"DEAR MR. MORTIMER,--Long before this reaches you my sister will have received a telegram introducing you properly. I am so sorry that I forgot to wire before, but I have been so harassed and busy that I never thought about it. A true woman, you will say--I can almost see your superior smile as I sit writing here, yet I dare to hope that the smile will not be too superior, that a touch of pity will creep in when you remember that my worry is for a husband's freedom. If only I can save Lukos--but it is foolish to waste time on 'if's.' I mean to succeed, and you have promised to help me. You have my heartfelt gratitude already.
"Thank you for your letter telling me of your arrival at The Quiet House. Do not be discouraged that you have not seen Mizzi yet, and that you have been unable to approach the ambassador again. I have been working very hard and am not dissatisfied with the results, though they would look paltry if I committed them to paper. My information leads me to think that we are on the right track--that Mizzi is the guilty party--that sooner or later an attempt will be made to sell the document--and lastly that we must suspect every one. Yes, every one! Even my sister, perhaps, and that brings me to the more important part of my letter.
"I have not seen Winifred for some years, but from the hints you gave me in your letter I gather that she is of distinctly prepossessing appearance. (Isn't that how the police reports usually describe it?) My pen hesitates whether to write 'Be on your guard' or not. Shall I?... may I?... But it is written and must stand. Oh! do not imagine that I am distrustful--I know you can be relied on--I know you can be true and firm and faithful: but my heart fails when I remember that you are a man; encompassed, too, by perils you hardly perceive, snares almost impalpable. Forgive me! I have no right to speak like this.... I know you are honorable ... but the greatness of the stake forces me to utter my warning--to foresee danger which may be remote--to leave no stone unturned to insure a triumph--to guard against any weakness, however venial or trivial, which may make my path--and the path of Lukos!--more difficult.
"This is a rambling letter. It is midnight, and I have had a tiring day. Forgive me and understand; or, if you can not understand, forgive! I urge you again to watch my sister carefully.... Heavens! it seems a perfidy; but the life of Lukos!... Watch her, I say again. I have grave cause for suspicion, though she does not guess I suspect. Why she, above all others, should betray me I can not tell. I had hoped that--but this is weak and futile. Watch her carefully.
"You say that up to the present nothing has happened. It may well be that nothing will happen for a time. In any case, you are of the greatest service by remaining at The Quiet House--on guard! Stay there at all costs, till you hear from me again. Do what she tells you--play the hypocrite if need be--strive to conciliate her, but watch. I have London under my eyes.
"So much for the chief business. As for news, the play ceases very shortly and I may be able to arrange a meeting, when we can talk things over. On the whole, I am happy, being busy,--at least as happy as I can expect to be until.... Oh! by the way, since we parted I have had another offer of marriage. Such a nice man, too. But if only men could be satisfied with being true friends.... Some men can, I know, but the rest ... I am tired. Good night, my friend.--Your friend,
"BEATRICE BLAIR."
Such was the letter that Lionel was reading for the fiftieth time since, a fortnight past, it had come to The Quiet House. It gave him little information and less comfort. From the formal "Dear Mr. Mortimer" ("Hang it! I couldn't expect 'Lionel'!" he told himself savagely) to the distant intimacy of "Your friend Beatrice Blair," it was unsatisfying to a devoted adherent of romance. Yet what else could he ask for? He was not in love--no! he was not in love, for there was a husband! Besides, Beatrice would be the last person to lead him on when.... Stay! there had been temptation on her part in the cab and in the dressing-room. Yes, there had; there was no sense in pretending to himself that there had been no encouragement: there had. Charity (a word, by the way, which the Revised Version has altered to "Love") on the instant said: "Coxcomb! She led you on to engage your services for Lukos. A pardonable deception." "Very well," grumbled Lionel, admitting the justice of the argument, "let it be so. But it seems a little rough on...?"
Leaving this, he turned to other items, trying to read some new shades of meaning into the too-well-remembered words. She was working hard--good: she was fairly happy--good: he must stay where he was--good: watching--good: Lukos--Lukos--again Lukos ... h'm ... yes, good--certainly good. The beggar was her husband, after all. Good. The sister was pretty--a smile: he must be on his guard ... h'm ... perfidy ... a traitor ... of prepossessing appearance ... could she be ... jealous?
