, as she
led me into a highly-luxurious drawing-room. “My name is Russell, and I
wish you to see a young friend of mine who is not well.” She hesitated
and turned to an old bald-headed man, who stood looking out of the
window at the twilight panorama of the Thames. “My friend’s solicitor,
Mr. Dancer,” she explained. We bowed, Mr. Dancer and I.
“Nothing serious, I hope,” I remarked.
“No, no!” said Miss Russell.
Nevertheless, she seemed to me to be extremely nervous and anxious, as
she preceded me into the bedroom, a chamber quite as magnificent as the
drawing-room.
On the bed lay a beautiful young girl. Yes, you may laugh, you fellows,
but she was genuinely beautiful. She smiled faintly as we entered. Her
features had an ashy tint, and tiny drops of cold perspiration stood on
the forehead. However, she certainly wasn’t very ill--I could see that
in a moment, and I fixed my conversational tone accordingly.
“Do you feel as if you could breathe freely, but that if you did it
would kill you?” I inquired, after I had examined her. And she nodded,
smiling again. Miss Russell also smiled, evidently pleased that I had
diagnosed the case so quickly.
My patient was suffering from a mild attack of pseudo-angina, nothing
worse. Not angina pectoris, you know--that’s usually associated with
old age. Pseudo-angina is a different thing. With a weak heart, it
may be caused by indigestion. The symptoms are cardiac spasms, acute
pain in the chest, a strong disinclination to make even the smallest
movement, and a state of mental depression, together with that queer
fancy about breathing. The girl had these symptoms, and she also had a
headache and a dicrotism of the pulse--two pulsations instead of one,
not unusual. I found that she had been eating a too hearty dinner, and
that she had suffered from several similar attacks in the immediate
past.
“You had a doctor in before?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Miss Russell. “But he was unable to come to-night, and as
your house is so near we sent for you.”
“There is no danger whatever--no real cause for anxiety,” I summed up.
“I will have some medicine made up instantly.”
“Trinitrin?” demanded Miss Russell.
“Yes,” I answered, a little astonished at this readiness. “Your regular
physician prescribed it?”
(I should explain to you that trinitrin is nothing but nitro-glycerine
in a non-explosive form.)
“I think it was trinitrin,” Miss Russell replied, with an appearance
of doubtfulness. “Perhaps you will write the prescription and I will
despatch a messenger at once. I should be obliged, doctor, if you would
remain with us until--if you would remain with us.”
“Decidedly!” I said. “I will remain with pleasure. But do accept my
assurance,” I added, gazing at her face, so anxious and apprehensive,
“that there is no cause for alarm.”
She smiled and concurred. But I could see that I had not convinced her.
And I began to suspect that she was not after all so intelligent as I
had imagined. My patient, who was not now in any pain, lay calmly, with
closed eyes.
III.
Do not forget the old bald-headed lawyer in the drawing-room.
“I suppose you are often summoned to the Grand Babylon, sir, living,
as you do, just round the corner,” he remarked to me somewhat
pompously. He had a big nose and a habit of staring at you over his
eye-glasses with his mouth wide-open, after having spoken. We were
alone together in the drawing-room. I was waiting for the arrival of
the medicine, and he was waiting for--I didn’t know what he was waiting
for.
“Occasionally. Not often,” I responded. “I am called more frequently to
the Majestic, over the way.”
“Ah, just so, just so,” he murmured.
I could see that he meant to be polite in his high and dry antique
legal style; and I could see also that he was very bored in that
hotel drawing-room. So I proceeded to explain the case to him, and to
question him discreetly about my patient and Miss Russell.
“You are, of course, aware, sir, that the young lady is Miss Spanton,
Miss Adelaide Spanton?” he said.
“What? Not ‘the’ Spanton?”
“Precisely, sir. The daughter of Edgar Spanton, my late client, the
great newspaper proprietor.”
“And this Miss Russell?”
