The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  The fact is, he had not been invited.

  Why, then, was he going? And how was he to gain admittance? To which questions the answer involves a painful explanation.

  Augustus Bailey lived by his wits. That is the common phrase, and a stupid phrase it is. For do we not all live by our wits, if we have any? And does it need any specially brilliant wits to be a common rogue? However, such as his wits were, Augustus Bailey lived by them, and he had not hitherto made a fortune.

  The present venture arose out of a conversation overheard at a restaurant table and an invitation-card carelessly laid down and adroitly covered with the menu. Augustus had accepted the invitation that he had not received (on a sheet of Hotel Cecil notepaper that he had among his collection of stationery) in the name of Geoffrey Harrington-Baillie; and the question that exercised his mind at the moment was, would he or would he not be spotted? He had trusted to the number of guests and the probable inexperience of the hostesses. He knew that the cards need not be shown, though there was the awkward ceremony of announcement.

  But perhaps it wouldn’t get as far as that. Probably not, if his acceptance had been detected as emanating from an uninvited stranger.

  He walked slowly towards the gates with growing discomfort. Added to his nervousness as to the present were certain twinges of reminiscence. He had once held a commission in a line regiment—not for long, indeed; his “wits” had been too much for his brother officers—but there had been a time when he would have come to such a gathering as this an invited guest. Now, a common thief, he was sneaking in under a false name, with a fair prospect of being ignominiously thrown out by the servants.

  As he stood hesitating, the sound of hoofs on the road was followed by the aggressive bellow of a motor-horn. The modest twinkle of carriage lamps appeared round the curve and then the glare of acetylene headlights. A man came out of the lodge and drew open the gates; and Mr. Bailey, taking his courage in both hands, boldly trundled his machine up the drive.

  Half-way up—it was quite a steep incline—the car whizzed by; a large Napier filled with a bevy of young men who economized space by sitting on the backs of the seats and on one another’s knees. Bailey looked at them and decided that this was his chance, and, pushing forward, he saw his bicycle safely bestowed in the empty coach-house and then hurried on to the cloak-room. The young men had arrived there before him and, as he entered, were gaily peeling off their overcoats and flinging them down on a table. Bailey followed their example, and, in his eagerness to enter the reception-room with the crowd, let his attention wander from the business of the moment, and, as he pocketed the ticket and hurried away, he failed to notice that the bewildered attendant had put his hat with another man’s coat and affixed his duplicate to them both.

  “Major Podbury, Captain Barker-Jones, Captain Sparker, Mr. Watson, Mr. Goldsmith, Mr. Smart, Mr. Harrington-Baillie!”

  As Augustus swaggered up the room, hugging the party of officers and quaking inwardly, he was conscious that his hostesses glanced from one man to another with more than common interest.

  But at that moment the footman’s voice rang out, sonorous and clear—

  “Mrs. Chater, Colonel Grumpier!” and, as all eyes were turned towards the new arrivals, Augustus made his bow and passed into the throng. His little game of bluff had “come off,” after all.

  He withdrew modestly into the more crowded portion of the room, and there took up a position where he would be shielded from the gaze of his hostesses. Presently, he reflected, they would forget him, if they had really thought about him at all, and then he would see what could be done in the way of business. He was still rather shaky, and wondered how soon it would be decent to steady his nerves with a “refresher.” Meanwhile he kept a sharp lookout over the shoulders of neighbouring guests, until a movement in the crowd of guests disclosed Mrs. Chater shaking hands with the presiding spinster. Then Augustus got a most uncommon surprise.

  He knew her at the first glance. He had a good memory for faces, and Mrs. Chater’s face was-one to remember. Well did he recall the frank and lovely American girl with whom he had danced at the regimental ball years ago. That was in the old days when he was a subaltern, and before that little affair of the pricked court-cards that brought his military career to an end. They had taken a mutual liking, he remembered, that sweet-faced Yankee maid and he; had danced many dances and had sat out others, to talk mystical nonsense which, in their innocence, they had believed to be philosophy. He had never seen her since. She had come into his life and gone out of it again, and he had forgotten her name, if he had ever known it. But here she was, middle-aged now, it was true, but still beautiful and a great personage withal. And, ye gods! What diamonds! And here was he, too, a common rogue, lurking in the crowd that he might, perchance, snatch a pendant or “pinch” a loose brooch.

