It was late in the afternoon on the following Monday, and almost dark, when we arrived at Cor Castle. Carlton himself met us at the nearest railway station, and drove us to the house, which was a fine old pile, with a castellated roof and a large Elizabethan wing. The place had been extensively altered and restored, and was replete with every modern comfort.
Carlton led us straight into the centre hall, calling out in a cheerful tone to his wife as he did so.
A slender, very fair and girlish-looking figure approached. She held out her hand, gave us each a hearty greeting, and invited us to come into the centre of a circle of young people who were gathered round a huge, old-fashioned hearth, on which logs of wood blazed and crackled cheerily. Mrs. Carlton introduced us to one or two of the principal guests, and then resumed her place at a table on which a silver tea-service was placed. It needed but a brief glance to show us that amongst the party was Mme. Koluchy. She was standing near her hostess, and just as my eye caught hers she bent and said a word in her ear. Mrs. Carlton coloured almost painfully, looked from her to me, and then once more rising from her seat came forward one or two steps.
“Mr. Head,” she said, “may I introduce you to my great friend, Mme. Koluchy? By the way, she tells me that you are old acquaintances.”
“Very old acquaintances, am I not right?” said Mme. Koluchy, in her clear, perfectly well-bred voice. She bowed to me and then held out her hand. I ignored the proffered hand and bowed coldly. She smiled in return.
“Come and sit near me, Mr. Head,” she said; “it is a pleasure to meet you again; you have treated me very badly of late. You have never come once to see me.”
“Did you expect me to come?” I replied, quietly. There was something in my tone which caused the blood to mount to her face. She raised her eyes, gave me a bold, full glance of open defiance, and then said, in a soft voice, which scarcely rose above a whisper:—
“No, you are too English.”
Then she turned to our hostess, who was seated not a yard away.
“You forget your duties, Leonora. Mr. Head is waiting for his tea.”
“Oh, I beg a thousand pardons,” said Mrs. Carlton. “I did not know I had forgotten you, Mr. Head.” She gave me a cup at once, but as she did so, her hand shook so much that the small, gold-mounted and jewelled spoon rattled in the saucer.
“You are tired, Nora,” said Mme. Koluchy; “may I not relieve you of your duties?”
“No, no, I am all right,” was the reply, uttered almost pettishly. “Do not take any notice just now, I beg of you.”
Madame turned to me.
“Come and talk to me,” she said, in the imperious tone of a Sovereign addressing a subject. She walked to the nearest window, and I followed her.
“Yes,” she said, at once, “you are too English to play your part well. Cannot you recognise the common courtesies of warfare? Are you not sensible to the gallant attentions of the duellist? You are too crude. If our great interests clash, there is every reason why we should be doubly polite when we do meet.”
“You are right, Madame, in speaking of us as duellists,” I whispered back, “and the duel is not over yet.”
“No, it is not,” she answered.
“I have the pertinacity of my countrymen,” I continued. “It is hard to rouse us, but when we are roused, it is a fight to grim death.”
She said nothing further. At that moment a young man of the party approached. She called out to him in a playful tone to approach her side, and I withdrew.
At dinner that night Madame’s brilliancy came into full play. There was no subject on which she could not talk—she was at once fantastic, irresponsible, and witty. Without the slightest difficulty she led the conversation, turning it into any channel she chose. Our host hung upon her words as if fascinated; indeed, I do not think there was a man of the party who had eyes or ears for anyone else.
I had gone down to dinner with Mrs. Carlton, and in the intervals of watching Mme. Koluchy I could not help observing her. She belonged to the fair-haired and Saxon type, and when very young must have been extremely pretty—she was pretty still, but not to the close observer. Her face was too thin and too anxious, the colour in her cheeks was almost fixed; her hair, too, showed signs of receding from the temples, although the fashionable arrangement of the present day prevented this being specially noticed.