“Miss Russell was formerly Miss Adelaide’s governess. She is now her
friend, and profoundly attached to the young lady; a disinterested
attachment, so far as I can judge, though naturally many people
will think otherwise. Miss Adelaide is of a very shy and retiring
disposition; she has no other friends, and she has no near relatives.
Save for Miss Russell she is, sir, if I may so phrase it, alone in the
world.”
“But Miss Spanton is surely very wealthy?”
“You come to the point, sir. If my young client reaches her
twenty-first birthday she will be the absolute mistress of the whole of
her father’s fortune. You may have noticed in the public press that I
swore his estate at more than three millions.”
“And how far is Miss Spanton from her twenty-first birthday?” I
demanded.
The old lawyer glanced at his watch.
“Something less than three hours. At midnight she will have legally
entered on her 22nd year.”
“I see,” I said. “Now I can understand Miss Russell’s anxiety, which
refuses to be relieved even by my positive assurance. No doubt Miss
Russell has worked herself up into a highly nervous condition. And may
I inquire what will happen--I mean, what would have happened, if Miss
Spanton had not reached her majority?”
“The entire estate would have passed to a cousin, a Mr. Samuel Grist,
of Melbourne. I daresay you know the name. Mr. Grist is understood
to be the leading theatrical manager in Australia. Speaking as one
professional man to another, sir, I may venture to remark that Mr.
Grist’s reputation is more than a little doubtful--you may have
heard--many transactions and adventures. Ha, ha! Still, he is my late
client’s sole surviving relative, except Miss Adelaide. I have never
had the pleasure of meeting him; he confines himself exclusively to
Australia.”
“This night then,” I laughed, “will see the end of any hopes which Mr.
Grist may have entertained.”
“Exactly, sir,” the lawyer agreed. “It will also see the end of Miss
Russell’s immediate anxieties. Upon my word, since Mr. Spanton’s
regrettable death, she has been both father and mother to my
lonely young client. A practical woman, sir, Miss Russell! And the
excessiveness of her apprehensions, if I may so phrase it, must be
excused. She has begged me to remain here till midnight, in order
that I may witness to Miss Spanton’s--er--vitality, and also in order
to obtain Miss Spanton’s signature to certain necessary documents. I
should not be surprised, sir, if she requested you also to remain. She
is not a woman to omit precautions.”
“I’m afraid I can’t stop till twelve,” I said. The conversation ceased,
and I fell into meditation.
I do not mind admitting that I was deeply impressed by what I will call
the romantic quality of the situation. I thought of old Spanton, who
had begun with something less than nothing and died virtually the owner
of three daily papers and twenty-five weeklies and monthlies. I thought
of Spantons, Ltd., and their colossal offices spreading half round
Salisbury Square. Why, I even had a copy of the extra special edition
of the _Evening Gazette_ in my pocket! Do any of you fellows remember
Spanton starting the _Evening Gazette_? He sold three hundred thousand
the first day. And now old Spanton was dead--you know he died of drink,
and there was nothing left of the Spanton blood except this girl
lying there on the bed, and the man in Australia. And all the Spanton
editors, and the Spanton sub-editors, and the Spanton artists, and the
Spanton reporters and compositors, and the Spanton rotary presses, and
the Spanton paper mills, and the Spanton cyclists, were slaving and
toiling to put eighty thousand a year into this girl’s purse. And there
she was, feeble and depressed, and solitary, except for Miss Russell,
and the man in Australia perhaps hoping she would die; and there was
Miss Russell, worrying and fussing and apprehending and fearing. And
the entire hotel oblivious of the romantic, I could almost say the
pathetic, situation. And then I thought of Miss Spanton’s future,
burdened with those three millions, and I wondered if those three
millions would buy her happiness.
“Here is the medicine, doctor,” said Miss Russell, entering the
drawing-room hurriedly, and handing me the bottle with the chemist’s
label on it. I went with her into the bedroom. The beautiful
Adelaide Spanton was already better, and she admitted as much when
I administered the medicine--two minims of a one per cent. solution
of trinitrin, otherwise nitro-glycerine, the usual remedy for
pseudo-angina.
