William Le Queux - The Four Faces

Ten minutes must have passed. In the heart of the dense wood all was still as death, save for a pheasant's evening crow, and the sudden rush of a rabbit signalling danger to its companions.

"What circumstances, Mike?" Dulcie repeated. She spoke in a strange tone. Her voice was very low, as though she feared to break the silence which surrounded us.

Taken aback, I hesitated. We were very close together now—my leg touched her horse. Already, overhead in a moonless sky, the stars shone brightly. In the growing gloom her face was visible, though partly blurred.

"Why not stop here a moment?" I said, hardly knowing that I spoke, or why I spoke. My mouth had grown suddenly dry. The timbre of my voice somehow founded different. Without answering she shortened her reins, and her horse was still.

Why had we stopped? Why had I suggested our stopping? I saw her, in the darkness, turn her face to mine, but she said nothing.

"Dulcie!" I exclaimed suddenly, no longer able to control myself. Without knowing it I leant forward in my saddle. I could see her eyes, now. Her gaze was set on mine. Her lips were slightly parted. Her breast rose and fell.

Some strange, irresistible force seemed all at once to master me, deadening my will, my brain, my power of self-restraint. My arm was about her; I was drawing her towards me. I felt surprise that she should offer no resistance. My lips were pressed on hers….

She was kissing me feverishly, passionately. Her whole soul seemed to have become suddenly transformed. Her arms were about my neck—I could not draw away.

"Oh, Mike! Mike!" she gasped, "tell me you really mean it—that you are not just playing with me—flirting with me—tell me you … oh, I love you so, dearest. Ah, yes. I love you so, I love you so!"

It was very dark by the time we had made our way through the extensive wood—a short cut to Holt Manor—and were once more in the lanes, I felt strangely happy, and yet a curious feeling which I could neither explain nor account for obsessed me.

Our joy was so great—would it last? That was the purport of my sensation, if I may express it so. I longed at that moment to be able to look into the future. What had the Fates in store for me—for us both?

Perhaps it was as well I didn't know.

We had entered the park gates, and were half-way up the long avenue of tall elms and stately oaks, when I saw a light approaching through the darkness. It came nearer, and we guessed it must be a man on foot, carrying a lantern.

Now he was quite close.

"Is that Miss Dulcie? a voice inquired out of the blackness, as the light became stationary.

"Yes. That you, Churchill?" Dulcie called back.

Churchill was the head gardener. Born and bred on the estate, there were few things he loved better than to recall to mind, and relate to anybody sufficiently patient to listen to him, stories and anecdotes of the family. Of "Miss Dulcie" he would talk for an hour if you let him, telling you how he remembered her when she was "not so high," and of the things she had done and said as a child.

"What do you want, Churchill?" she called to him, as he remained silent.

Still for some moments he did not speak. At last he apparently plucked up courage.

"There's been sad doings at the house," he said, and his voice was strained.

"Sad doings!" Dulcie exclaimed in alarm. "Why, what do you mean?"

"There's been a shocking robbery, Miss Dulcie—shocking. You'll hear all about it when you go in. I thought it best to warn you about it. And Master Dick—"

He stopped abruptly.

"Good heavens, Churchill!" she cried out in great alarm, "quick, tell me what has happened, tell me everything. What about Master Dick?"

"He's been served shocking, Miss. Oh, it's a terrible affair. The whole house looted during the hunt breakfast this, morning, and Master Dick—"

"Yes! Yes!"

"Treated something crool."

"Dick! They haven't hurt Dick. Oh, don't say they have done him some injury!"

The tone of agony in her voice was piteous.

"He's come round now, Miss Dulcie, but he's been unconscious for hours. They put chloroform or something on him—Sir Roland himself found him in one of the upstairs rooms, lying on the floor just like dead."

"Oh, heavens, how awful! How is he now?"

"The two doctors are with him still, Miss, and as I come away, not ten minutes ago, they telled me he was goin' on as well as could be expected. It was at lunch time Sir Roland found him, and then the robbery was discovered. Every bit of jewellery's been stolen, 'tis said, and a whole chest-full of plate—the plate chests were open all the morning as some of the old silver had been used at the breakfast. The robbery must have took place during the meet, when the hall and rooms downstairs was full of people and all the servants as busy as could be. There was lots of cars there as you know, Miss, and the police think the thieves must have come in a car and gone into the house as if they were hunting-folk. But nobody don't seem to have seen any stranger going upstairs—the police say there must have been several thieves on the job. Master Dick may be able to tell something when he's hisself again, pore young gentleman."

We didn't wait to hear more, but set our horses into a smart trot up the avenue to the house.

A week had passed since Dulcie had promised to become my wife, and since the amazing robbery in broad daylight at Holt Manor.

I had been five days back in town, where I had some estate business to attend to. It was the evening of Hugesson Gastrell's house—warming 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. At least one Duke was present, a Cabinet Minister too, also a distinguished Judge and two Archbishops, for I noticed them as I fought my way up into the room where music was being performed, music the quality of which the majority of the listeners gauged by the fees known to be paid to the artists engaged, and by the amount of newspaper publicity those artists' Press agents had succeeded in securing for them.

Nor were journalists lacking at this "interesting social function," as some of them afterwards termed it in their papers. In London I move a good deal in many kinds of society, and now I noticed, mingling in the crowd, several men and women I was in the habit of meeting frequently, though I did not know them to speak to—Press representatives whose exclusive duty I knew it to be to attend social gatherings of this description. As I edged my way through the dense throng I could hear my favourite composition, Dvorak's "Humoresque," being played on the violin by Beatrice Langley, who I had been told was to appear, and for a few brief minutes the crowd was hushed. To my chagrin the music ended almost as I succeeded in forcing my way into the room, so that I was in time only for the applause.

Now the hall and the large rooms where the guests were, were filled with the buzz of conversation. In two of these rooms supper was in progress, a supper in keeping with the sumptuousness, the luxury and the general extravagance noticeable everywhere.

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.