To a man of that caliber the clandestine and the surreptitious are usually vulgar, and always inane. Yet, then, in the hearts of the best what abysses there may be! There are men, as there are women, dwelling on the uplands of life who, in spite of the contrast, perhaps because of the contrast, are seized by absolute nostalgias for mud.
Even so, concerning that skirt I had my doubts. Besides, it was yet to be shown that it had rustled from Ferrol’s rooms. Of one thing, of course, I was certain. It did not belong to Miss Rivers.
That certainty, however, was not shared by Lady Massingbird. On the contrary. It was a visible enjoyment to her to assume that it could belong to no one else. But with these views only Lady Silverstairs agreed.
“There is no doubt of it,” declared that delightful little woman. “It must have been hers, unless, indeed”—and here she smiled, and, smiling, disclosed a glimpse of teeth as pretty and as keen as a kitten’s—“unless she happened to be flaunting it in a cancan at the Moulin Rouge. That would be so like her. Yes, wouldn’t it?”
In the ripple of laughter that ensued I got up to go. It did not seem that anything further could be added. Nor was there for a while. At the inquest nothing not already known was developed except that Simpson was an ass, and one equally meager item. This item was produced by Ferrol’s servant, who testified that for several days prior to the murder his master had seemed not quite easy. Asked how this condition had manifested itself, the man made the remarkable statement that Lord Ferrol had instructed him to pitch downstairs anyone that he saw trying to get in.
The item, if meager, was suggestive. Taken in connection with the main episode, it became dramatic. It showed, or seemed to show, that Ferrol was anticipating, if not what actually occurred, at any rate, something sinister. Then, suddenly that something had come, and as suddenly had gone, leaving not a clue behind, leaving not even a trace, leaving no sign of its presence, no indication of a struggle, leaving nothing but a corpse on the floor, the eyes open, the mouth distorted, a human being choked out of life in a jiffy.
Scotland Yard had become very active. So, too, had the press. The latter dripped with the mystery. Everybody was bewitched by it. It had even the merit of interesting an exalted personage. Meanwhile, no suspicion of any kind rested on Miss Rivers, who, on the evening of the murder, had, with her retinue, descended on Paris at the Hôtel du Rhin. But though no suspicion attached to her, it was felt in Scotland Yard, and more agreeably still in exalted circles, that, because of the unexplained rupture of her engagement, she might, if she chose, possibly provide a clue.
But the matter was very delicate. For here was a young person, the Stars and Stripes wrapped all about her, who had done nothing save cease to be affianced to a man that was subsequently killed. The police could not approach her. Only diplomacy might. And then only diplomacy of a kind which British embassies lack; for where among them is the Metternich who, without violating every canon of decency, could presume to question the girl?
Nevertheless, it was felt that an effort should be made. That feeling, naturally enough, was induced, less by a desire for justice in the abstract, than by the hope that the damnable and haunting enigma of the mystery would be explained. In this, the exalted personage to whom I have referred was, as I afterward learned, as keen for a scent as the police.
Of that, at the time, I was ignorant, and so remained until there came a note from the duchess bidding me again to Hill Street, where I learned, not merely what had been going on, but of a triumph of diplomacy that had resulted.
The diplomat who had effected it was, together with a lot of other people, in Hill Street when I got there. He had, it then appeared, been chosen not by reason of any particular astuteness, but simply because he knew Miss Rivers rather well. This diplomat, whom I had met before, and originally in the arms of his nurse, was Lord Nevis, a son of the duchess, and as nice a looking boy as you ever saw.
At the moment he was gorging himself with sandwiches. But, presently, prodded by his mother, the fruits of his mission—already, as I discovered, displayed in high quarters—were produced.
“Well, you know,” he at last began, “Miss Rivers said that the reason—er—the reason why she broke with Ferrol was—er—that he was crazy, don’t you know. Yes. That’s what she told me. She said that he saw things.”
“Fancy that!” murmured the endearing Lady Massingbird.
“Well, not things, perhaps,” the young lord resumed; “but people; or, rather, a person. Ferrol, you know, had written a book about—about—”
“The sutras,” I suggested.
“Yes. Quite so. And this book made the people who believed in them rather nasty, or he said it did. Then he got from Benares a letter—where the dickens is that thing gone now?” the diplomat interrupted himself to ask, and, asking, burrowed in several pockets. “Oh, yes, here it is,” he added, extracting a bit of paper on which, seemingly, he had jotted hard words. “Yes, Ferrol got a letter from a yogi who signed himself Anagarika, saying that if, within a certain specified time, he did not make public retraction of the lies which he had printed concerning this—er—this system of philosophy I believe it is, if he did not do that he would be visited by the”—here the lad examined his notes again—“he would be visited by the parapoutra.”
“The what?”