"Coxcomb!" said reason again: "look at the end--'Your friend.' Then, too, there is 'another proposal ... such a nice man.' Jealousy? Ha! ha!" Lionel swallowed the pill with a bad grace and put the letter away.
He had been at The Quiet House for a little more than a fortnight, and up to the present he had achieved nothing. Mizzi had made no sign, the ambassador was invisible, no further instructions had come from Beatrice. Yet he had been interested and amused, studying the character of his hostess and waiting, Micawber-like, for something to turn up.
His position was the oddest conceivable. Since Beatrice's telegram ("She introduces you," said Miss Arkwright, "at the price of five and threepence. You must be an exceptional man!") he had been more than a guest, almost an old acquaintance. He had been accepted without question, treated as an equal, hall-marked with the stamp of an Arkwright's approval, because the Arkwrights, it appeared, prided themselves on their hospitality. It was not for the sake of Beatrice alone that he received so warm a welcome: she was a lady to be mentioned with reserve, being "on the stage." But she was an Arkwright, and a guest vouched for (especially at five and threepence) by an Arkwright was a person to be considered.
This at a price, and a curious price at that. "In some things I am a faddist," Miss Arkwright had said the morning after his arrival. "I admit it freely. I am glad to welcome you here, Mr. Mortimer, but if you stay you must give me your word not to go outside my grounds during your visit. The garden is large--the village uninteresting, so your curtailed liberty will not be much of a deprivation. You think me insane, perhaps? Well, I have reasons for my wish,--personal reasons into which I can not enter. That is the only stipulation I make: can you accept it?"
He said yes, for refusal meant a lodging at the inn, where he could not watch her. In his letter to Beatrice he told her of this extraordinary whim, and asked whether she thought it better to agree or to pack up and go. Her "stay at all costs" was sufficient answer, and though he hoped this did not mean "If need arise, break bounds and your word," still he meant to do it if necessary. The life of Lukos and her happiness were worth more than a detective's honor.
But up to the present there had been no question of breaking bounds. He could see nothing of Mr. "Beckett" nor Mizzi, but he was obeying Beatrice. And it was not unpleasant even for a detective to enjoy luxurious idleness, a perfect garden and the society of a charming woman. For she was charming, despite her fads and bigotry. She was well read, exceedingly pretty, and could talk. The mornings she spent in writing and arranging her household affairs. After lunch she gave herself up to him entirely. Tea they usually had together in the summer-house. About five she always excused herself, and Lionel dined alone. He was given to understand that she was busy on a history of the Arkwright family and could work best at night. Consequently he never saw anything of her again till breakfast.
This naturally struck him as one of the most suspicious features of the case. Suspicious--not in the sense that Miss Arkwright was an Ottoman conspirator, for that he had been instructed to expect; but suspicious for a deeper reason. More than once during the first week of his stay he had caught himself wondering, "Can she be, by any chance, Beatrice herself, masquerading as her own sister?" It was a solution that suggested itself to a mind seeking explanation of extraordinary things, extraordinary people. It was the most natural suspicion in the world, considering what he had gone through. He rejected it at first as being preposterous and disloyal, but common sense and a dislike of being victimized made him return to the idea and weigh it from day to day.
In the end he discarded the theory. It was, he thought, too enormous a deception to be carried through with success: even Beatrice, actress though she was, could not have the histrionic powers necessary to the feat; such a tour de force, continued from day to day, was impossible. Besides, Miss Arkwright and her sister were different in many points. They were, it is true, identical in voice, feature and carriage, but their outlook and ideas were far asunder. Winifred Arkwright obviously hated the stage, while Beatrice Blair was an actress; Winifred seemed timid in some respects, Beatrice radiated courage; the latter had never mentioned religion; the former was a Christian Scientist; Beatrice adored asparagus; Winifred's weakness was kidney beans. These, and a hundred other variations, trivial in themselves but overwhelming in the mass, gave him heart of grace and a fresh faith in his lady of the stage.
