On the sixteenth, that is last night as never was, his Lordship had one of his Bohemian parties at Greymark his villa on the River by Kew. There was Lady Ariadne, and Mrs. Trood the artist, and Miss Cranston from the Theatre in the Haymarket and two young ladies from “Polly the Pouncer,” at the Monaco, and a number of gentlemen, Horace Prout, James Samper, Charlie Pullinger being prominent, all of them, vivoors about town with a touch of intellect. You know, ma’am, perhaps his Lordship’s way. He sets them down and examines them as if they was a class and he was to pass ’em on for a degree, if they answered up to satisfaction. Different from a class too, because they can take their own time about answering and there’s all the champagne they can want to help them. Well, they was all answering to the best of their abilities round the supper-table with the windows thrown open on to the lawn and the moon sparkling on the river when Corinne blows in from her cabaret. Very nice she looked, too, in her pale pink frock and etceteras, but flushed and uneasy. They were discussing the affinity of Julius Caesar to Mussolleni, and very hot they were about it, but every now and then Miss Corinne would throw in some hysterical remark which she needn’t have done — for the ladies were never examined on these points, though they got champagne like the others. Well, when the discussion was at its height, suddenly Miss Corinne she rose up on her feet. “My God!” she said with her eyes starting out of her head. “My God!” like that, and everyone stopped talking and looked at her. “She has just died,” she cried. “This minute.” and she collapsed into he chair and began to moan. I was in the room at the time, serving the caviare, and I helped to get her out on to the lawn, where she came to herself. She had had a vision, so she said, of her friend, Elizabeth Clutter in the Isle of Wight, and had seen her dead. His Lordship didn’t harf like the episode, and in a little while Miss Corinne was sorry she had spoken. She was nervous, she said, and her friend was ill and a lot more explanations, and his Lordship didn’t like them, either. She put a fair damper on the party, which broke up shortly. Imagine my surprise when I read in the evening paper to-day that Elizabeth Clutter actually had drunk a tumbler of Lysol and killed herself accidentally during the night. Which I say it’s curious, ma’am, and open to suspicion. His Lordship hints to me that it’s tellypathy and the whole incident should be buried in oblivion. But I ask myself: “Is it so? Or are we treading on the brink of horrors?” No more at present, from
Yours respectfully,
George Cowcher.
Strickland closed the book, but could not shut out from his eyes the scene which the book evoked. The supper room with its windows thrown upon the lawn, and the shining river; Cullalla, with his curious metallic voice, throwing his ingenious problems and questions on to the table-cloth and amusing himself by seeing what his guests could make of them; Corinne, in her smart pink frock, rushing in from the cabaret dances, strung to breaking point by her knowledge of what was to happen that night in the lonely house outside Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, by her wonder as to the exact moment when it would happen, or whether it had already happened, or whether the cruel diabolical plot had altogether misfired; and finally, under the torture of her nerves, springing up and screaming out: “She has died this minute!”
What was it that he had overheard Corinne say in the supper room at the “Noughts and Crosses?”
“Culalla won’t help. He never comes near me. He is here now, a stranger. He is 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. I don’t believe that he has spoken two sentences to me since.”
These words, which had so perplexed Strickland at the time they were uttered, were as clear as glass to him now. Probably Ariadne was the only one present at that party who had a doubt afterwards of Corinne’s guilt. No wonder Culalla kept aloof No wonder he enjoined silence upon his butler But the secret was known to Archie Clutter now — that silent figure with an uplifted arm which could wait patiently until the exact moment came to strike, and then struck once and with annihilating force. What sort of bargain had Archie Clutter driven with Corinne with the argument of Cowcher’s letter to assist him?
Strickland sprang to his feet.
“I must get back to London,” he said. He handed the book back to Judy and bowed, to Mrs. Beagham. “I thank you very much.”
