William Le Queux

“ From these delightful confidences Murchison was shut out. It would not be wise to ignore him altogether, for such a course of action would have intensified his suspicions. But the invitations to Rosemount from either host or hostess were few and far between.
He was not, however, so easily gulled as the three conspirators thought. Pomfret’s preoccupied mood, the air of a man who had much on his mind, his frequent and unexplained absences, gave to his friend much food for thought. He felt certain that the easy-going, irresponsible young man was entangling himself. ”

“ Tommy knew everybody who was anybody, and everybody knew the mercurial Tommy.
Guy Spencer puffed leisurely at his cigar, and regarded his rotund little friend with an amused smile. Spencer was about thirty, Tommy was old enough to be his father. But he wore well.
"Most excellent Tommy, how many times have I heard you say the same thing? Every girl you come across is the most charming you have ever met—until one sees you the next week. And then, the last girl has the super-charm—like the young lady you just mentioned, Miss Stella Keane." ”

“ Carry your memory back to that night at Blankfield when your so-called brother, George Burton, was arrested on a charge of forgery. You had been his decoy and accomplice in a gambling saloon in Paris. You had inveigled my poor friend, Jack Pomfret, into a clandestine marriage a few days before. Jack, unable to survive his folly and disgrace, blew his brains out. If not in the eyes of the law, you were, morally, a murderess. ”

“ First had been that unhappy episode of poor Jack Pomfret, who had not strength of mind to survive the disgrace he had brought upon himself by his impetuous folly.
Now there was this affair of Guy Spencer's, which he felt he must go through with and prove to the bottom. He must find out definitely whether the likeness to Norah Burton was accidental, or whether that scheming adventuress had, for the second time, ensnared a trusting and unsuspicious man. ”

“ After that, of course, our marriage was to be acknowledged, and we would live together."
"I see," said Hugh, assuming a cheerfulness he did not quite feel. "Well, I should not say she would try for more than her seven hundred a year at present. When your aunt dies she will of course fight for a bit more. I take it, after to-night's work, you will never want to live with her, cajoling and attractive as she is."
Pomfret shuddered. "After what that fellow said, my love for her died. But, by Heaven, Hugh, I did love her while I believed in her." ”

“ That her old enemy, Murchison, had left a diary! They had never thought of that possibility. The game was up. She had staked something on her marriage as Norah Burton with Jack Pomfret, and had lost. This time she had staked everything and lost again, but now she had lost liberty and life in addition. There was but one end. She must seek at once the man who had, in a way, been a good and faithful friend, but also her evil genius.
She stole as quietly out of the hall as she had entered it, and hailed a passing taxi. She knew she would never enter the house at Eaton Place again. ”

“ Hugh caught a few of them, repeated again and again.
“Tied to her for life, she will outlive me, tied to her for life. She will never let me go. My poor family! I have always been a fool, but up to now have never brought disgrace to them. And God forgive me, I was reckoning on the death of my poor old generous aunt, it is idle to say I did not speculate on it. And for what, for what?—the pretended affection, the bought kisses of this adventuress, a card-sharper’s decoy, who told me lying tales about the way in which her criminal associate had inherited his money.” ”

“ For a few days he thought a great deal about the subject, and during those few days he kept away from Elsinore Gardens and denied himself the pleasure of listening to a further instalment of Miss Keane’s reminiscences of her unhappy history.
If he were going to fall in love, he told himself sternly, he would fall in love with a woman of his own world, not with a girl, however beautiful and interesting she might be, who was only a hanger-on of a woman well-born, but evidently déclassée, a woman no longer moving in the sphere to which she had been accustomed. ”

“ If Stella Keane was the impostor Hugh suspected her to be, from that striking resemblance to Norah Burton the heroine of that tragic Blankfield episode, surely in the close intimacy of wedded life something would have escaped her that would have aroused her husband’s suspicions, have set him inquiring more closely into the past.
Granting that she was a clever actress, still the most accomplished performer in the world could not wear the mask all day. There must come one moment, if not several moments, when that mask would be inadvertently dropped. ”

“ While the two young women were chattering away, battling, as it were, against the general depression, Hugh Murchison was trying to collect his thoughts.
Strange that his recollections had harked back to that tragedy at Blankfield while Nina was speaking of the young Mrs Spencer. And, if his memory and his eyesight were not playing him false, he was sitting opposite to the unhappy Pomfret’s widow.
Six years make a considerable difference in the personal appearance of any man or woman, and they had made a difference in her. If he had met her in the street, he would not have known her. ”

“ Even Murchison, prejudiced as he was against him, was forced to admit to himself that the “bounder” for once looked quite respectable. Pomfret, ever leaning to the charitable side, felt quite enthusiastic over him, and contrasted him favourably with his own cousin, who could boast blue blood on both sides.
Norah Burton played the hostess as to the manner born, greeting the visitors with just the right degree of cordiality, quite free from the effusiveness of most of the Blankfield hostesses. And Burton, taking his cue from her, was hearty without boisterousness. ”

“ Hugh continued to look at her with his steady and disconcerting gaze. Suddenly she rose, and paced restlessly up and down the long drawing-room.
"Major Murchison, put your cards on the table. You have come into this house, an old friend of my husband's; I have done my best to make you welcome. But you have some spite against me. Of what do you accuse me?"
"I will put my cards on the table," answered Hugh in his inflexible voice. "On the night I met you at Carlton House Terrace I had my suspicions; no two women could be so exactly alike. ”

“ Mrs L’Estrange, so far as I can judge, would never think of anything but number one.”
And as Spencer’s glance stole to the fair face, he felt a strange feeling of pity for her. The poignant happenings of the last few moments had revealed to him her loneliness, the tragedy of her dependence upon others. In a supreme moment of peril, she, who ought to have lovers and friends by the score, was left by herself, and thrown upon the compassion of a stranger. ”