While she talked to me I could not help observing that her attention wandered, that her eyes on more than one occasion met those of Madame, and that when this encounter took place the younger woman trembled quite perceptibly. It was easy to draw my own conclusions. The usual thing had happened. Madame was not spending her time at Cor Castle for nothing—our hostess was in her power. Carlton himself evidently knew nothing of this. With such an alliance, mischief of the usual intangible nature was brewing. Could Dufrayer and I stop it? Beyond doubt there was more going on than met the eye.
As these thoughts flashed through my brain, I held myself in readiness, every nerve tense and taut. To play my part as an Englishman should I must have, above all things, self-possession. So I threw myself into the conversation. I answered Madame back in her own coin, and presently, in an argument which she conducted with rare brilliance, we had the conversation to ourselves. But all the time, as I talked and argued, and differed from the brilliant Italian, my glance was on Mrs. Carlton. I noticed that a growing restlessness had seized her, that she was listening to us with feverish and intense eagerness, and that her eyes began to wear a hunted expression. She ceased to play her part as hostess, and looked from me to Mme. Koluchy as one under a spell.
Just before we retired for the night Mrs. Carlton came up and took a seat near me in the drawing-room. Madame was not in the room, having gone with Dufrayer, Carlton, and several other members of the party to the billiard-room. Mrs. Carlton looked eagerly and nervously round her. Her manner was decidedly embarrassed. She made one or two short remarks, ending them abruptly, as if she wished to say something else, but did not dare. I resolved to help her.
“Have you known Mme. Koluchy long?” I asked.
“For a short time, a year or two,” she replied. “Have you, Mr. Head?”
“For more than ten years,” I answered. I stooped a little lower and let my voice drop in her ear.
“Mme. Koluchy is my greatest enemy,” I said.
“Oh, good heavens!” she cried. She half started to her feet, then controlled herself and sat down again.
“She is also my greatest enemy, she is my direst foe—she is a devil, not a woman,” said the poor lady, bringing out her words with the most tense and passionate force. “Oh, may I, may I speak to you and alone?”
“If your confidence relates to Mme. Koluchy, I shall be only too glad to hear what you have got to say,” I replied.
“They are coming back—I hear them,” she said. “I will find an opportunity tomorrow. She must not know that I am taking you into my confidence.”
She left me, to talk eagerly, with flushed cheeks, and eyes bright with ill-suppressed terror, to a merry girl who had just come in from the billiard-room.
The party soon afterwards broke up for the night, and I had no opportunity of saying a word to Dufrayer, who slept in a wing at the other end of the house.
The next morning after breakfast Carlton took Dufrayer and myself down to see his strong room. The ingenuity and cleverness of the arrangement by which the electric bells were sounded the moment the key was put into the lock struck me with amazement. The safe was of the strongest pattern; the levers and bolts, as well as the arrangement of the lock, making it practically impregnable.
“Röden’s safe resembles mine in every particular,” said Carlton, as he turned the key in the lock and readjusted the different bolts in their respective places. “You can see for yourselves that no one could rob such a safe without detection.”
“It wo
uld certainly be black magic if he did,” was my response.
“We have arranged for a shooting party this morning,” continued Carlton; “let us forget diamonds and their attendant anxieties, and enjoy ourselves out of doors. The birds are plentiful, and I trust we shall have a good time.”
He took us upstairs, and we started a few moments later on our expedition.
It was arranged that the ladies should meet us for lunch at one of the keepers’ cottages. We spent a thoroughly pleasant morning, the sport was good, and I had seldom enjoyed myself better. The thought of Mme. Koluchy, however, intruded itself upon my memory from time to time; what, too, was the matter with Mrs. Carlton? It needed but to glance at Carlton to see that he was not in her secret. In the open air, and acting the part of host, which he did to perfection, I had seldom seen a more genial fellow.
When we sat down to lunch I could not help owning to a sense of relief when I perceived that Mme. Koluchy had not joined us.
Mrs. Carlton was waiting for us in the keeper’s cottage, and several other ladies were with her. She came up to my side immediately.
“May I walk with you after lunch, Mr. Head?” she said. “I have often gone out with the guns before now, and I don’t believe you will find me in the way.”