Miss Russell took the bottle from my hand, corked it and placed it on
the dressing-table. Shortly afterwards I left the hotel. The lawyer had
been right in supposing that Miss Russell would ask me to stay, but I
was unable to do so. I promised, however, to return in an hour, all the
while insisting that there was not the slightest danger for the patient.
IV.
It was 10.30 when I came back.
“Second floor!” I said carelessly to the lift boy, and he whirled me
upwards; the Grand Babylon lifts travel very fast.
“Here you are, sir,” he murmured respectfully, and I stepped out.
“Is this the second floor?” I asked suddenly.
“Beg pardon! I thought you said seventh, sir.”
“It’s time you were in bed, my lad!” was my retort, and I was just
re-entering the lift when I caught sight of Miss Russell in the
corridor. I called to her, thinking she would perhaps descend with
me, but she did not hear, and so I followed her down the corridor,
wondering what was her business on the seventh floor. She opened a door
and disappeared into a room.
“Well?” I heard a sinister voice exclaim within the room, and then the
door was pushed to; it was not latched.
“I did say the seventh!” I called to the lift-boy, and he vanished with
his machine.
The voice within the room startled me. It gave me furiously to think,
as the French say. With a sort of instinctive unpremeditated action I
pressed gently against the door till it stood ajar about an inch. And I
listened.
“It’s a confounded mysterious case to me!” the voice was saying, “that
that dose the other day didn’t finish her. We’re running it a dashed
sight too close! Here, take this--it’s all ready, label and everything.
Substitute the bottles. I’ll run no risks this time. One dose will do
the trick inside half an hour, and on that I’ll bet my boots!”
“Very well,” said Miss Russell, quite calmly. “It’s pure trinitrin, is
it?”
“You’re the coolest customer that I ever struck!” the voice exclaimed,
in an admiring tone. “Yes, it’s pure trinitrin--beautiful, convenient
stuff! Looks like water, no taste, very little smell, and so volatile
that all the doctors on the Medical Council couldn’t trace it at a
post-mortem. Besides the doctor prescribed a solution of trinitrin, and
you got it from the chemist, and in case there’s a rumpus we can shove
the mistake on to the chemist’s dispenser, and a fine old row he’ll get
into. By the way, what’s the new doctor like?”
“Oh! So-so!” said Miss Russell, in her even tones.
“It’s a good thing on the whole, perhaps, that I arranged that carriage
accident for the first one!” the hard, sinister voice remarked. “One
never knows. Get along now at once, and don’t look so anxious. Your
face belies your voice. Give us a kiss!”
“To-morrow!” said Miss Russell.
I hurried away, as it were drunk, overwhelmed with horror and
amazement, and turning a corner so as to avoid discovery, reached the
second floor by the staircase. I did not wish to meet Miss Russell in
the lift.
My first thought was not one of alarm for Adelaide Spanton--of course,
I knew I could prevent the murder--but of profound sorrow that Miss
Russell should have proved to be a woman so unspeakably wicked. I swore
never to trust a woman’s face again. I had liked her face. Then I dwelt
on the chance, the mere chance, my careless pronunciation, a lift-boy’s
error, which had saved the life of the poor millionaire girl. And
lastly I marvelled at the combined simplicity and ingenuity of the
plot. The scoundrel upstairs--possibly Samuel Grist himself--had taken
the cleverest advantage of Miss Spanton’s tendency to pseudo-angina.
What could be more clever than to poison with the physician’s own
medicine? Very probably the girl’s present attack had been induced
by an artful appeal to her appetite; young women afflicted as she
was are frequently just a little greedy. And I perceived that the
villain was correct in assuming that nitro-glycerine would never be
traced at a post-mortem save in the smallest possible quantity--just
such a quantity as I had myself prescribed. He was also right in his
assumption that the pure drug would infallibly kill in half an hour.
