E Phillips Oppenheim

by The Wicked Marquis

  "This has been sent down from Broomleys, sir," the man explained.

  David took it and felt a sudden sinking of the heart. The envelope was thin, square and of common type, the writing was painstaking but irregular. There was a smudge on one corner, a blot on another. David glanced at the Marquis, who nodded and immediately commenced a conversation with Grantham. He tore open his message and read it:

  "The time has arrived. I wait for you here."

  He crushed the half-sheet of notepaper in his fingers and then dropped it into his pocket.

  "There is no answer," he told the servant.

  CHAPTER XXXII

  Grantham, who had been unusually silent throughout the service of dinner, slipped away from the room a few minutes before the other men. He found Letitia arranging a bridge table, and drew her a little on one side.

  "Letitia," he said, "I am annoyed."

  "My dear Charles," she replied, "was anything ever more obvious!"

  "You perhaps do not realise," he continued, "that you are the cause."

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  "Well?"

  "In the first place," he complained, "you are not wearing my ring."

  "I thought I told you," she reminded him, "that I would prefer not to until we formally announced our engagement."

  "Why on earth shouldn't we do that at once—this evening?" he suggested. "I can see no reason for delay."

  "I, on the other hand, have a fancy to wait," she replied carelessly, "at least until your visit here is over.

  "Your hesitation is scarcely flattering," he remarked with some irritation.

  "Is there anything else you wish to say?" she enquired. "I really must get out those bridge markers."

  He began to show signs of temper. Watching him closely for the first time, Letitia decided that he had most unpleasant-looking eyes.

  "I should like to know the subject of your conversation with that Thain fellow when I came in this evening," he demanded.

  "I am sorry," she said coolly. "We were speaking upon a private subject."

  The anger in his eyes became more evident.

  "Private subject? You mean to say that you have secrets with a fellow like that?"

  "A fellow like that?" she repeated. "You don't like Mr. Thain, then?"

  "Like him? I don't like him or dislike him. I think he ought to be very flattered to be here at all—and you are the last person in the world, Letitia, I should have expected to find talking in whispers with him, with your heads only a few inches apart. I feel quite justified in asking what that confidence indicated."

  Letitia smiled sweetly but dangerously.

  "And I feel quite justified," she retorted, "in refusing to answer that or any similar question. Are you going to play bridge, Charlie?"

  "No!" he replied, turning away. "I am going to talk to Miss Laycey."

  Sylvia was quite willing, and they soon established themselves on a settee. The Duchess, rather against her inclinations, was included in the bridge quartette. Letitia, having disposed of her guests, strolled over towards David, who was standing with his hands behind him, gloomily studying one of the paintings.

  "I must show you our Vandykes, Mr. Thain," she said, leading him a little further away. "When these wonderful oil shares of yours have made us all rich, we shall have little electric globes round our old masters. Until then, I find it produces quite a curious effect to try one of these."

  She drew an electric torch from one of the drawers of an oak cabinet and flashed a small circle of light upon the picture. Thain gave a little exclamation. The face which seemed to spring suddenly into life, looking down upon them with a faintly repressed smile upon the Mandeleys mouth, presented an almost startling likeness to the Marquis.

  "Fearfully alike, all our menkind, aren't they?" she observed, lowering the torch. "Come and I will show you a Lely."

  They passed further down the gallery. She looked at him a little curiously.

  "Is it my fancy," she asked, "or have you something on your mind? The note which reached you contained no ill news, I hope?"

  "I don't know," he answered, with unexpected candour. "I have a great deal on my mind."

  "I am so sorry," she murmured.

  They had reached the further end of the gallery now. She sank into the window seat and made room for him by her side. For a moment he looked out across the park. In the moonless night the trees were like little dark blurs, the country rose and fell like a turbulent sea. And very close at hand, ominously close at hand as it seemed to him, a bright light from Richard Vont's cottage was burning steadily.

