William Le Queux

“ For at the end of the car, standing motionless, and looking straight at me, was Alphonse Furneaux! Almost as I returned his dull gaze the truth seemed to drift into my brain. Furneaux must have escaped from Preston's house, from the room where Preston had confined him. He must have discovered that Preston was impersonating him. He must have followed him from London, followed him on to the boat
I dared not let my thoughts travel further. Horrible suspicions crowded in upon me. Could the man standing there staring at me be Preston's murderer? ”

“ It was the evening of Hugesson Gastrell's housewarming reception in his newly furnished mansion in Cumberland Place, and the muster of well-known people was extraordinary.
Peers and peeresses, prosperous City financiers, celebrities of the drama and of the operatic stage, luminaries of the law, diplomats, and rich retired traders who had shed the "tradesman" and blossomed into "gentleman," jostled one another in the rooms and on the stairs. It is surprising how people will rush to the house of a wealthy man. ”

“ Easterton said. "My man is a bachelor."
Osborne smiled in a curious way, and blew a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling without saying anything.
"Why, what is it?" Easterton asked, noticing the smile.
"Oh, nothing. A little thought that crept into my brain, that's all."
"Tell us what your Gastrell's wife is like," Easterton pursued.
"Like? What is she not like! Think of all the most lovely girls and women you have ever set eyes on, and roll them into one, and still you won't get the equal of Jasmine Gastrell. What is she like? ”

“ Now listen. This woman is not what you believe her to be. In her presence I tell you that she is an adventuress of an odious description, and that, in becoming friendly with you, also in becoming engaged to your father, she has acted from the basest motives. Dulcie, you must leave her at once, and come away with me."
I saw an extraordinary look of repugnance creep into Dulcie's eyes as she cast a half-frightened glance at Connie Stapleton, seated staring at her with an unconcealed sneer. ”

“ As I had not previously been to Preston's house its appearance surprised me. One does not associate a police detective, even an ex-detective, with a taste in things artistic, but here on all sides was evidence of refinement and a cultured mindshelves loaded with carefully selected books, volumes by classic authors; treatises on art; standard works by deep thinkers of world-wide repute, while on the walls hung mezzotints I knew to be extremely rare. ”

“ It was bad enough to find people like Gastrell and Jasmine Gastrell and Connie Stapleton perjuring themselves in the calmest way imaginable; but that Dulcie, whom I had until now implicitly believed to be everything that was good should thus look me in the eyes and lie to mewith as much self-assurance as though she had been accustomed to practising deception all her life. ”

“ Jack Osborne had pulled off his black, curly wig, and sat laughing loudly. Preston too was considerably amused.
"Yes, George," Jack said at last, "that disguise will do; you certainly are a marvel in the art of 'make-up.' If I can deceive Mike Berrington, who is one of my oldest friends, I shall be able to hoodwink anybody. Now you had better try your hand on Mike. What sort of person do you propose to turn him into? I have told you that he is an excellent actor, and can mimic voices to perfection." ”

“ For this house in Cumberland Place which he had rented from Lord Easterton lent itself admirably to Hugesson Gastrell's distorted ideas as to plenishing, at which some people laughed, calling them almost Oriental in their splendour and their lavishness. Upon entering, the idea conveyed was that here was a man who had suddenly found himself possessed of a great deal more money than he had ever expected to come by, and who, not being accustomed to wide means, had at once set to work to fling his fortune broadcast, purchasing, wherever he went, everything costly that took his fancy. ”

“ The run from Dieppe to Paris by express takes about three hours, and we were about half-way through the journey when Wollaston, who had been absent at least half an hour, re-entered our compartment in conversation with my recent travelling companion, whom I now knew to be Lady Fitzgraham. She hardly acknowledged my look of recognition, and out of the tail of my eye I saw Connie Stapleton glance quickly at each of us in turn, as though Lady Fitzgraham's unmistakable stiffness surprised her. ”

“ It was the demure, dark little woman who at Connie Stapleton's dinner party had all the evening seemed so subdued. She was dressed quietly now, just as she had been then, and she looked even more out of place in this crowd of men and women gamblers, all of whom were exceedingly well-dressed, than she had looked at that dinner party. "There is only one person I should be more surprised at seeing here," I said mentally, "and that is Dulcie." ”

“ I have been lying here with both feet and one arm bound for four nights and three days, to my knowledge, without seeing anybody, and, of course, without shaving or washing. I can't tell you what these days and nights have been likethey have been like a long, awful nightmare; even the house has all the time been as still as death. ”