I pulled myself together, and having surreptitiously watched Miss
Russell into Suite No. 63, I followed her. When I arrived at the
bedroom she was pouring medicine from a bottle; a maid stood at the
foot of the bed.
“I am just giving the second dose,” said Miss Russell easily to me.
“What a nerve!” I said to myself, and aloud: “By all means.”
She measured the dose, and approached the bed without a tremor.
Adelaide Spanton opened her mouth.
“Stop!” I cried firmly. “We’ll delay that dose for half an hour. Kindly
give me the glass!” I took the glass from Miss Russell’s passive
fingers. “And I would like to have a word with you now, Miss Russell!”
I added.
The maid went swiftly from the room.
V.
The old bald-headed lawyer had gone down to the hotel smoking-saloon
for a little diversion, and we faced each other in the
drawing-room--Miss Russell and I. The glass was still in my hand.
“And the new doctor is so-so, eh?” I remarked.
“What do you mean?” she faltered.
“I think you know what I mean,” I retorted. “I need only tell you that
by a sheer chance I stumbled upon your atrocious plot--the plot of that
scoundrel upstairs. All you had to do was to exchange the bottles, and
administer pure trinitrin instead of my prescribed solution of it,
and Miss Spanton would be dead in half an hour. The three millions
would go to the Australian cousin, and you would doubtless have your
reward--say, a cool hundred thousand, or perhaps marriage. And you were
about to give the poison when I stopped you.”
“I was not!” she cried. And she fell into a chair, and hid her face in
her hands, and then looked, as it were longingly, towards the bedroom.
“Miss Spanton is in no danger,” I said sneeringly. “She will be quite
well to-morrow. So you were not going to give the poison, after all?” I
laughed.
“I beg you to listen, doctor,” she said at length, standing up. “I am
in a most invidious position. Nevertheless, I think I can convince you
that your suspicions against me are unfounded.”
I laughed again. But secretly I admired her for acting the part so well.
“Doubtless!” I interjected sarcastically, in the pause.
“The man upstairs is Samuel Grist, supposed to be in Australia. It
is four months ago since I, who am Adelaide Spanton’s sole friend,
discovered that he was scheming her death. The skill of his methods
appalled me. There was nothing to put before the police, and yet
I had a horrible fear of the worst. I felt that he would stop at
nothing--absolutely at nothing. I felt that, if we ran away, he would
follow us. I had a presentiment that he would infallibly succeed, and I
was haunted by it day and night. Then an idea occurred to me--I would
pretend to be his accomplice. And I saw suddenly that that was the
surest way--the sole way, of defeating him. I approached him and he
accepted the bait. I carried out all his instructions, except the fatal
instructions. It is by his orders, and for his purposes, that we are
staying in this hotel. Heavens! To make certain of saving my darling
Adelaide, I have even gone through the farce of promising to marry him!”
“And do you seriously expect me to believe this?” I asked coldly.
“Should I have had the solicitor here?” she demanded, “if I had really
meant--meant to----”
She sobbed momentarily, and then regained control of herself.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but it occurs to me that the brain that
was capable of deliberately arranging a murder to take place in the
presence of the doctor might have some hidden purpose in securing also
the presence of the solicitor at the performance.”
“Mr. Grist is unaware that the solicitor is here. He has been informed
that Mr. Dancer is my uncle, and favourable to the--to the----” she
stopped, apparently overcome.
“Oh, indeed!” I ejaculated, adding: “And after all you did not mean to
administer this poison! I suppose you meant to withdraw the glass at
the last instant?”
“It is not poison,” she replied.
“Not poison?”
“No. I did not exchange the bottles. I only pretended to.”
“There seems to have been a good deal of pretending,” I observed. “By
the way, may I ask why you were giving this stuff, whether it is poison
or not, to my patient? I do not recollect that I ordered a second dose.”