  Perhaps she might recognize him. Why not? He had recognized her. But that would never do. And thus reflecting, Mr. Bailey slipped out to stroll on the lawn and smoke a cigarette. Another man, somewhat older than himself, was pacing to and fro thoughtfully, glancing from time to time through the open windows into the brilliantly-lighted rooms. When they had passed once or twice, the stranger halted and addressed him.

  “This is the best place on a night like this,” he remarked; “it’s getting hot inside already. But perhaps you’re keen on dancing.”

  “Not so keen as I used to be,” replied Bailey; and then, observing the hungry look that the other man was bestowing on his cigarette, he produced his case and offered it.

  “Thanks awfully!” exclaimed the stranger, pouncing with avidity on the open case. “Good Samaritan, by Jove. Left my case in my overcoat. Hadn’t the cheek to ask, though I was starving for a smoke.” He inhaled luxuriously, and, blowing out a cloud of smoke, resumed: “These chits seem to be running the show pretty well, h’m? Wouldn’t take it for an empty house to look at it, would you?”

  “I have hardly seen it,” said Bailey; “only just come, you know.”

  “We’ll have a look round, if you like,” said the genial stranger, “when we’ve finished our smoke, that is. Have a drink too; may cool us a bit. Know many people here?”

  “Not a soul,” replied Bailey. “My, hostess doesn’t seem to have turned up.”

  “Well, that’s easily remedied,” said the stranger. “My daughter’s one of the spinsters—Granby, my name; when we’ve had a drink, I’ll make her find you a partner—that is, if you care for the light fantastic.”

  “I should like a dance or two,” said Bailey, “though I’m getting a bit past it now, I suppose. Still, it doesn’t do to chuck up the sponge prematurely.”

  “Certainly not,” Granby agreed jovially; “a man’s as young as he feels. Well, come and have a drink and then we’ll hunt up my little girl.” The two men flung away the stumps of their cigarettes and headed for the refreshments.

  The spinsters’ champagne was light, but it was well enough if taken in sufficient quantity; a point to which Augustus—and Granby too—paid judicious attention; and when he had supplemented the wine with a few sandwiches, Mr. Bailey felt in notably better spirits. For, to tell the truth, his diet, of late, had been somewhat meagre. Miss Granby, when found, proved to be a blonde and guileless “flapper” of some seventeen summers, childishly eager to play her part of hostess with due dignity; and presently Bailey found himself gyrating through the eddying crowd in company with a comely matron of thirty or thereabouts.

  The sensations that this novel experience aroused rather took him by surprise. For years past he had been living a precarious life of mean and sordid shifts that oscillated between mere shabby trickery and downright crime; now conducting a paltry swindle just inside the pale of the law, and now, when hard pressed, descending to actual theft; consorting with shady characters, swindlers and knaves and scurvy rogues like himself; gambling, borrowing, cadging and, if need be, stealing, and always slinking abroad with an apprehensive eye upon “the man in blue.”


  And now, amidst the half-forgotten surroundings, once so familiar; the gaily-decorated rooms, the rhythmic music, the twinkle of jewels, the murmur of gliding feet and the rustle of costly gowns, the moving vision of honest gentlemen and fair ladies; the shameful years seemed to drop away and leave him to take up the thread of his life where it had snapped so disastrously. After all, these were his own people. The seedy knaves in whose steps he had walked of late were but aliens met by the way.

  He surrendered his partner, in due course, with regret—which was mutual—to an inarticulate subaltern, and was meditating another pilgrimage to the refreshment-room, when he felt a light touch upon his arm. He turned swiftly. A touch on the arm meant more to him than to some men. But it was no wooden-faced plain-clothes man that he confronted; it was only a lady. In short, it was Mrs. Chater, smiling nervously and a little abashed by her own boldness.

  “I expect you’ve forgotten me,” she began apologetically, but Augustus interrupted her with an eager disclaimer.