  "Let me ask you a question," he begged a little abruptly. "Supposing that you had given your word of honour, solemnly, in return for a vital service rendered, to commit a dishonourable action; what should you do?"

  "Well, that is rather a dilemma, isn't it?" she acknowledged. "To tell you the truth, I can't quite reconcile the circumstances. I can't, for instance, conceive your promising to do a dishonourable thing."

  "At the time," he explained, "it did not seem dishonourable. At the time it seemed just an act of justice. Then circumstances changed, new considerations intervened, and the whole situation was altered."

  "Is it a monetary matter?" she enquired, "one in which money would make any difference, I mean?"

  He shook his head.

  "Money has nothing to do with it," he replied. "It is just a question whether one is justified in breaking a solemn oath, one's word of honour, because the action which it entails has become, owing to later circumstances, hideously repugnant."

  "Why ask my advice?"

  "I do not know. Anyhow, I desire it."

  "I should go," she said thoughtfully, "to the person to whom I had bound myself, and I should explain the change in my feelings and in the circumstances. I should beg to be released from my word."

  "And if they refused?"

  "I don't see how you could possibly break your word of honour," she decided reluctantly. "It is not done, is it?"

  He looked steadily down the gallery, through the darkened portion, to where the soft, overhead lights fell upon the two card tables. There was very little conversation. They could even hear the soft fall of the cards and Sylvia's musical laugh in the background. All the time Letitia watched him. The strength of his face seemed only intensified by his angry indecision.

  "You are right," he assented finally. "I must not."

  "Perhaps," she suggested, "you can find some way of keeping it, and yet keeping it without that secondary dishonour you spoke of. Now I must really go and see that my guests are behaving properly."

  She rose to her feet. Sylvia's laugh rang out again from the far corner of the gallery, where she and Grantham were seated, their heads very close together. Letitia watched them for a moment tolerantly.

  "I will recall my fiancé to his duty," she declared, "and you can go and talk nonsense to Sylvia."

  "Thank you," he answered, "I am afraid that I am not in the humour to talk nonsense with anybody."

  She turned her head slightly and looked at him.

  "Sylvia is such an admirer of yours," she said, "and she has such a delightful way of being light-hearted herself and affecting others in the same fashion. If I were a man—"

  "Yes?"

  "I should marry Sylvia."

  "And if I," he declared, with a sudden flash in his eyes, "possessed that ridiculous family tree of Lord Charles Grantham's—"

  "Well?"

  "I should marry you."

  She looked at him through half-closed eyes. There was a little smile on her lips which at first he thought insolent, but concerning which afterwards he permitted himself to speculate. He stopped short.

  "Lady Letitia," he pleaded, "there is a door there which leads into the hall. You don't expect manners of me, anyway, but could you accept my farewell and excuse me to the others? I have really a serious reason for wishing to leave—a reason connected with the note I received at dinner time."

&nbs
p; "Of course," she answered, "but you are sure that you are well? There is nothing that we can do for you?"

  He paused for a moment with his hand upon the fastening of the door.

  "There is nothing anybody can do for me, Lady Letitia," he said. "Good-by!"

  She stood for a moment, watching the door through which he had passed with a puzzled frown upon her face. Then she continued her progress down the room. Arrived at the bridge table, she stooped for a moment to look over her aunt's score.

  "Finished your flirtation, my dear?" the latter asked coolly.

  Letitia accepted the challenge.

  "So effectually," she replied, "that the poor man has gone home. I am to present his excuses to every one."

  The Duchess paused for a moment in the playing of her hand. Her brother, with unfailing tact, threw himself into the breach.

  "I suppose," he said, "that we can scarcely realise the responsibilities which these kings of finance carry always upon their shoulders. They tell me that Mr. Thain has his telegrams and cables stopped in London by a secretary and telephoned here, just to save a few minutes. He receives sometimes as many as half a dozen messages during the night."

  The Duchess continued to play her hand.

  "After all," she remarked, "I fear that I shall not be able to ask Mr. Thain to Scotland. One would feel the responsibility so much if he were to lose anything he valued, by coming."

