Devil's Dice Part 8

"The originals of the portraits gave us sittings here on the date I have mentioned," he said, handing me the packet courteously, putting aside the frame, and leaving me in order to attend to another customer.

The announcement was incredible. It staggered belief. Emerging from the shop, I jumped into a cab and gave the man the address in Gloucester Square. Then, as we drove along, I took out the photograph of my well-beloved and examined it for a long time closely. Yes, there was no mistake about her ident.i.ty. The same sweet, well-remembered face, with its clear, trusting eyes looked out upon me, the same half-sad expression that had so puzzled me. I raised the cold, polished card to my lips and reverently kissed it. Presently the cab drew up suddenly, and I found myself before a wide portico extending across the pavement to the curb, in front of a rather gloomy, solid-looking mansion.

Alighting, I crossed to the door, and as I did so counted the steps.

There were three, the same number that I remembered ascending on that eventful night I had raised my hand to ring the visitors' bell when suddenly a voice behind me uttered my name. It sounded familiar, and I looked round hastily. As I turned, the Countess of Fyneshade, warmly clad in smart sealskin coat and neat seal toque trimmed with sable, confronted me. Standing upon the pavement beneath the wide gloomy portico, she was smiling amusedly at the sudden start I had given on hearing my name.

"I declare you've turned quite pale, Stuart," she cried with that gay, irresponsible air and high-pitched voice habitual to her. "You gave such a jump when I spoke that one would think you had been detected in the act of committing a burglary, or some other crime equally dreadful."

"I really beg your pardon," I exclaimed quickly, descending the steps and raising my hat. "I confess I didn't notice you." Then, for the first time, I observed standing a few yards from her a slim, well-dressed young man in long dark overcoat and silk hat.

"Gilbert," she said, turning to him, "you've not met Mr Ridgeway before, I believe. Allow me to introduce you--Mr Gilbert Sternroyd, Mr Stuart Ridgeway, one of my oldest friends."

We uttered mutual conventionalities, but an instant later, when my eyes met his, the words froze upon my lips. The Countess's companion was the original of the photograph that had been exhibited at my dead love's request in the same frame as her own.

Of what words I uttered I have no remembrance. Bewildered by this strange and unexpected encounter, on the very threshold of the mysterious house that for months I had been striving in vain to discover, I felt my senses whirl. Only by dint of summoning all my self-possession I preserved a calm demeanour. That Mabel should have admitted acquaintance with the strange and rather shady person who had met me at Richmond was curious enough, but her friendship with Sybil's whilom companion was a fact even more incomprehensible.

An hour ago I had discovered the picture of this man called Sternroyd, yet here he stood before me in the flesh, accompanied by the one person of my acquaintance who knew that nameless man who had inveigled me to this house of shadows. Heedless of Mabel's amusing gossip, I surveyed her companion's face calmly, satisfying myself that every feature agreed with the counterfeit presentment I carried in my pocket. The portrait was strikingly accurate, even his curiously-shaped scarf-pin in the form of a pair of crossed daggers with diamond hilts being shown in the picture. He was tall, fair, of fresh complexion, aged about twenty-four, with grey eyes rather deeply set, and a scanty moustache a little ragged. Lithe, active, and upright, his bearing was distinctly athletic, although his speech was a trifle languid and affected. What, I wondered, had been the nature of his relations with Sybil? The horrifying thought flashed across my mind that he might have been her lover, but next second I scorned such a suggestion, convinced that she had been devoted to me alone.

Yet how could I reconcile the statement of the photographer that the portrait had only been taken a few weeks with my own personal investigation that she at that time was dead? Had I not, alas! kissed her cold brow and chafed her thin dead hands, hoping to bring back to them the glow of life? Had I not raised her gloved arm only to find it stiffening in death? The remembrance of that fateful night chilled my blood.

"Who are you calling upon, Stuart?" the Countess asked, her light words bringing me at last back to consciousness of my surroundings.

"Upon--upon friends," I stammered.

"Friends! Well, they can't live here," she observed incredulously.

"They do," I answered. "This is number seventy-nine."

"True, but the place is empty." She laughed.

I glanced at the doorway, and my heart sank within me when I noticed that the unwhitened stones were littered with drifting straws and sc.r.a.ps of paper, the flotsam and jetsam of the street, that the gla.s.s of the wide fanlight was thickly encrusted with dirt, and that the board fixed over the door, announcing that the "imposing mansion" was to let, had, judging from its begrimed, blistered, and weather-stained appearance, been in that position several years.

To rea.s.sure myself, I glanced at my cuff and inquired of the cabman whether the house was not Number 79 Gloucester Square.

"Quite right, sir," answered the plethoric driver. "This 'ere's Radnor Place, but these 'ouses fronts into the square. This row 'ain't got no entrances there, but the front doors are at the back here. I've known these 'ouses ever since I was a nipper. This 'ere one's been to let this last four years. A French gentleman lived 'ere before."

"I fancy you've mistaken the number," drawled the Countess's companion, putting up his single eye-gla.s.s to survey the place more minutely. "So confoundedly easy to make mistakes, don't yer know," and he laughed, as if amused at his witticism.

I resented this apparent hilarity, and with difficulty restrained some hot words that rose quickly to my lips. It had occurred to me that if I preserved silence and gave no sign, I might perhaps discover the ident.i.ty of this foppish young man. The mansion, silent, dismal, and deserted, was drab-painted and of unusually imposing proportions. The drawing-room on the first floor was evidently of vast extent, running the whole width of the house and commanding in front a wide view across the square, while at the rear it opened upon a fine domed conservatory constructed over the great portico.