  “Of course I haven’t,” he said; “though I have forgotten your name, but I remember that Portsmouth dance as well as if it were yesterday; at least one incident in it—the only one that was worth remembering. I’ve often hoped that I might meet you again, and now, at last, it has happened.”

  “It’s nice of you to remember,” she rejoined. “I’ve often and often thought of that evening and all the wonderful things that we talked about. You were a nice boy then; I wonder what you are like now. What a long time ago it is!”

  “Yes,” Augustus agreed gravely, “it is a long time. I know it myself; but when I look at you, it seems as if it could only have been last season.”

  “Oh, fie!” she exclaimed. “You are not simple as you used to be. You didn’t flatter then; but perhaps there wasn’t the need.” She spoke with gentle reproach, but her pretty face flushed with pleasure nevertheless, and there was a certain wistfulness in the tone of her concluding sentence.

  “I wasn’t flattering,” Augustus replied, quite sincerely; “I knew you directly you entered the room and marvelled that Time had been so gentle with you. He hasn’t been as kind to me.”

  “No. You have gotten a few grey hairs, I see, but after all, what are grey hairs to a man? Just the badges of rank, like the crown on your collar or the lace on your cuffs, to mark the steps of your promotion—for I guess you’ll be a colonel by now.”

  “No,” Augustus answered quickly, with a faint flush, “I left the army some years ago.”

  “My! What a pity!” exclaimed Mrs. Chater. “You must tell me all about it—but not now. My partner will be looking for me. We will sit out a dance and have a real gossip. But I’ve forgotten your name—never could recall it, in fact, though that didn’t prevent me from remembering you; but, as our dear W. S. remarks, ‘What’s in a name—’”

  “Ah, indeed,” said Mr. Harrington-Baillie; and apropos of that sentiment, he added: “Mine is Rowland—Captain Rowland. You may remember it now.”

  Mrs. Chater did not, however, and said so. “Will number six do?” she asked, opening her programme; and, when Augustus had assented, she entered his provisional name, remarking complacently: “We’ll sit out and have a right-down good talk, and you shall tell me all about yourself and if you still think the same about free-will and personal responsibility. You had very lofty ideals, I remember, in those days, and I hope you have still. But one’s ideals get rubbed down rather faint in the friction of life. Don’t you think so?”

  “Yes, I am afraid you’re right,” Augustus assented gloomily. “The wear and tear of life soon fetches the gilt off the gingerbread. Middle age is apt to find us a bit patchy, not to say naked.”

  “Oh, don’t be pessimistic,” said Mrs. Chater; “that is the attitude of the disappointed idealist, and I am sure you have no reason, really, to be disappointed in yourself. But I must run away now. Think over all the things you have to tell me, and don’t forget that it is number six.” With a bright smile and a friendly nod she sailed away, a vision of glittering splendour, compared with which Solomon in all his glory was a mere matter of commonplace bullion.

  The interview, evidently friendly and familiar, between the unknown guest and the famous American widow had by no means passed unnoticed; and in other circumstances, Bailey might have endeavoured to profit by the reflected glory that enveloped him. But he was not in search of notoriety; and the same evasive instinct that had led him to sink Mr. Harrington-Baillie in Captain Rowland, now advised him to withdraw his dual personality from the vulgar gaze. He had come here on very definite business. For the hundredth time he was “stony-broke,” and it was the hope of picking up some “unconsidered trifles” that had brought him. But, somehow, the atmosphere of the place had proved unfavourable. Either opportunities were lacking or he failed to seize them. In any case, the game pocket that formed an unconventional feature of his dress-coat was still empty, and it looked as if a pleasant evening and a good supper were all that he was likely to get. Nevertheless, be his conduct never so blameless, the fact remained that he was an uninvited guest, liable at any moment to be ejected as an impostor, and his recognition by the widow had not rendered this possibility any the more remote.

  He strayed out onto the lawn, whence the grounds fell away on all sides. But there were other guests there, cooling themselves after the last dance, and the light from the rooms streamed through the windows, illuminating their figures, and among them, that of the too-companionable Granby. Augustus quickly drew away from the lighted area, and, chancing upon a narrow path, strolled away along it in the direction of a copse or shrubbery that he saw ahead. Presently he came to an ivy-covered arch, lighted by one or two fairy lamps, and, passing through this, he entered a winding path, bordered by trees and shrubs and but faintly lighted by an occasional coloured lamp suspended from a branch.