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  Richard Vont, as though he had been sitting there listening for the raising of the latch, was on his feet before David could enter the sitting room.

  "The Lord's day has come," he muttered, dragging him in. "It's been a weary while, but it's come."

  David threw off his overcoat in silence, and the old man looked wonderingly at his clothes.

  "You've been taking your dinner up with them—at the house?" he asked.

  David nodded.

  "Yes," he assented. "Your note found me there. I came as soon as I could."

  "I never doubted ye," the old man muttered. "I knew you'd come."

  David, suddenly stifled, threw open the cottage window. When he came back into the little circle of lamp-light, his face was pale and set. He was filled with a premonition of evil.

  "I want you to listen to me, uncle," he said earnestly. "I have something to say."

  "Something to say?" the old man repeated. "Another time, my boy—-another time. To-night you have work to do," he added, with a fierce flash of triumph in his eyes.

  "Work?"

  "Aye!—to keep your oath."

  "But to-night? What can I do to-night?" David exclaimed. "No, don't tell me," he went on quickly. "I'll have my say first."

  "Get on with it, then. There's time. I'm listening."

  "I have forgotten nothing," David began, "I am denying nothing. I remember even the words of the oath I swore."

  "With your hand upon the Bible," Vont interrupted eagerly,—"your hand upon the Book."

  David shivered.

  "I am not likely to forget that night," he said. "What I swore we both know. Well? I have begun to keep my word. You know that."

  "Aye, and to-night you'll finish it!" Vont cried, with uplifted head. "After to-night you'll be quit of your oath, and you can go free of me. I've made it all easy for you. It's all planned out."

  "I must finish what I have to say," David insisted. "It's been on my mind like lead. He's a ruined man, uncle—beggared to the last penny. I've dishonoured myself, but I've done it—for your sake. Beyond that I cannot go."

  "You cannot go?" Vont muttered blankly.

  "I cannot. I don't know what this scheme of yours is, uncle, but leave me out of it. I'm in Hell already!"

  "You think—"

  Vont was breathing heavily. The words suddenly failed him, his fingers seemed to grip the air. David had a momentary shock of terror. Then, before he could stop him, the old man was down upon his knees, holding him by the legs, his upraised face horrible with a new storm of passion.

  "David, you'll not back out! You'll not break that oath you swore when I lent you the money—all my savings! And it might have gone wrong, you know. It might have beggared me. But I risked it for this! You don't know what I've been through. I tell you there isn't a night, from darkness till nigh the dawn, I haven't toiled with these hands, toiled while the sweat's run off my forehead and my breath's gone from me. And I've done it! I've made all ready for you—and to-night—it's to-night, boy! If you go back on me, David, as sure as that Book's the truth, you shall know what it is to feel like a murderer, for I'll sit and face you, and I'll die! I mean it. As God hears me at this moment, I mean it. If you falter to-night, you shall find me dead to-morrow, and if it blackens my lips, I'll die cursing you as well as him—you for your softness because they've flattered you round, him because he still lives, with the wrong he did me unpunished."

  David dragged him up by sheer force and pushed him back into his chair.

  "What is it you want me to do?" he asked in despair.

  "You can't refuse me," Vont went on, his voice strong enough now. "Watch me and listen," he added, leaning forward. "There's my hand on the Book. Here's my right hand to Heaven, and I swear by the living God that if you fail me, you shall find me to-morrow, sitting dead. That's what your broken oath will do."

  "Oh, I hear," David answered drearily. "I'll keep my word. Come, what is it?"

  Vont rose deliberately to his feet. All trace of passion seemed to have disappeared. He took an electric torch from his pocket and led the way to the door.

  "Just follow me," he whispered.

  They made their way down the little tiled path to the bottom of the garden. In the right-hand corner was what seemed to be the top of a well.

  "You remember that, perhaps?"

  David nodded.

  "I know," he said. "I used to play down there once."