“For the same reason that I pretended to change the bottle. For the
benefit of the maid whom we saw just now in the bedroom.”
“And why for the benefit of the maid?”
“Because I found out this morning that she is in the pay of Grist.
That discovery accounts for my nervousness to-night about Adelaide. By
this time the maid has probably told Mr. Grist what has taken place,
and, and--I shall rely on your help if anything should happen, doctor.
Surely, surely, you believe me?”
“I regret to say, madam,” I answered, “that I find myself unable to
believe you at present. But there is a simple way of giving credence
to your story. You state that you did not exchange the bottles. This
liquid, then, is the medicine prescribed by me, and it is harmless.
Oblige me by drinking it.”
And I held the glass towards her.
She took it.
“Fool!” I said to myself, as soon as her fingers had grasped it. “She
will drop it on the floor, and an invaluable piece of evidence will be
destroyed.”
But she did not drop it on the floor. She drank it at one gulp, and
looked me in the eyes, and murmured, “Now do you believe me?”
“Yes,” I said. And I did.
At the same moment her face changed colour, and she sank to the ground.
“What have I drunk?” she moaned. The glass rolled on the carpet,
unbroken.
Miss Russell had in fact drunk a full dose of pure trinitrin. I
recognised all the symptoms at once. I rang for assistance. I got
a stomach pump. I got ice, and sent for ergot and for atropine. I
injected six minims of the Injectis Ergotini Hypodermica. I despaired
of saving her; but I saved her, after four injections. I need not
describe to you all the details. Let it suffice that she recovered.
“Then you did exchange the bottles?” I could not help putting this
question to her as soon as she was in a fit state to hear it.
“I swear to you that I had not meant to,” she whispered. “In my
nervousness I must have confused them. You have saved Adelaide’s life.”
“I have saved yours, anyway,” I said.
“But you believe me?”
“Yes,” I said; and the curious thing is that I did believe her. I was
convinced, and I am convinced, that she did not mean to exchange the
bottles.
“Listen!” she exclaimed. We could hear Big Ben striking twelve.
“Midnight,” I said.
She clutched my hand with a swift movement. “Go and see that my
Adelaide lives,” she cried almost hysterically.
I opened the door between the two rooms and went into the sleeping
chamber.
“Miss Spanton is dozing quietly,” I said, on my return.
“Thank God!” Miss Russell murmured. And then old bald-headed Mr. Dancer
came into the room, blandly unconscious of all that had passed during
his sojourn in the smoking saloon.
When I left the precincts of the Grand Babylon at one o’clock, the
guests were beginning to leave the Gold Rooms, and the great courtyard
was a scene of flashing lights, and champing horses, and pretty
laughing women.
“What a queer place a hotel is!” I thought.
Neither Mr. Grist nor the mysterious maid was seen again in
London. Possibly they consoled each other. The beautiful Adelaide
Spanton--under my care, ahem!--is completely restored to health.
Yes, I am going to marry her. No, not the beautiful Adelaide, you
duffers--besides she is too young for my middle age--but Miss Russell.
Her Christian name is Ethel. Do you not like it? As for the beautiful
Adelaide, there is now a viscount in the case.
THE POLICE STATION.
Lord Trent has several times remarked to me that I am a philosopher.
And I am one. I have guided my life by four rules: To keep my place,
to make others keep theirs, to save half my income, and to beware of
women. The strict observance of these rules has made me (in my station)
a successful and respected man. Once, and only once, I was lax in my
observance, and that single laxity resulted in a most curious and
annoying adventure, which I will relate.
It was the fourth rule that I transgressed. I did not beware of a
woman. The woman was Miss Susan Berry, lady’s maid to the Marchioness
of Cockfosters.
The Cockfosters family is a very old one. To my mind its traditions are
superior to anything in the peerage of Great Britain; but then I may
be prejudiced. I was brought up in the Cockfosters household, first
at Cockfosters Castle in Devon, and afterwards at the well-known town
house at the south-east corner of Eaton Square.