Mrs. Beagham was quite anxious that the pair of them should go. Her column, “Heard in Mayfair,” should reach the editorial office of Society Whispers to-morrow at the latest, and there were a couple of paragraphs to be added to it yet. Judy saw the two men to the door.
“You ought to have a good watch-dog in the house,” Trevor said to her with solicitude.
“We are getting one. Meanwhile, the bailiff, is sleeping here.”
Strickland shook hands with her and marched off down the lane to the car. It was after no more than the most reasonable delay that Angus Trevor joined him. But the hour was seven of the evening and the sun, in a glory of purple and gold, was near to the horizon’s edge.
“Let us go,” said Strickland, and the car lurched down the lane into the main road and then devoured the miles.
They dined hurriedly at an inn at Daventry. Dusk crept over the country, starlight came and the cool fragrance of flowers baring their breasts to the dew. The two men in the car spoke little to one another. A fever burnt in Strickland’s blood, fed by a new anxiety. Had he been wise to leave London behind him and devote the whole day to this expedition? Archie Clutter was moving quickly now to whatever secret end he had in view. It was not likely that he had made of this day a holiday. It was dark when the car purred once more through High Wycombe, and the streets silent. Beyond, the trees on each side of the white road made an endless leafy corridor, always closing together in the far perspective to make an impenetrable forest, always opening out as the great headlights of the car pierced into the depths. Now the loom of London was in the sky ahead; it broadened and strengthened into a cloudy glare as though an unnumbered multitude of men stoked a million furnaces; and then suddenly houses closed about them.
At the corner of Oxford Street Trevor asked that the car should be halted.
“You can drop me here. I want to go to the office.”
Some nameless fear made Strickland say:
“If anything has happened during the day, ring me up at Stratton Street, will you?”
“All right.”
“Meanwhile a thousand thanks. But for your help, I should have learnt nothing.”
Strickland held out his hand in a warmth of gratitude. Trevor took it, and then pleaded:
“But you won’t give Carrie Beagham away, will you? It’s not a pretty sort of way of making your living, I know. But she trotted out her stuff readily enough, didn’t she?”
Strickland nodded.
“I won’t betray her.”
“Besides,” Trevor added, he was standing on the pavement, holding the door of the car open and playing with the handle in an embarrassment, “it would make it awkward for me if you did. For — you see — I mean to go down there again.”
Even in the midst of his anxieties, Strickland broke into a laugh.
“I am sure you do,” he cried whole-heartedly. “Good luck to you both!”
Strickland drove on to Stratton Street and ordered his car to wait. It was half-past eleven when he opened the door of his flat. His servant came to him whilst he was still in the hall.
“Are there any messages for me?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Lady Ariadne Ferne rang you up a few minutes before midday. I told her ladyship that you were out, and she left a message if you came in, would you please take her to luncheon with Lord Culalla.”
Strickland was startled. Lord Culalla, who meant to have nothing more to do with the affair. So, willy nilly, he was being swept back into it.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Her ladyship rang up again, once at five. You were to ring her up the moment you returned.”
“I wi
ll at once.”
But as he went to the machine the servant spoke again:
“Excuse me, sir. But her ladyship rang up again, an hour ago. She said I was to tell you it was too late.”
Strickland’s face changed as he heard that message. It grew haggard and white. So he had failed Ariadne, after all?
“Did her ladyship seem — troubled?” he asked, in a voice which shook.
“Yes, sir. Her voice sounded very anxious.”
So he had failed her! After the long months of preparation for this very minute — preparations begun in the distant jungle of Mogok and continued with watchfulness and thought and loving care — the minute had found him not at his post. He had failed her. He stood for a little while, his wits scattered, his heart aching with remorse and grief as it had never ached before, and his body erect in a sort of catalepsy of his senses.
“Very well, we shall see,” he said aloud in a rough harsh voice, so strangely unlike his own that his servant eyed him with concern.
“I’ll have a bath now and change. I shall go out again immediately.”
“Very well, sir.”