“ I said in French to the driver of the taxi into which I had just stepped with my newly-bought valise. "Get there as quickly as you can."
That I was doing a mad thing in thus returning to the hotel, where in all probability the members of the gang were still staying, I knew. But a man in love hardly reckons with risks, and as I lay back in the taxi, my brain awhirl, I knew that I was as desperately in love as it is possible for man to be. ”

“ Preston is a genius. He doesn't merely 'make up' to look like someone else; he doesn't, when he is made up, just impersonate the character; for the time he is the man, he 'feels like him,' he says, he shares his views, he becomes his other ego. He has the advantage in this case of knowing Cranmere well, and he has, in consequence, excelled himself to-night. The way he has hit off Cranmere's lisp is marvellous. Easterton, who meets Cranmere frequently, is at this moment in the hall arguing with Preston about land taxation and small holdings, under the impression that he is talking to Cranmere. ”

“ But at that instant our conversation was interrupted by Jasmine Gastrell.
"Oh, you lovers!" she exclaimed, laughing as she looked across at us. "What heaps and heaps lovers seem to have to tell each other after being parted for a few hours. It reminds me of my own young days," she added archly, for she looked barely seven-and-twenty. "Mr. Osborne has just told me, Dulcie, that he is asked to stay at Eldon Hall for Lord Cranmere's son's coming of age, on the twenty-eighth. I have been invited too; I do wish you were going to be there. ”

“ Following the direction of her glance, my gaze rested upon the strange, striking woman I had seen but once but could not possibly forget. Mrs. Gastrell had just entered, and with her, to my astonishment, Jack Osborne. It was Jasmine Gastrell with whom my companion had exchanged that momentary glance of recognition.
"Are you fond of music?" Mrs. Stapleton asked, looking at me again. ”

“ Aunt Hannah constituted an exception to the rule that women are rendered additionally attractive through being extraordinary. Had she been less extraordinary she would have been more lovable. As it was she came near, at this time, to being the reverse of lovable, or so it struck me when, upon my endeavour to talk calmly and rationally to her after hearing all that Jack Osborne had just told us, and striving to induce her to listen to reason, she remained prejudiced, illogical. ”

“ Osborne and Mrs. Gastrellthey have been so constantly together, though he has more than once assured me that his intimacy was only with a view to obtaining her confidence. I don't know why I should believe your word, the word of a stranger, in preference to his, but now you tell me what you have told me I remember many little things which all point to the likelihood of your statement that he is in love with Mrs. Gastrell being true."
"I wouldn't go alone, Mr. Berrington," the stranger said in a tone of warning. "You don't know the people you have to deal with as I know them. ”

“ Calmly Gastrell rebuttoned my coat, heedless of my struggles.
"And when you are dead," he said quietly, "Holt Manor and estates, and the Challoner fortune, will come eventually to my companions and myself, for Connie, in spite of what she said, is going to marry Roland Challoner, and I intend to marry Dulcieif she likes it or if she doesn't. So now you realize, I hope, when it is too late, how ill-advised you and your folk were to attempt to overthrow our plans. Several before you have tried, and all have failed; the majority are dead. Very likely more will try, and they too will fail. ”

“ At a quarter to one in the morning Cranmere's big, grey, low-built car slid noiselessly along Wigmore Street and drew up at the entrance to one of the most imposing-looking houses in Cumberland Place.
The imposing footman got down and rang the bellhe pressed the button four times in succession, as "Lord Cranmere" had told him to do. Almost at once the door was opened, and from the car window we saw a tall man in knee-breeches silhouetted, while a little way behind him stood another man. "Lord Cranmere" stepped out of the car, and we followed him"Baron Poppenheimer" and "Sir Aubrey Belston." ”

“ Women dislike being proved to be in the wrong even more than men do, and the conclusion I had come to was that Aunt Hannah would never forgive my having, in a sense, made her eat her words and look ridiculous. It was on the subject of Aunt Hannah, then, that Dulcie and I had begun our quarrel, for Dulcie had stood up for her when I condemned herthat I condemned her rather bitterly, I admit. From that we had presently come to talk of Mrs. Stapleton, for whom Dulcie had suddenly developed a most extraordinary infatuation. ”

“ I exclaimed. "The very man we want to seeyou have heard me speak of Mr. Osborne, Albeury, and you know plenty about him." I turned to Simon. "Show him in here at once," I said. "If he still hesitates, say I want particularly to see him."
It seemed quite a long time since last I had met Osborneon the night we had gone together, with poor Preston, to Willow Road, and had afterwards been followed by Alphonse Furneaux. I had felt so annoyed with Jack for becoming enamoured of Jasmine Gastrell after all we had come to know about her that I had felt in no hurry to renew my friendship with him. ”