But despite all this he claimed that Winifred might be Beatrice. It was almost unthinkable, but still it might be so. What gave the coup de grace, at least for a time, to his vain imaginings was a copy of The Times. It has been said that Miss Arkwright always left him after five: this would have given her time to motor to London and play at the theater if she had been Beatrice Blair. But Beatrice herself had written that the play was soon to be taken off: when he saw an announcement in the newspaper that the Macready Theater was closed, he wondered if his hostess would join him at dinner that night. If she did, why, it would be a damning fact. But she did not, either on that or any subsequent day. He breathed more freely, and went on waiting as patiently as he might.
The task of learning the house, grounds and personnel did not take long. The servants were an aged cook, whom he never saw; a gardener; Forbes the footman; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Wetherby, a silent faded woman of over sixty, whose recreation outside her duties was the game of patience. A sad and oppressive creature, she, whose life had been a tragedy. The details were not given, though Lionel gathered that it had been a very ordinary tragedy, but enough to wither her life and make her shun her kind. Both the men servants were dumb--an odd circumstance, but Lionel was getting used to oddity. He expressed surprise one day, hoping to draw out his hostess. She was frank about the matter: "They are dumb, poor creatures, but their affliction is my gain. Most servants gossip or argue. Mine do neither, and that is why I was at some pains to engage them. It works very well, though a stranger is naturally surprised at first."
The more he saw of her, the more he admired. The primness of her attitude, when he began to know her better, struck him as being anything but ineradicable; she was in some things exceedingly human. They were talking one afternoon of Christian Science, and Lionel asked her if she really believed there was no such thing as pain.
"Of course," she said promptly. "Pain is merely ignorance."
"Then you must admit," he said, "that there can be no pleasure."
She was puzzled. "How so?"
"Everything must have its foil. Good requires evil as its negative, or there is--nothing. So to feel pleasure one must postulate pain. Otherwise you are incapable of pleasure."
"Oh, but I'm not!" she said impulsively, and laughed.
"Then where are your science and your logic?"
"You mean I am a woman and illogical." She parried, evading the dilemma. "When you understand our true position you will realize how fallacious are your arguments. Now, what do you think of Pendennis?"
He laughed again, but talked Thackeray willingly enough. When, a few moments later, she idly plucked a rose and pricked her finger on a thorn, giving a little cry, he said humorously, "Ignorance, not pain!" She disdained to notice him, but smelt the rose luxuriously. "The illusion of pleasure?" he suggested, pressing the thrust home. Her eyes sparkled with indignation, but he smiled into them unafraid. They were getting on capitally, he felt, and it was pleasant to find Miss Arkwright so much of a woman. She would pay for flirtatious treatment, he thought villainously, reflecting what a shame it was that lips so alluring should be unkissed. Lionel, you may have observed, was an adaptable creature. Fickle? Surely not. He had mapped his course and was steering strictly according to compass. While Beatrice was still a grass-widow the more innocent paths of dalliance showed no warning board, "Trespassers will be Prosecuted." They were not applauded, it is true--and here he readily confessed his weakness,--but they were not forbidden. So why, in the strict execution of the charge laid upon him, may he not try to persuade Miss Arkwright to take a less frigid view of life? The reader, virtuous soul, may censure: I can only record. Yet, too, it was something in the nature of a drug to his conscience. When he had time to think (and he had plenty of time for that) he loathed the idea of being there under false pretenses, playing the spy. It was all very well arguing that it was for the sake of Beatrice, but it would have been an easier task if Winifred had not been so charming. She was too charming, but it had to be done.... Of course, he ought to have refused a hint of dalliance, but one step leads to another, and man is frail. Besides, it had not gone very far ... not far enough to hurt either him or her.
One mundane detail must be given in this chapter. The morning after his arrival he had written to London for a supply of clothes. For the credit of the Blair side of the family he felt that some of Beatrice's notes ought to be spent on an adequate wardrobe. They came the day after, giving color to the excuse that his valet had got drunk and pawned the contents of his flat two hours after his leaving London. Miss Arkwright did not seem to think it strange; anything might happen in that wicked city. But she considered the Homburg hat a little "too continental." This was before her education had begun in earnest.