“ Then Norah Burton’s hair was fair and wavy, Stella Spencer’s was dark. Still it is easy for a woman to alter the colour or the appearance of her hair. If Stella Keane had arisen, like the phoenix, from Norah Burton, she would alter herself in every detail, so far as Nature permitted her.
Still, it is said that everybody in the world has a double. Often in his own experience he had claimed acquaintance with somebody whom he had mistaken for an old friend, and smilingly apologised for his error. ”

“ Murchison felt every nerve in his body tingling. Jack was in a state of ignorance. The brother and sister, he was sure, were filled with vague and undefined alarms. He, alone out of the four sitting in that charming little drawing-room awaiting the announcement of dinner, was sure of what was going to happen.
He stole a look across at Pomfret with the happy, fatuous smile of the successful lover on his face. Poor devil! In another couple of minutes he would be terribly disillusioned. ”

“ He was about to turn away, when a waitress, who knew him well, touched him on the arm.
"It's quite all right, Captain Murchison,"—Hugh had arrived at seniority very early: "there's a table up there at the far end. There's only a young lady there, and she has very nearly finished her tea."
The young lady in question was quite young; Hugh decided from the first swift glance at her that she could not be more than twenty. She was exceedingly pretty, with wavy light hair and soft brown eyes. She wore an air of composure remarkable in one so youthful. ”

“ You are our old friend; you are Guy's for that matter, and we are prepared to discuss this thing with you quite frankly. Guy may know more than we imagine; personally, I think he knows very little, and only what she has told him."
"But surely, she must have given some particulars of herself," cried Hugh, in amazement that a man like his friend Spencer, endowed with a fair share of common-sense, should take a wife upon trust, as it were. To be sure, Pomfret had done the same thing, but then poor old Jack, possessor of many excellent qualities, was singularly deficient in brain-power. ”

“ Guy might have married some coarse and common creature from the music-halls. It was unfortunate, in a way, that he had a considerable fortune of his own, and could snap his fingers at the displeasure of his relatives, if they presumed to show it.
But, somehow, knowing Guy as well as she did, Nina did not believe that the future Countess of Southleigh, who would, in due course, wear the family jewels, was likely to be coarse or common. Guy was too fastidious, too innately a gentleman, to be snared by a creature of that kind. ”

“ Tommy’s round face was red with pleasurable emotion. Was there any doubt, thought Spencer, that the little man was tremendously smitten by the beautiful Miss Keane? Would it result in a marriage, he wondered? Tommy was well-off, and a person of some importance in his little social world. And if Miss Keane was as lovely as his fond imagination painted her, it was quite evident that she was poor. Penniless young girls have before now accepted the shelter of a safe home, even when offered by comical-looking little elderly men. ”

“ Mr. Pomfret looked very wise. "There's a wonderful fascination about the girl. She radiates it, even when you pass her in the street. By Gad, there's not a young woman in Blankfield who can hold a candle to her. Well, Hughie, what are you going to do about the invitation?"
"I'm in two minds, old man, to go or stay away. There's the brother, you see."
"There's the brother," repeated Mr. Pomfret, "and a dashed disappointing sort of a brother, too. If it had only been a mother, or a maiden aunt! what a priceless opportunity! And yet it seems a bit too good to be lost." ”

“ Hugh reflected for a few moments. His thoughts had travelled back to those days at Blankfield, which now seemed so very far off. What folly will not a certain type of man commit for the sake of a pretty woman? Jack Pomfret, in a moment of frenzy, had taken his life when he found he was tied up to a girl the accomplice and the decoy of a criminal.
And Guy Spencer, a man of a very different type from the easy-going, pleasure-loving Pomfret, had made a hash of his opportunities, flouted his family obligations, to pursue the desire of the moment, to marry out of his own class. ”

“ Lord Southleigh growled out from his easy-chair. “Of course he was off his head when he did it. And the devil of it is he seems just as much off his head now. They are like turtle-doves, my dear boy, after several months of marriage.”
Lady Nina laughed. “My dear father gets more cynical every day. He insinuates as a general proposition, anyway it can be deduced from his remarks, that every man who marries a girl for love ought to be disillusioned shortly after the honeymoon. Well, certainly Guy is as much in love as ever, and, to be quite fair, she seems just as much in love with him.” ”

“ Had they gone to Cathcart Square together, or had Burton followed her, getting in by means of that broken window-pane at the back? And did they know the Major was alone? In that last interview with Mrs. Spencer, had he let out the fact that he had given the caretaker a holiday, so that they should not be disturbed?
These were side problems that could not be solved at the moment. Only two persons could solve them, and those two, in all probability, would never speak.
But how had they killed him? The Major was a strong, muscular fellow who would fight tenaciously for his life. ”

“ The woman he made his wife would one day be the Countess of Southleigh. He had to think of all this. And all he knew about her was learned from her own statement, and she had a cousin who was, from his point of view, certainly not a gentleman.
Above all things, Stella Keane was a very business-like young woman, and never shrank from looking facts squarely in the face. She must play a waiting game. Guy Spencer was very deeply in love, but he was not a hotheaded, impetuous boy, the sort of amorous youth who runs off with a chorus-girl, regardless of consequences. ”

“ If Stella Keane ever felt a good impulse in her life, it was towards this man who was doing his best to befriend her.
“Listen to me,” said Spencer persuasively, her delicate hand still lying in his. “I don’t know that I have done much good to other people in my life, but I do want to help you. I should like to get you out of this beastly hole. My proposal is, that I shall take for you a little furnished flat and supplement your income, or give you the five hundred pounds down, to do what you like with. It is for you to choose.” ”