The servant went off upon his business, and Strickland wondered with a grim smile whether he, too, as well as Cowcher, George, was a client of Peacock Farm.
Whilst he bathed and changed into his evening clothes, he speculated where he would be most likely to discover Ariadne. He had several invitation cards for that night stuck into the frame of the mirror over his mantelshelf. But they were all invitations to the kind of party which made Ariadne nervous. His servant rang up her house and learnt that she was not there.
“The most likely place will be The ‘Noughts and Crosses,’” he argued, “and at all events I shall see Corinne there.”
But even that was denied to him. It was nearly half-past twelve when he entered the big room with the crowded tables and its walls of pigeon’s-egg blue. Corinne had danced that night at eleven o’clock and had gone from the club the moment her dance was finished. Strickland went from the club, too. He drove to Corinne’s house; the windows were dark, the servants in bed, no one answered his ring of the bell. He recalled each favourite resort of Ariadne’s, and drew each one blank. He had his invitation cards in his pocket. He visited every one of the big houses in the squares to which he was bidden; and though he lingered for a while in their drawing-rooms and halls, never did he hear her clear voice or see her lovely face lighten with a smile. She was nowhere that night, and as the darkness began to lift Strickland sent his chauffeur with the car to his garage and himself disconsolately started to walk home.
XIX. THE TREASURE HUNT
NOW THIS LAST house from which Strickland turned disconsolately away was a great house in South Street, and the house above all houses at which he had hoped to discover Ariadne. He had kept it confidently to the last, since parties given there were gay and broke up late in consequence. He turned to the right on leaving it and walked down John Street into the higher end of Charles Street. His way home lay now to his left, but he had not proceeded farther than twenty paces when a small closed and brightly-illuminated car flashed past him from the direction of Park Lane, and drew up at the kerb, beneath a lamp-post a hundred yards or so ahead. The door was flung open and two young ladies, with cloaks over their bright evening gowns, sprang out and hurried along the pavement with every appearance of extreme agitation. Both of them carried electric torches, and far away down the street towards Berkeley Square, now on this side of the roadway, now on that, the lights of the torches flickered and glanced like gigantic glow-worms.
Strickland quickened his pace. The two girls must be searching for the name-plate of a doctor. Some grievous accident or some unexpected crisis of a malady had clearly happened in the neighbourhood. But when he reached the open door of the car and looked into it, he stopped in bewilderment. It was a car of the saloon type and the back seat was heaped high with a quite unaccountable number of maps and books of reference. He saw dictionaries, a Whitaker’s Almanack, a red book, an abridged encyclopaedia, a ready reckoner, and a Post Office Telephone Directory. Whilst he was gazing at these accumulated springs of popular knowledge, he heard one of the girls cry out joyfully:
“Oh, there’s a man by the car! What luck!” and both of them came pattering swiftly back towards him.
“Of course,” he said to himself with a sudden illumination. He was assisting at the very first of those “treasure hunts” which were to add a new and rather distinguished gaiety to the rest of that season.
Publicity killed them very quickly. The good tedious killjoys who must be for ever reading lectures to someone, got to work in their snuffy back-drawing-rooms and trounced the young people for the licence of their ways. The writers of paragraphs sneered loftily. No doubt Carrie Beagham, of Peacock Farm, heard quite a deal in Mayfair to their discredit. Too many social aspirants felt that they must be in the thick of the competition, and the hunt became crowded like a day with the Quorn. Finally, the roughs and the loafers got wind of the game and learnt that here at last was ninepence for fourpence, and easily got, too. They had only to watch out for the discovery of a clue by the occupants of a car, and thereafter every car which drove up to the spot was boarded before it had even stopped, the clue was thrust in at the window, and money demanded.