"If you can't find your friends, Stuart, I'll give you a lift homeward.

My carriage is at the corner," Mabel said, evidently anxious to get away. "I'm going down to the Reform, to fetch Fyneshade."

In this invitation I saw an opportunity of obtaining some further knowledge of her mysterious companion, and, after settling with my cabman, lost no time in embracing it. A few moments later the Countess's smart victoria drew up, and entering, I took the place beside her, while Sternroyd seated himself opposite.

As we drove around Southwick Crescent in the direction of Park Lane, Mabel, in the course of conversation, let drop the fact that Gilbert, a protege of her husband's, was spending a few days at Eaton Square prior to returning to his studies at Oxford.

"Yes," he drawled. "A fellow appreciates town after poring over musty volumes, as I unfortunately am compelled to do. Beastly bore!"

Then he told me he was at Balliol--my old college--and our conversation afterwards turned mainly upon dons and duns.

"I always have such jolly times with Mab--Lady Fyneshade--each time I come to town," he said. "Whenever I go back I feel absolutely miserable."

"Yet memories of the past are sometimes painful," I observed, smiling.

At the same time I glanced at Mabel, knowing that the strange circ.u.mstances in which we had parted at the cotton-king's reception must still be fresh in her mind. Darting at me a swift look of inquiry, she picked at the b.u.t.tons of her pearl-grey glove, laughed lightly, and exclaimed flippantly:

"We have no memories when we arrive at years of discretion. Idle memory wastes time and other things. The moments as they drop must disappear and be simply forgotten as a child forgets. Nowadays one lives only for the future, and lets the past be buried."

"And if the past refuses to be interred?" I asked.

She started visibly, and a frown of annoyance rested for a brief moment upon her handsome countenance. I fancied, too, that her companion looked askance at me, but not waiting for either to reply, I said:

"I myself find it difficult to altogether forget. Some incidents in each of our lives are indelibly engraven upon our minds, and there are some tender memories that in our hours of melancholy we love to linger over and brood upon. At such times we find solace in solitude and sup on vain regrets."

"That's only when we have been in love," the Countess laughed, patting the large pug beside her. "Gilbert has never been in love; have you, Gilbert?"

"Never," he answered, grinning.

"With one exception," she observed with mock gravity. "Yourself, you mean?" he drawled, twirling his flaxen moustache and smiling.

"Certainly not," she cried with feigned indignation. "How dare you attempt to be complimentary at my expense? No, if I remember aright there was one woman who in your eyes was a veritable angel, who--"

"Ah!" he said gravely, in a tone quite natural and unaffected. "Yes, you are right. There was one woman." And he sighed as if painful memories oppressed him.

One woman! Did he allude to Sybil? If so, it was apparent that Mabel must be well aware of his acquaintance with the woman I had loved.

Silent I sat while the conversation quickly turned from grave to gay, as it always did when the Countess chattered.

Suddenly, as we were pa.s.sing into Piccadilly, it became impressed vividly upon my mind that they were hiding some secret from me. Two prominent facts aroused within me suspicion that their conversation was being carried on in order to mislead me. The first was, that although I had asked them what had brought them to Radnor Place neither of them had given any satisfactory reply; the second was, that although Sternroyd must have been a.s.sociated in some mysterious way with that silent house to which the photographs had been sent, he had made no allusion whatever to it, nor did he make any observation when he noticed my dismay at discovering it untenanted.

It was evident some secret understanding existed between them, and the more I reflected upon it the more probable did it appear that they had actually called at this house, and had only just left it when I arrived.

In order to ascertain my object in visiting it, and to learn the extent of my knowledge regarding it, the Countess had greeted me with her usual gaiety, and was now carrying me triumphantly back. I had, of course, no proof; nevertheless, I had an intuition, strange and distinct, that in close concert with my dead love's whilom friend, Sternroyd, she was playing a deep mysterious game with considerable tact and consummate ingenuity. But she was a most remarkable woman. Always brilliant and fascinating, always sparkling with wit and bubbling with humour, she was thoroughly unconventional in every respect. Society had long ago ceased to express surprise at any of her eccentric or impetuous actions. She held licence from Mother Grundy to act as, she pleased, for was she not admitted on all hands to be "the smartest woman in London?" She had a watchful confidence not only in a mult.i.tude of men, but in a mult.i.tude of things.

She dropped me outside the New Lyric Club, close to Piccadilly Circus, not, however, before she had expressed regret at Dora's unhappiness.

"What has occurred?" I asked concernedly.

"Oh! there has been a terrible upset at home about Jack Bethune," she answered. "I've done my level best with Ma, but she absolutely forbids Jack to pay his addresses to Dora."

"Because, as you have already told me, she wants her to marry a man she can never love," I said gravely.

"Yes," she said hurriedly. "But here's your club. Captain Bethune is certain to tell you all about it. Goodbye! I shall be at Lady Hillingdon's to-morrow night, then we'll resume our chat."

"Good-bye!" I said, alighting and grasping her hand; then as the commissionaire swung the club door open her companion raised his hat and the carriage was driven rapidly away.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

SECRET UNDERSTANDING.

Idle memory shortens life, or shortens the sense of life, by linking the immediate past clingingly to the present. In this may be found one of the reasons for the length of time in our juvenile days and the brevity of the time that succeeds. The child forgets, habitually, gayly, and constantly. Would that I had never acquired the habit of recall!