  Vont rolled the top away, and, stooping down, flashed the light. There were stone steps leading to a small opening, and at the bottom the mouth of what seemed to be a tunnel. David started.

  "It's one of the secret passages to Mandeleys!" he exclaimed.

  "There are seven of them somewhere," his uncle replied, in a hoarse undertone—"one, they say, from Broomleys, but that's too far, and the air would be too foul, and maybe it don't lead where I want it to. I've made air-holes along this, David. You take the torch, and you make your way. There's nothing to stop you. It's dry—I've sprinkled sand in places—and there's air, too. When you come to the end there's a door. Four nights it took me to move that door. It's wide open now. Then you mount a little flight of stairs. They go round and round, and at the top there's a little stone landing. You'll see before you what seems to be blank wall. You press your palms on it—so—and soon you find an iron handle. It'll turn easy—I've oiled it well—and you step right into the room."

  "What room?" David demanded, in bewilderment.

  The old man's fingers clutched his arm.

  "Into the bedchamber of the Lady Letitia Mandeleys!" he proclaimed triumphantly. "Keep your voice low, boy. Remember we are out of doors."

  "Into the—! Are you mad, uncle?" David muttered, catching at his voice as though it were some loose quality that had escaped from him.

  "There's never a saner man in this county," was the fierce reply. "It's what I've worked for. It's the worst blow I can deal his pride. Oh, I know she is a haughty lady! You'll step into her chamber, and she'll see you, and she'll shriek for her servants, but—but, David," he added, leaning forward, "they'll find you there—they'll find you there! The Marquis—he'll be told. The nephew of Richard Vont will be found in his daughter's chamber! There'll be explanations enough, but those things stick."

  David suddenly found himself laughing like a madman.

  "Uncle," he cried, "for God's sake—for Heaven's sake, listen to me. This is the maddest scheme that ever entered into any one's head. I should be treated simply like a common burglar. I should have no excuse to offer, nothing to say. I sho
uld be thrown out of the house, and there isn't a human being breathing who'd think the worse of the Lady Letitia. You don't know what she's like! She's wonderful! She's—"

  "I'll not argue with you, boy," Vont interrupted doggedly. "You think I know nothing of the world and its ways, of the tale-bearing and the story-telling that goes on, women backbiting each other, men grasping even at shadows for a sensation. You'll do your job, David, you'll keep your oath, and from to-night you'll stand free of me. There'll be no more. You can lift your head again after you've crossed that threshold. Make what excuse you like—come back, if you will, like a frightened hare after they've found you there—but you'll have stood in her bedchamber!"

  David shivered like a man in a fever. He was beginning to realise that this was no nightmare—that the wild-eyed man by his side was in sober and ghastly earnest.

  "Uncle," he pleaded, "not this. Lady Letitia has been kind and gracious to me always. We can't strike through women. I'd rather you bade me take his life."

  "But I don't bid you do anything of the sort," was the sullen reply. "Death's no punishment to any man, and the like of him's too brave to feel the fear of it. It's through her the blow must come, and you'll do my bidding, David, or you'll see me sitting waiting for you to-morrow, with a last message to you upon my dead lips."

  David gripped the torch from his hand. After all, Hell might come to any man!

  "I'll go," he said.

  It was a nightmare that followed. Stooping only a little, flashing his torch always in front, he half ran, half scrambled along a paved way, between paved walls which even the damp of centuries seemed scarcely to have entered. Soon the path descended steeply and then rose on the other side of the moat. Once a rat paused to look at him with eyes gleaming like diamonds, and bolted at the flash of the torch. More than once he fancied that he heard footsteps echoing behind him. He paused to listen. There was nothing. He lost sense of time or distance. He stole on, dreading the end—and the end came sooner even than he had feared. There was the door that yielded easily to his touch, the steep steps round and round the interior of the tower, the blank wall before him. The iron handle was there. His hands closed upon it. For a moment he stood in terrible silence. This was something worse than death! Then he set his teeth firmly, pressed the handle and stepped through the wall.