It was whilst she was dancing alone that Strickland found the final secret of her triumph. Lovely she was — yes! Graceful she was — yes! Exquisite and decorous — yes. But so were others. What she had — the especial, particular, necessary quality required to set her where she was — was an amazing reserve, somehow retained, somehow manifest even when she whirled like a dervish.
“That’s it, Ariadne, I think,” he said in a low voice as he watched. “I mean she belongs to herself all the time. She will curtsy to you, smile at you, dance for you, make you a present of her beauty and her grace, but she is not yours — no, not for a moment — and you know it. She is her own.”
Ariadne looked away towards Corinne with thoughtful eyes. Then she looked again at Strickland.
“What then of Leon?” she asked.
Strickland had forgotten Battchilena altogether during the last half-hour. He considered her theory from that new angle.
“Battchilena,” he said, “is probably an incident.”
Ariadne laughed, and the next moment the room was ringing with applause. Corinne had finished her performance. She stood quite still in the golden light, as fresh and unruffled, with her face and white shoulders as cool, her breath as steady, as before she had begun to dance at all. The lovely gleaming plaything of Madame Chrestoff’s description, with a stamp of race. We call it race for want of a better name. But Jenny, the postman’s daughter, has it sometimes, visible to the very tips of her fingers, whilst my Lady in the Chase up on the hill, as often as not deplores her clumsy knees and thick articulations before her mirror, and would give half her ancestry for a share of it. From whatever gutter Corinne sprang, she had all of Jenny’s and my Lady’s absent share into the bargain. With a bow to her partner, and a smile of thanks for her audience, she curtsied once more. The lights went up again; the orchestra rushed into a fox-trot, the company rushed into the arena and then jumped and jostled, and jigged and bumped, like a crowd of mixed sea-bathers at Margate.
Through that crowd Corinne made her slow way to Ariadne’s table. She dropped into a chair, was introduced to Madame Chrestoff and Strickland, and took a glass of champagne. The due and very sincere compliments were paid; and before they were done with, Battchilena was amongst them. But a different Battchilena. His face was mottled and flushed, his gait unsteady. As Ariadne made room for him on the bench against the wall, he seized the champagne bottle by the neck and filled a glass to the brim. In a low voice he began to talk very quickly with a slobbering mouth. He talked to Corinne, and Corinne drew Ariadne into their conversation.
Strickland looked across the table at Madame Chrestoff.
“We are rather out of it for the moment,” he said, and he looked towards the enclosure. “Shall we plunge in?”
The prima donna was on her legs before he had finished his question.
“Colonel Strickland, my feet have been aching for you to ask me that question.”
They left the three people engrossed in their debate and, watching for their opportunity, insinuated themselves into the mêlée.
“It’s fierce work,” said Madame Chrestoff, her face radiant, “but I adore it.”
“Yes. It must be so different from the amusements of your native city, Prague,” said Strickland, as he swung her clear of the tables and an ice-bucket.
Madame Chrestoff gurgled.
“The only thing to say to you, sir, is the only thing Ariadne ever says to you. ‘Be quiet, Strickland.’”
“Mamie, you can’t say it on so short an acquaintance.”
She gave her history whilst they danced. A meagre purse, a heart full of ambition, some years of study at Milan and Rome, a foreign name as the absolute sine qua non, and at last the debut at Monte Carlo which flung open for her the opera houses of the world.
“Success when you’re young’s a peach,” said Strickland. “When you’re old it’s a medlar.”
The prima donna dropped her voice.
“Talking of success,” she nodded her head towards their table by the door, “is there real trouble over there?”
“Yes.”
“Danger, even?”
“Yes.”
“Can I do anything?”
Strickland burst out roughly.
“My God, no!”
“I wish I could,” said the singer wistfully. “That girl! Lovely; and the loveliness wasn’t got without work. Lots of it. Dull, tiresome. The same stupid thing over and over again until it’s right. And then it’s only right for to-day. It’s got all to be done again in the morning. Say, you are sure I can’t do anything?”
“Quite.”
The music stopped. They walked back to their table. As they reached it, Ariadne put out a hand and caught him by the sleeve.
“John Strickland, where did you learn to dance like that?”
So she had been watching him, even whilst she talked. His heart jumped up into his throat with a flutter and his brains jumped out of the window. In his exultation he uttered the first idiocy which came into his head.
“All amongst the tigers in the jungle,” he cried.
Battchilena started back with a sort of yelp, whilst Ariadne threw up her hands in despair. But presently in spite of her efforts, she began quietly to laugh.
“My dear,” she said sympathetically, “this isn’t your night out, is it? If there’s a gaffe which you can possibly make, you make it at once, don’t you? Now be quiet!”
She turned back and resumed her conference. Strickland on this occasion needed no injunction to keep him quiet. For when his eyes fell upon Corinne he was shocked. Battchilena had told his story of the Semiramis dinner by now, and no doubt all the secret history of it, only dimly surmised by Strickland. And the story had worked havoc with Corinne’s delicate beauty. Her face was pinched and so white beneath her rouge that she looked like a painted doll, her eyes were haggard with terror, even her fair hair seemed to have lost its lustre. The glamour was gone from her. She sat in the dainty accoutrements of Corinne the dancer, a poor soul shivering in dismay.