Thus as lively a diversion as a girl’s ingenuity ever devised came to an untimely end. Two implements were as necessary to the treasure hunt as a bat to a game of cricket, a quality and a possession, a quick mind and a motor-car. With these, at an hour when the streets had more or less emptied, you forgathered at an appointed rendezvous. There the first clue was to be discovered, and understood. It showed the way to the second, the second to the third, and finally the Treasure, which consisted of a few pence, was reached somewhere in the early morning, and a picnic of a breakfast sent all the hunters joyously home to bed.
Strickland was able to recognise now the first of the two young ladies who were running towards him for one of Ariadne’s friends, by name Phyllis Harmer. She recognised him, too, as he stood under the light from the standard.
“Bobbie, it’s Colonel Strickland. We’re all right,” and as she reached him she thrust a paper into his hand.
“You’ll help us, won’t you? You see, that’s the last clue. We found it by the Albert Hall, and this is the final one. We’re a long way the first, and if we can only get it, we shall win the Treasure easily.”
All the while she spoke she was glancing up and down the street as anxiously as an outpost who expects a night attack. Strickland read the clue. It was a stanza written in the form of “The Rubáiyát,” which Phyllis Harmer had copied on to a slip of paper thus:
One died a martyr in a king’s eclipse,
Two with a merry jest upon his lips.
Oh search, lest Fate’s same iron cap puts out
Your torch nor yet the final secret slips.
Strickland gathered up his intellect in a mighty effort, whilst Phyllis Harmer turned to her companion.
“You’ll drive the car round the corner into Berkeley Square, so that if any of the others come along before we’re off, they won’t get any help from seeing it standing here. This is Bobbie Carthew, Colonel Strickland.”
Bobbie Carthew was a tall thin girl with hair of a pale-gold colour. She neither bowed nor smiled, nor expressed any feeling whatever on the occasion of this or indeed any introduction. But she simply drew back both lips and made a rabbit’s mouth.
“How do you do?” said Strickland, and then triumphantly turning to Phyllis Harmer, “I’ve got it,” he cried.
Phyllis Harmer stared at him in perplexity for a second.
“What do you mean?” she asked, but her thoughts were with her eyes up the road and down the road, and anywhere but with the stanza.
“Why, these two first lines mean here, Charles Street,” he declared pontifically.
Phyllis Harmer danced on the pavement in an ecstasy of impatience.
“But, my dear man,
of course they mean Charles Street. That’s why we are here.”
“And the second two lines,” he continued, “refer to one of those iron extinguishers which used to be found outside old houses in other days for link boys to put out their torches. Visualising the street, I remember clearly that there are some still remaining outside the houses at the other end of Charles Street.”
Phyllis Harmer was now wringing her hands.
“But of course there are. We’ve found out the exact extinguisher in which the clue’s hidden. We found it out ages ago. But it’s terribly high. We have nothing to stand on and we shall tear ourselves to ribbons climbing up to it.”
“Oh, I see,” cried Strickland. “It’s just manual labour, not brain-work you want from me.”
Bobbie Carthew made several rabbit’s mouths to indicate amusement. She even made a sudden, curiously disconcerting noise, which though it was accompanied with no hint of any expression, must have been intended for a laugh. But it sounded like the whinny of some exceptionally tiny colt.
“That’s all! Oh, do come along, Colonel Strickland! I know all the others will come piling on the top of us in a second.”
“I’m coming,” he said, and Phyllis Harmer turned upon the word, and scampered off down the street like a boy out of school with Strickland at her heels.
“What does the Treasure amount to?” he asked, as he ran.
“One and eightpence in coppers, and I’ve got to win them.”
“You shall if brain and brawn — your brain and my brawn — can manage it,” said Strickland, who was now reduced to his due proportions in this confederacy.
Suddenly, however, a new idea dawned upon him.
“Good Lord!” he cried, and he stopped dead.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Phyllis Harmer. She stamped her feet upon the pavement in her indignation. “You are the most disobliging man I’ve ever come across. I can’t understand why Ariadne adores you.”
That last sentence sent a thrill of joy through her assistant. It was the most unfortunate reproach she could have uttered. For it rooted him to the ground.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 75