The Missioner Part 2

Mr. Hurd wheeled his pony round.

"I submitted your letter to Miss Thorpe-Hatton," he said. "She agrees with me that your ministrations are wholly unnecessary here. I wish you good evening!"

The young man caught for a moment at the pony's rein.

"One moment, sir," he begged. "You do not object to my appealing to Miss Thorpe-Hatton herself?"

A grim, mirthless smile parted the agent's lips.

"By no means!" he answered, as he cantered off.

Victor Macheson stood for a moment watching the retreating figure. Then he looked across the park to where, through the great elm avenues, he could catch a glimpse of the house. A humorous smile suddenly brightened his face.

"It's got to be done!" he said to himself. "Here goes!"

CHAPTER II

THE HUNTER AND HIS QUARRY

The mistress of Thorpe stooped to pat a black Pomeranian which had rushed out to meet her. It was when she indulged in some such movement that one realized more thoroughly the wonderful grace of her slim, supple figure. She who hated all manner of exercise had the ease of carriage and flexibility of one whose life had been spent in athletic pursuits.

"How are you all?" she remarked languidly. "Shocking hostess, am I not?"

A fair-haired little woman turned away from the tea-table. She held a chocolate eclair in one hand, and a cup of Russian tea in the other. Her eyes were very dark, and her hair very yellow--and both were perfectly and unexpectedly natural. Her real name was Lady Margaret Pensh.o.r.e, but she was known to her intimates, and to the mysterious individuals who write under a _nom-de-guerre_ in the society papers, as "Lady Peggy."

"A little casual perhaps, my dear Wilhelmina," she remarked. "Comes from your a.s.sociation with Royalty, I suppose. Try one of your own caviare sandwiches, if you want anything to eat. They're ripping."

Wilhelmina--she was one of the few women of her set with whose Christian name no one had ever attempted to take any liberties--approached the tea-table and studied its burden. There were a dozen different sorts of sandwiches arranged in the most tempting form, hot-water dishes with delicately browned tea-cakes simmering gently, thick cream in silver jugs, tea and coffee, and in the background old China dishes piled with freshly gathered strawberries and peaches and grapes, on which the bloom still rested. On a smaller table were flasks of liqueurs and a spirit decanter.

"Anyhow," she remarked, pouring herself out some tea, "I do feed you people well. And as to being casual, I warned you that I never put in an appearance before five."

A man in the background, long and lantern-faced, a man whose age it would have been as impossible to guess as his character, opened and closed his watch with a clink.

"Twenty minutes past," he remarked. "To be exact, twenty-two minutes past."

His hostess turned and regarded him contemplatively.

"How painfully precise!" she remarked. "Somehow, it doesn't sound convincing, though. Your watch is probably like your morals."

"What a flattering simile!" he murmured.

"Flattering?"

"It presupposes, at any rate, their existence," he explained. "It is years since I was reminded of them."

Wilhelmina seated herself before an open card-table.

"No doubt," she answered. "You see I knew you when you were a boy.

Seriously," she continued, "I have been engaged with my agent for the last half-hour--a most interesting person, I can a.s.sure you. There was an agreement with one Philip Crooks concerning a farm, which he felt compelled to read to me--every word of it! Come along and cut, all of you!"

The fourth person, slim, fair-haired, the typical army officer and country house habitue, came over to the table, followed by the lantern-jawed man. Lady Peggy also turned up a card.

"You and I, Gilbert," Wilhelmina remarked to the elder man. "Here's luck to us! What on earth is that you are drinking?"

"Absinthe," he answered calmly. "I have been trying to persuade Austin to join me, but it seems they don't drink absinthe in the Army."

"I should think not, indeed," his hostess answered. "And you my partner, too! Put the stuff away."

Gilbert Deyes raised his gla.s.s and looked thoughtfully into its opalescent depths.

"Ah! my dear lady," he said, "you make a great mistake when you number absinthe amongst the ordinary intoxicating beverages. I tell you that the man who invented it was an epicure in sensations and--er--gastronomy. If only De Quincey had realized the possibility of absinthe, he would have given us jewelled prose indeed."

Wilhelmina yawned.

"Bother De Quincey!" she declared. "It's your bridge I'm thinking of."

"Dear lady, you need have no anxiety," Deyes answered rea.s.suringly. "One does not trifle with one's livelihood. You will find me capable of the most daring finesses, the most wonderful coups. I shall not revoke, I shall not lead out of the wrong hand. My declarations will be touched with genius. The rubber, in fact, is already won. Vive l'absinthe!"

"The rubber will never be begun if you go on talking nonsense much longer," Lady Peggy declared, tapping the table impatiently. "I believe I hear the motors outside. We shall have the whole crowd here directly."

"They won't find their way here," their hostess a.s.sured them calmly. "My deal, I believe."

They played the hand in silence. At its conclusion, Wilhelmina leaned back in her chair and listened.

"You were right, Peggy," she said, "they are all in the hall. I can hear your brother's voice."

Lady Peggy nodded.

"Sounds healthy, doesn't it?"

Gilbert Deyes leaned across to the side table and helped himself to a cigarette.

"Healthy! I call it boisterous," he declared. "Where have they all been?"

"Motoring somewhere," Wilhelmina answered. "They none of them have any idea how to pa.s.s the time away until the first run."

"Sport, my dear hostess," Deyes remarked, "is the one thing which makes life in a country house almost unendurable."

Wilhelmina shrugged her shoulders.

"That's all very well, Gilbert," she said, "but what should we do if we couldn't get rid of some of these lunatics for at least part of the day?"

"Reasonable, I admit," Deyes answered, "but think what an intolerable nuisance they make of themselves for the other part. I double No Trumps, Lady Peggy."