Strickland was moved to great pity. There was a gruesome two-sided picture painted by some forgotten Italian in the era of the Renaissance which he had once seen in a country house. It swung upon a hinge against the wall, and showed you a girl in the pride of her beauty, decked out in fine clothes and jewels. But swing the picture round, and there was that which in a few years she must come to. Her jewels still sparkled and her hand-mirror remained unbroken to mock, but the face was a hideous skull with a blackened gaping mouth and one dead glaucous eye clinging in its socket like the eye of a fish! Strickland was reminded of that picture now as he gazed upon Corinne, and by some freak of his imagination, behind her the air seemed to thicken and grow solid and shape itself darkly into a giant figure. Behind her, towering over her, stood the spectral avenger with the club, even as in the flesh he had towered over Battchilena. But now Ariadne’s head was bent close to Corinne’s. The blow which felled one of them must smite also the other; and though Strickland knew that vision to be no more than a mirror reflecting his fears, he could hardly repress a cry.
Some words, however, were spoken more loudly which recalled him to his senses.
“Culalla?” Battchilena suggested.
Corinne shook her head.
“He never comes near me. He is here now, across the room, a stranger.”
Ariadne shrugged her shoulders.
“A caprice,” she said. “It will pass.”
But Corinne would not have it.
“More than a caprice. Culalla is after all in the middle of his career. He doesn’t want — trouble. He doesn’t want to miss the boat. He dropped me at once after that evening at Greymark—” She looked round, fearing that she had been overheard, and resumed in a lower voice, “I don’t believe that he has spoken two sentences to me since.”
Culalla! So he was concerned too, and in just the same way, it seemed, as Ariadne Through friendship with Corinne. But he had had the wisdom to lop that
friendship off, without a second’s delay. Strickland glanced across the room to where he sat at his favourite table surrounded by his bodyguard. If ever Strickland had nursed a doubt that Ariadne, with her impetuous loyalty, needed a sentinel at her door, the doubt was gone now.
Ariadne leaned forward and touched his sleeve.
“Will you dance with me?”
“Like a feather.”
“Perhaps,” said she.
But as soon as they had moved away to the dancing space the amusement died out of her face.
“I want to talk to you, John.”
“In a second.”
For the first time in two years he held Ariadne in his arms and the moment was too wondrous to be spoilt by any debate. His blood throbbed in his veins and clamoured at his ears. He could feel the beat of her heart against his breast. Her lips were within such easy reach of his, her hand rested on his shoulder, they moved as one.
“John, you are asleep,” she cried indignantly.
“I am very wide awake, my dear,” he whispered, “but in a new and wonderful world. However I am coming back. Here I am. Fire away!”
“Corinne’s scared out of her wits.”
“I know.”
“Do you know why, too?”
“I can only guess. It’s because the man who followed and killed Maung H’la may now be following her.” Ariadne nodded her head.
“I see. You were warning Battchilena at the Semiramis?”
“Yes.”
“Will you do more than warn?”
“Of course. What else am I on earth for?”
She gave his arm a little squeeze.
“But it’s Corinne, not me, that you must help.”
So he hoped with all his soul and without one small spark of faith. But he would not admit his disbelief.
“Isn’t Corinne your friend?” he asked, as though that were answer enough.
Ariadne threw off the load of her anxiety. She drew a long breath of relief and by it Strickland was thanked beyond all measure of thanks due.
The music stopped at that moment.
“Wait!” said Ariadne. “The orchestra will go on again. I have something more to say to you.”
There was a clapping of hands and the inevitable encore was conceded. The floor was less crowded now. It was easier to move without jostling one’s neighbours or being jostled by them. But though movement was easier, Ariadne found speech more difficult.
“You see,” she faltered, “you must help me. For Leon is of no use.”
“He’ll run to ground,” replied Strickland.
“I think he will,” Ariadne agreed. “And besides—”
She was at a loss. Honesty was native to her. She was absolutely clear that these words must get themselves spoken. Yet how was she to speak them without wounding the friend who served her friend for her? Strickland solved her dilemma by speaking them himself.
“Besides, Julian Ransome must be kept outside the whole of this entanglement. Heaven knows what will come of it! But whatever comes it can only do him harm.”
This is what she had in mind But when she heard it said, she stopped and lowered her head, as if charging her friend with the service which she might with more reason have claimed from her lover, brought with it some reproach and shame.
“Thank you, John,” she said in a small voice.
Had she looked up at that moment she would have seen upon her friend’s face such a strange light, such a passion of gladness as would have startled her. The dim menace which had so disturbed his nights and filled his days with fear, had taken on in this last minute a new complexion. Afraid of it? He welcomed it! There was a secret now which he shared with her and from which young Ransome was excluded, help to be given by him, peril to be averted by him, whilst Ransome walked apart.
But very quickly shame touched Strickland as a moment ago it had touched Ariadne. He sought to make amends. There were a few words of praise which all that evening he had known would give her great pleasure, yet which he had refrained from uttering. He repaired this omission now.