“I shall be delighted to have your company,” I replied.
“Madame is ill,” continued Mrs. Carlton, dropping her voice a trifle; “she had a severe headache, and was obliged to go to her room. This is my opportunity,” she added, “and I mean to seize it.”
I noticed that she played with her food, and soon announcing that I had had quite enough, I rose. Mrs. Carlton and I did not wait for the rest of the party, but walked quickly away together. Soon the shooting was resumed, and we could hear the sound of the beaters, and also an occasional shot fired ahead of us.
At first my companion was very silent. She walked quickly, and seemed anxious to detach herself altogether from the shooting party. Her agitation was very marked, but I saw that she was afraid to come to the point. Again I resolved to help her.
“You are in trouble,” I said; “and Mme. Koluchy has caused it. Now, tell me everything. Be assured that if I can help you I will. Be also assured of my sympathy. I know Mme. Koluchy. Before now I have been enabled to get her victims out of her clutches.”
“Have you, indeed?” she answered. She looked at me with a momentary sparkle of hope in her eyes; then it died out.
“But in my case that is impossible,” she continued. “Still, I will confide in you; I will tell you everything. To know that someone else shares my terrible secret will be an untold relief.”
She paused for a moment, then continued, speaking quickly:—
“I am in the most awful trouble. Life has become almost unbearable to me. My trouble is of such a nature that my husband is the very last person in the world to whom I can confide it.”
I waited in silence.
“You doubtless wonder at my last words,” she continued, “but you will see what I mean when I tell you the truth. Of course, you will regard what I say as an absolute secret?”
“I will not reveal a word you are going to tell me without your permission,” I answered.
“Thank you; that is all that I need. This is my early history. You must know it in order to understand what follows. When I was very young, not more than seventeen, I was married to an Italian of the name of Count Porcelli. My people were poor, and he was supposed to be rich. He was considered a good match. He was a handsome man, but many years my senior. Almost immediately after the marriage my mother died, and I had no near relations or friends in England. The Count took me to Naples, and I was not long there before I made some terrible discoveries. My husband was a leading member of a political secret society, whose name I never heard. I need not enter into particulars of that awful time. Suffice it to say that he subjected me to almost every cruelty.
“In the autumn of 1893, while we were in Rome, Count Porcelli was stabbed one night in the Forum. He had parted from me in a fury at some trifling act of disobedience to his intolerable wishes, and I never saw him again, either alive or dead. His death was an immense relief to me. I returned home, and two years afterwards, in 1895, I married Mr. Carlton, and everything was bright and happy. A year after the marriage we had a little son. I have not shown you my boy, for he is away from home at present. He is the heir to my husband’s extensive estates, and is a beautiful child. My husband was, and is, devotedly attached to me—indeed, he is the soul of honour, chivalry, and kindness. I began to forget those fearful days in Naples and Rome; but, Mr. Head, a year ago everything changed. I went to see that fiend in human guise, Mme. Koluchy. You know she poses as a doctor. It was the fashion to consult her. I was suffering from a trifling malady, and my husband begged me to go to her. I went, and we quickly discovered that we both possessed ties, awful ties, to the dismal past. Mme. Koluchy knew my first husband, Count Porcelli, well. She told me that he was alive and in England, and that my marriage to Mr. Carlton was void.
“You may imagine my agony. If this were indeed true, what was to become of my child, and what would Mr. Carlton’s feelings be? The shock was so tremendous that I became ill, and was almost delirious for a week. During that time Madame herself insisted on nursing me. She was outwardly kind, and told me that my sorrow was hers, and that she certainly would not betray me. But she said that Count Porcelli had heard of my marriage, and would not keep my secret if I did not make it worth his while. From that moment the most awful blackmailing began. From time to time I had to part with large sums of money. Mr. Carlton is so rich and generous that he would give me anything without question. This state of things has gone on for a year. I have kept the awful danger at bay at the point of the sword.”