  Already he was quite clear of the crowd; indeed, the deserted condition of the pleasant retreat rather surprised him, until he reflected that to couples desiring seclusion there were whole ranges of untenanted rooms and galleries available in the empty house.

  The path sloped gently downwards for some distance; then came a long flight of rustic steps and, at the bottom, a seat between two trees. In front of the seat the path extended in a straight line, forming a narrow terrace; on the right the ground sloped up steeply towards the lawn; on the left it fell away still more steeply towards the encompassing wall of the grounds; and on both sides it was covered with trees and shrubs.

  Bailey sat down on the seat to think over the account of himself that he should present to Mrs. Chater. It was a comfortable seat, built into the trunk of an elm, which formed one end and part of the back. He leaned against the tree, and, taking out his silver case, selected a cigarette. But it remained unlighted between his fingers as he sat and meditated upon his unsatisfactory past and the melancholy tale of what might have been. Fresh from the atmosphere of refined opulence that pervaded the dancing-rooms, the throng of well-groomed men and dainty women, his mind travelled back to his sordid little flat in Bermondsey, encompassed by poverty and squalor, jostled by lofty factories, grimy with the smoke of the river and the reek from the great chimneys. It was a hideous contrast. Verily the way of the transgressor was not strewn with flowers.

  At that point in his meditations he caught the sound of voices and footsteps on the path above and rose to walk on along the path. He did not wish to be seen wandering alone in the shrubbery. But now a woman’s laugh sounded from somewhere down the path. There were people approaching that way too. He put the cigarette back in the case and stepped round behind the seat, intending to retreat in that direction, but here the path ended, and beyond was nothing but a rugged slope down to the wall thickly covered with bushes. And while he was hesitating, the sound of feet descending the steps and the rustle of a woman’s dress left him to choose between staying where he was or coming out to confront the newcomers. He chose the former, drawing up close behind the tree to wait until they should have pass
ed on.

  But they were not going to pass on. One of them—a woman—sat down on the seat, and then a familiar voice smote on his ear.

  “I guess I’ll rest here quietly for a while; this tooth of mine is aching terribly; and, see here, I want you to go and fetch me something. Take this ticket to the cloak-room and tell the woman to give you my little velvet bag. You’ll find in it a bottle of chloroform and a packet of cotton-wool.”

  “But I can’t leave you here all alone, Mrs. Chater,” her partner expostulated.

  “I’m not hankering for society just now,” said Mrs. Chater. “I want that chloroform. Just you hustle off and fetch it, like a good boy. Here’s the ticket.”

  The young officer’s footsteps retreated rapidly, and the voices of the couple advancing along the path grew louder. Bailey, cursing the chance that had placed him in his ridiculous and uncomfortable position, heard them approach and pass on up the steps; and then all was silent, save for an occasional moan from Mrs. Chater and the measured creaking of the seat as she rocked uneasily to and fro. But the young man was uncommonly prompt in the discharge of his mission, and in a very few minutes Bailey heard him approaching at a run along the path above and then bounding down the steps.

  “Now I call that real good of you,” said the widow gratefully. “You must have run like the wind. Cut the string of the packet and then leave me to wrestle with this tooth.”

  “But I can’t leave you here all—”

  “Yes, you can,” interrupted Mrs. Chater. “There won’t be any one about—the next dance is a waltz. Besides, you must go and find your partners.”

  “Well, if you’d really rather be alone,” the subaltern began; but Mrs. Chater interrupted him.

  “Of course I would, when I’m fixing up my teeth. Now go along, and a thousand thanks for your kindness.”

  With mumbled protestations the young officer slowly retired, and Bailey heard his reluctant feet ascending the steps. Then a deep silence fell on the place in which the rustle of paper and the squeak of a withdrawn cork seemed loud and palpable. Bailey had turned with his face towards the tree, against which he leaned with his lips parted scarcely daring to breathe. He cursed himself again and again for having thus entrapped himself for no tangible reason, and longed to get away. But there was no escape now without betraying himself. He must wait for the woman to go.