“Listen, Ariadne,” he said earnestly as she prepared to resume the dance. “I heard Ransome speak tonight. I’ll be frank with you. I was surprised. There was a ring of authority in his voice for which I wasn’t prepared. And yet a modesty went with it. What he had to say, too, was just what was wanted, and it was said in just the right phrases. I seemed to see a different man from the one I knew, bigger altogether. I ought not to have been surprised. For I have seen the same thing so often in my own calling — men who outside their work were no more than other men, and yet in their work were suddenly transfigured, became in an instant men who led and were followed with confidence.”
For a little while Ariadne remained with her eyes bent upon the ground. Then she flung back her head. “Come, Strickland, what are you thinking about? Let us dance!” she cried. But she had not taken more than half a dozen steps before she added in a low and very tender voice:
“My dear, if I didn’t love Julian, I should adore you.”
The dance ended. The company in the room had thinned; half of the supper tables were now unoccupied. Leon Battchilena had already disappeared; Madame Chrestoff had risen and was arranging her cloak about her shoulders. Ariadne detained Strickland as they approached her table.
“You have your car here?”
“Yes,” said he.
“You will go with Madame Chrestoff to the entrance and see her into her car. Then you will call up yours; and whilst you are doing that, you will notice, won’t you, whether anyone is watching in the street?”
There was no need for her to define whom she meant by “anyone.”
“Meanwhile we shall wait in the corridor. Of course, there may be nothing in Corinne’s fears at all. We may laugh at them to-morrow.”
XII. CORINNE’S DOLL’S HOUSE
STRICKLAND WATCHED THE red tail-light of Madame Chrestoff’s car dwindle rapidly. Some ten or fifteen yards away a line of other cars waited against the kerb. But the pavement in front of the entrance to the Club was clear, and no one was loitering across the road. The one likely hiding-place was the line of motor-cars with their confusing lamps and their close proximity. Strickland walked slowly along the line. His big waiter was not lurking anywhere amongst them. He returned down the line again until he reached his own car.
“Draw up to the entrance quietly and at once,” he said in a low voice, and only when the car was in position there, and out of earshot of the remaining chauffeurs, he gave his instructions.
“Drive off as quickly as you can, as soon as the door is shut. Cross Bond Street, and the top end of Berkeley Square, continue along Mount Street, and turn to the right up South Audley Street. But slow down as soon as you have turned into South Audley Street, and be ready to act at once on any order.”
Then Strickland turned to the commissionaire.
“Have the door of the car open when we come out.”
“Very well, sir.”
The entrance to the Club was at the end of a roofed passage. But as he re-entered the passage, he saw the two girls in their cloaks huddled against the wall in the very mouth of it. He made a sign to the commissionaire, who stood with the door already open and the carriage-wrap across his arm. The two girls flashed across the pavement like a trail of glittering sparks and leaped into the car. Strickland followed upon their heels. He snatched the wrap from the commissionaire and dropped a tip into his palm. The door closed with a snap and on the instant the car glided smoothly away.
Ariadne laughed out loud with a throb of joyous excitement in her throat.
“We’re off,” she cried with the high spirit of an explorer setting forth upon some great adventure. Corinne, on the contrary, huddled in the corner of the car, put out an imploring hand.
“Turn out the lights, will you?” she pleaded in an extremity of fear. “Oh, please! We are as visible as if we were in a glass case.”
Strickland leaned forward to the little
switch by Corinne’s elbow.
“I am sorry. I should have thought of that,” he said, and the next moment the interior of the car was in darkness.
“Thank you,” said Corinne with a gasp of relief as she threw open her cloak.
The car ran noiselessly along Bruton Street and across Berkeley Square. At times the light of a street lamp sparkled for a moment on the gold embroidery of Ariadne’s dress, or glimmered on the white throat and bosom of Corinne. At the corner of Mount Street Corinne asked suddenly:
“Are we being followed?”
Strickland, from his chair facing them, looked out through the small glass panel in the back of the limousine.
“No.”
“Not even by a bicycle?...Bicycles are used.”
Strickland concealed a smile. Bicycles were certainly used by the touts of the private inquiry agents whose sordid business it was to obtain particulars as to where and with whom this wife or that husband disposed of her or his evenings. He was not surprised that Corinne should be aware of the practice.
“No bicycle is following us.”
At the corner of South Audley Street the car turned northwards and its speed was reduced.
“Ariadne has given me your address. But we shall pass your house and go as far as Grosvenor Square,” he explained. “Then if we see no one suspicious we shall drive round the garden in the middle of the square and return.”
Corinne raised her hand to her heart.
“Then you, too, are sure—” she began.
He waited for her to be more explicit, but she said no more. She wanted help, but it must be by a hand stretched out of the dark and into the dark.
“I am not sure,” he replied. “I am only taking precautions. Let me watch!”
His eyes roved from side to side as the car moved forward. He saw nothing more alarming than a man in evening dress with his overcoat across his arm, a policeman, and a group of young people getting into cars and cabs in front of a lighted house from which music streamed.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 67