“But how can you tell that Count Porcelli is alive?” I asked. “Remember that there are few more unscrupulous people than Mme. Koluchy. How do you know that this may not be a fabrication on her part in order to wring money from you?”
“I have not seen Count Porcelli,” replied my companion; “but all the same, the proof is incontestible, for Madame has brought me letters from him. He promises to leave me in peace if I will provide him with money; but at the same time he assures me that he will declare himself at any moment if I fail to listen to his demands.”
“Nevertheless, my impression is,” I replied, “that Count Porcelli is not in existence, and that Madame is playing a risky game; but you have more to tell?”
“I have. You have by no means heard the worst yet. My present difficulty is one to scare the stoutest heart. A month ago Madame came to our house in town, and sitting down opposite to me, made a most terrible proposal. She took a jewel-case from her pocket, and, touching a spring, revealed within the largest diamond that I had ever seen. She laid it in my hand—it was egg-shaped, and had an indentation at one end. While I was gazing at it, and admiring it, she suddenly told me that it was only an imitation. I stared at her in amazement.
“ ‘Now, listen attentively,’ she said. ‘All your future depends on whether you have brains, wit, and tact for a great emergency. The stone you hold in your hand is an imitation, a perfect one. I had it made from my knowledge of the original. It would take in the greatest expert in the diamond market who did not apply tests to it. The real stone is at the house of Monsieur Röden. You and your husband, I happen to know, are going to stay at the Rödens’ place in the country to-morrow. The real stone, the great Rocheville diamond, was stolen from my house in Welbeck Street six weeks ago. It was purchased by Monsieur Röden from a Cingalese employed by the gang who stole it, at a very large figure, but also at only a third of its real value. For reasons which I need not explain, I was unable to expose the burglary, and in consequence it was easy to get rid of the stone for a large sum—but those who think that I will tamely submit to such a gigantic loss little know me. I am determined that the stone shall once more come into m
y possession, either by fair means or foul. Now, you are the only person who can help me, for you will be unsuspected, and can work where I should not have a chance. It is to be your task to substitute the imitation for the real stone.’
“ ‘How can I?’ I asked.
“ ‘Easily, if you will follow my guidance. When you are at the Rödens’, you must lead the conversation to the subject of diamonds, or rather you must get your husband to do so, for he would be even less suspected than you. He will ask Monsieur Röden to show you both his strong room where his valuable jewels are kept. You must make an excuse to be in the room a moment by yourself. You must substitute the real for the unreal as quickly, as deftly as if you were possessed of legerdemain. Take your opportunity to do this as best you can—all I ask of you is to succeed—otherwise’—her eyes blazed into mine—they were brighter than diamonds themselves.
“ ‘Otherwise?’ I repeated, faintly.
“ ‘Count Porcelli is close at hand—he shall claim his wife. Think of Mr. Carlton’s feelings, think of your son’s doom.’ She paused, raising her brows with a gesture peculiarly her own. ‘I need not say anything further,’ she added.
“Well, Mr. Head, I struggled against her awful proposal. At first I refused to have anything to do with it, but she piled on the agony, showing me only too plainly what my position would be did I not accede to her wishes. She traded on my weakness; on my passionate love for the child and for his father. Yes, in the end I yielded to her.
“The next day we went to the Rödens’. Despair rendered me cunning; I introduced the subject of the jewels to my husband, and begged of him to ask Monsieur Röden to show us his safe and its contents. Monsieur Röden was only too glad to do so. It is one of his fads, and that fad is also shared by my husband, to keep his most valuable stones in a safe peculiarly constructed in the vaults of his own house. My husband has a similar strong room. We went into the vaults, and Monsieur Röden allowed me to take the Rocheville diamond in my hand for a moment. When I had it in my possession I stepped backward, made a clumsy movement by intention, knocked against a chair, slipped, and the diamond fell from my fingers. I saw it flash and roll away. Quicker almost than thought I put my foot on it, and before anyone could detect me had substituted the imitation for the real. The real stone was in my pocket and the imitation in Monsieur Röden’s case, without anyone being in the least the wiser.
The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries Page 68
