“Don’t you think we’ve had enough of this nonsense, Penelope?” he asked.
XI
To one approaching casually Adèle Gertstein might have seemed asleep. She reclined with a sort of feline luxuriousness in a deck chair on one of the wide terraces of “Maid’s Retreat,” and beneath her the green sweep of the park, and the rolling woodlands and cornfields of Hampshire, smiled lazily back at the sun.
But her eyes were wide open, fixed unseeingly on the splendours of the country. She was trying to think, a process somewhat difficult to one whose actions were habitually guided by impulse. The effort always exasperated her, and only the most formidable and immediate necessity drove her to it.
She roused herself and crumpled the sheet of paper that had lain in her lap with a venomous hand. “Five thousand pounds,” she murmured. “How the devil am I to find five thousand pounds?”
To the wife of a millionaire such a sum perhaps ought not to seem impossible. But there were reasons why Adèle Gertstein dare not appeal to her husband. There were limits to his devotion, and he might well inquire why £12,000 a year was not sufficient for her needs.
Yet five thousand pounds she had to have. Of course she could get it on Bonnie Chevalier for the Stewards Cup, if those idiot bookmakers had not restricted her credit. Just as if she didn’t mean to pay. Anyway, there were other bookmakers.
She tapped a gold pencil between her teeth as she strolled back to the house and seated herself at her desk. There was only one thing for it. Why should the woman always suffer? She drew a sheet of notepaper towards her and began to write:
“My dear Larry—Things are driving me to distraction. This man—you know whom—now wants me to find five thousand for him within the next week, or he will go to Solly. He has drained me dry and I simply do not know where to turn. For the sake of old times you might let me have this money. It means very little to you, and I will most certainly pay it back very soon. I simply must have it, or I am ruined. Perhaps I have been a fool, but I am sure this man means business, and it would be awkward for you, too, if things became public. So please do, like a dear man, lend me this money. Bring it if you can—‘Maid’s Retreat’ is only three hours out of London by road.
“I am practically all alone here. You, of course, have seen by the newspapers what has happened at Streetly House. I have not been back because there is nothing I can do. Solly calls me up twice a day and wails, and, although I am very fond of Solly, I don’t believe my nerves at present could stand being all day in the same house with him.
“Penelope has disappeared. She went up to town for me the morning after the robbery and has dropped out without a word. You would think that at least she would have written to me. Solly says that some clumsy policeman suspected her of being the burglar, and that she has been frightened into running away. It does seem ridiculous. Really, if I weren’t so concerned with my own tragedies I should be worried to death about her. But I expect that she is all right.
“Now for Heaven’s sake don’t disappoint me. Bring or send that money. I am desperate.—A.”
She read the letter over twice, and added fresh underlines to many that she had already made. Then she sealed and stamped it, and carried it herself to the post bag in the hall.
That was over and done with. To the fluffy mind of Adèle Gertstein the situation was met. There were other and more special immediate interests to engage her. There was, for instance, her toilet for Goodwood. An hour before she had cancelled all her arrangements for the race meeting. Who could be thrilled by such an event with black tragedy lurking in the imminent background? She had done with all the foibles and vanities of this life. Her maid, with the suspicion of a wink, had conveyed her decision to those concerned, and preparations had gone forward without a hitch, for her servants knew Mrs. Gertstein.
So she conferred with her maid with the deliberation and hesitancy that the momentous decision of what to wear demanded. In something less than an hour she was adorned with a gossamer creation of cream with delicate touches of pale blue, that, as the maid assured her, set off her beauty to perfection.
For her closest feminine friend could not have denied Adèle Gertstein’s beauty. Still something under thirty, she was tall and supple as a boy. A complexion of roses and cream called for little in the way of artificial preservation, although that little she saw was supplied. Melting blue eyes, a mouth that was inclined to waver a little uncertainly, or a little plaintively or a little piquantly—it depended which way you regarded it—and a delicate chin that she could tilt with charming defiance on occasion, made her a picture on which a man’s eye’s might dwell restfully.
“You think it will do, Rena?” she asked, as she studied herself from a series of angles in the tall mirror.
The maid threw up her hands in an eloquent gesture of admiration. “It is simply perfect, madam,” she declared.
“Then I will go.”
It was a run of a mere twenty miles from “Maid’s Retreat” to Goodwood, and, although Mrs. Gertstein was half-an-hour behind the time she had fixed for her departure her car, in the skilled hands of an immaculate chauffeur, easily made the distance in time for her to join the group of acquaintances with whom she had arranged to lunch.
There is no more beautiful racecourse in the world than this arena set in the wooded Sussex hills. On a perfect July day,
