Amusement Only Part 1

Amus.e.m.e.nt Only.

by Richard Marsh.

THE LOST d.u.c.h.eSS.

CHAPTER I.

THE d.u.c.h.eSS IS LOST.

"Has the d.u.c.h.ess returned?"

Knowles came further into the room. He had a letter on a salver. When the Duke had taken it, Knowles still lingered. The Duke glanced at him.

"Is an answer required?"

"No, your Grace." Still Knowles lingered. "Something a little singular has happened. The carriage has returned without the d.u.c.h.ess, and the men say that they thought her Grace was in it."

"What do you mean?"

"I hardly understand myself, your Grace. Perhaps you would like to see Barnes."

Barnes was the coachman.

"Send him up." When Knowles had gone, and he was alone, his Grace showed signs of being slightly annoyed. He looked at his watch. "I told her she'd better be in by four. She says that she's not feeling well, and yet one would think that she was not aware of the fatigue entailed in having the Prince to dinner, and a mob of people to follow. I particularly wished her to lie down for a couple of hours."

Knowles ushered in not only Barnes, the coachman, but Moysey, the footman, too. Both these persons seemed to be ill at ease. The Duke glanced at them sharply. In his voice there was a suggestion of impatience.

"What is the matter?"

Barnes explained as best he could.

"If you please, your Grace, we waited for the d.u.c.h.ess outside Cane and Wilson's, the drapers. The d.u.c.h.ess came out, got into the carriage, and Moysey shut the door, and her Grace said, 'Home!' and yet when we got home she wasn't there."

"She wasn't where?"

"Her Grace wasn't in the carriage, your Grace."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Her Grace did get into the carriage; you shut the door, didn't you?"

Barnes turned to Moysey. Moysey brought his hand up to his brow in a sort of military salute--he had been a soldier in the regiment in which, once upon a time, the Duke had been a subaltern:

"She did. The d.u.c.h.ess came out of the shop. She seemed rather in a hurry, I thought. She got into the carriage, and she said, 'Home, Moysey!' I shut the door, and Barnes drove straight home. We never stopped anywhere, and we never noticed nothing happen on the way; and yet when we got home the carriage was empty."

The Duke stared.

"Do you mean to tell me that the d.u.c.h.ess got out of the carriage while you were driving full pelt through the streets without saying anything to you, and without you noticing it?"

"The carriage was empty when we got home, your Grace."

"Was either of the doors open?"

"No, your Grace."

"You fellows have been up to some infernal mischief. You have made a mess of it. You never picked up the d.u.c.h.ess, and you're trying to palm this tale off on to me to save yourselves."

Barnes was moved to adjuration:

"I'll take my Bible oath, your Grace, that the d.u.c.h.ess got into the carriage outside Cane and Wilson's."

Moysey seconded his colleague:

"I will swear to that, your Grace. She got into the carriage, and I shut the door, and she said, 'Home, Moysey!'"

The Duke looked as if he did not know what to make of the story and its tellers.

"What carriage did you have?"

"Her Grace's brougham, your Grace."

Knowles interposed:

"The brougham was ordered because I understood that the d.u.c.h.ess was not feeling very well, and there's rather a high wind, your Grace."

The Duke snapped at him:

"What has that to do with it? Are you suggesting that the d.u.c.h.ess was more likely to jump out of a brougham while it was dashing through the streets than out of any other kind of vehicle?"

The Duke's glance fell on the letter which Knowles had brought him when he first had entered. He had placed it on his writing-table. Now he took it up. It was addressed:

"To His Grace

"The Duke of Datchet.

"Private!

"Very Pressing!!!"

The name was written in a fine, clear, almost feminine hand. The words in the left-hand corner of the envelope were written in a different hand. They were large and bold; almost as though they had been painted with the end of the penholder instead of being written with the pen.

The envelope itself was of an unusual size, and bulged out as though it contained something else besides a letter.

The Duke tore the envelope open. As he did so something fell out of it on to the writing-table. It looked as though it was a lock of a woman's hair. As he glanced at it the Duke seemed to be a trifle startled. The Duke read the letter: