The Golden Beast E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) was the earliest writer of spy fiction as understood today, inventing the „rogue male” school of adventure thrillers and writing over 150 novels of all sorts. In „The Golden Beast”, a woman curses her lover’s father, a baron, who had her gamekeeper father hanged. Years afterward, three of the baron’s descendants disappear in a manner that baffles Scotland Yard, appearing they were the victims of that ancient curse. Written in 1925, with a powerful Jewish family as the main characters, there are strong descriptions and anti-Semitic characterizations. The men are greedy, money obsessed, and unattractive. The women are beautiful, alluring, exotic, and immoral.

Leseprobe

Contents

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

Israel, first Baron Honerton, famous in commercial circles as chairman of the directors of Fernham & Company, Ltd., the great wholesale chemists, Lord of the Manor of Honerton Chase, in Norfolk, sat at the head of the long black oak table in the banqueting hall of the ancient and historic mansion which he had bought, as the auctioneer described it, “lock, stock and barrel”, two years ago. One of the shrewdest financiers in England, a multimillionaire, in all the ordinary affairs of life a grim materialist, he was liable at odd moments to strange fits of abstraction, to mental wanderings almost akin to those of the visionary, during which the appearance of the man himself seemed to become transformed. Of his type he was a person of fine presence. He was tall and slim, even to lankiness. He had still a wealth of grey hair, fine, though harshly cut features, overhanging eyebrows, a pitiless mouth, eyes generally keen and hard, but filled at such times as the present with a curious, unearthly light. Even his attire seemed part of the man. He wore conventional dinner clothes, but cut after some ancient and unrecognisable pattern, the waistcoat high, the coat loose and double breasted like a smoking jacket. His collar was of the fashion of a hundred years ago; his black tie little more than a wisp. Yet, although his father had been a small master tailor, and his mother had served in a fish shop, he alone amongst that company had the air of having come to the place which was his in life.

The background and the setting of the feast now in progress were alike perfect. Honerton Chase was one of the show places of the world, and inside as well as out it was architecturally unique. There was nothing of the vandal about Israel Fernham, Lord Honerton. He had, as a matter of fact, a taste for beautiful things at least equal to the last hopelessly bankrupt owner of the great house he had acquired. The sombreness of the walls with their fine oil paintings and occasional choice pieces of armour had remained untouched. The tapestries which covered the north side of the room had even been left unrenovated lest any charm of the old colouring should be lost. The servants who waited were the best trained of their order; the butler had known royal service. Glass, silver and flowers were alike perfect. The guests!–It was his contemplation of the guests, most of them members of his own family, which had sent Israel, Lord Honerton, off into one of those mysterious fits of abstraction. There were three sons of the house and their wives. There were two daughters, both married, with their husbands. There were two Englishmen whose birth and breeding brought them well and aptly within the setting of the picture, but whose reputations were tarnished, and who had spent the best years of their lives slipping from the places which they should have occupied in the social world. Then, there was the youngest son of the house, on whom his father’s eyes had rested longest; a young man only just down from Oxford, dark, clean-shaven, reputedly clever, the sole inheritor of his father’s lean face and deep-set eyes; the sole inheritor it seemed too, in those slowly ticking moments of revelation, of the traditions of his race.

The babel of conversation around him rose and swelled. It was a family party amongst people with whom family meant intimacy, unbounded kindliness, and a decided gift for light conversation of the chaffing order. There was a great deal of champagne being drunk by the women as well as by the men–more than a great deal of noise. Once his father’s eyes strayed towards Cecil’s glass. He, alas, was as the others, the flush already creeping into his cheeks, the gleam in his eyes no longer one of intellect. Some of the men and the women, too, were already smoking cigarettes, although the dinner was only half served. The laughter now and then was uproarious.

Through it all Israel, host of the gathering, sat still in his trancelike mood, his wine glasses empty, a tumbler of water by his side. It was one of many moments of bitterness, when his eyes saw the truth and the judgment of his brain, unbiassed by his affections, spelled out the condemnation of these, his own brood, the children of his blood and bone. They were his sons, but he knew that the hand of luxury and evil living had laid its slur upon them. They all carried too much flesh; their mouths had loosened. Money, wine and pleasure were claiming their own. And the women–there was a vein of idealism in the nature of this man who watched so sorrowfully, a touch of those sterner joys of renunciation handed down to him from the great forefathers of the race from which he sprang–the women filled him with a sense almost of shame. Judith’s shoulders were disgracefully bare, the look in Rebecca’s eyes–“Becky”, as every one called her–as she flirted with the young alien by her side, seemed to speak of modesty cast aside. Leah, once his favourite, was quieter only because she was devoting herself with more absorption to the offerings of her father’s wonderful chef. Her uncovered shoulders were almost colossal, her laughter, when she did pause to join in what had become less a conversation than a stream of chaff, was louder than ever. Alone of all the boisterous company, Rachel, his youngest daughter-in-law, showed occasional signs of shyness and discomfiture.

Although with no knowledge of it at the time, it was the last of these embittered periods of clear-sightedness in which Israel, Lord Honerton, was ever to indulge. He pursued his train of thought to its unhappy end. He looked back to his youth of poverty, remembered those days of cleaner fasting, the days when purely family joys sufficed, when the reading in the Synagogue brought a living message to these others as well as to him. He felt the passing of all that was picturesque and spiritual in life. They had gone–his four millions remained!

A servant entered the room and whispered to the butler who presently crossed to the other side of the table and leaned over Cecil.

“John Heggs, the keeper, is here, sir. He wondered whether he could have a few words with you.”

The young man received the message curiously. He turned sharply around and there was a gleam in his eyes almost of apprehension.

“Heggs!” he repeated. “What the devil does he want?”

“I understand, sir,” the butler explained, “that he was anxious to discuss the order in which the coverts should be taken to-morrow.”

Cecil’s face cleared. It was a particular vanity of his to direct the shooting on the days when others besides the house party were invited. He nodded acquiescence.

“I’ll come out at once,” he assented. “Quite right of Heggs! I wanted to see him about the long spinneys before he sent the beaters out in the morning.”

He rose to his feet.

“You’ll excuse me, Dad,” he continued, quickly, as he passed his father’s place. “We ought to have a topping day to-morrow. They’ll be tame enough for even Rudolph to hit–that is, if we can get them to fly at all.”

There were roars of laughter and a volley of chaffing reminiscences. The two strangers exchanged glances. Under cover of it all Cecil left the room, and strolled across the great hall, out towards the back quarters, preceded by one of the footmen.

“Heggs is in the far room, sir,” the man told him, “not the ordinary gun room.”

“What the mischief’s he doing there?” Cecil demanded irritably and with a momentary return of that first impulse of uneasiness.

“There’s a map of the estate there, sir,” the servant reminded him. “He was studying it when I left. I think his idea is to have three partridge drives after lunch.”

Cecil pursued his way down the stone-flagged passage. The room which he presently entered was in a wing almost cut off from the rest of the house–a large apartment with stone floor, deal table and plastered walls, used many years ago as a dairy. Heggs the keeper was studying a map which hung upon the wall, a blackthorn switch in his hand. He turned round at Cecil’s entrance, and touched the place where his hat, which reposed upon the table, would have been.

“You wanted to see me, Heggs?” the young man asked.

“I wanted a word or two with you, sir.”

“Hurry up, then. I’m in the middle of dinner. I should like the birds––”

“We’ll talk about that presently,” Heggs interrupted.

Cecil, son of Israel, Lord Honerton, stared at the speaker in amazement–amazement which turned almost in a second to fear. Heggs was a man of over sixty years of age without much physique, but he had the hard clean complexion and bright eyes of the careful liver. His hair was grey, his expression, as a rule, entirely benevolent. He was a very ordinary product of the soil, a man who loved his glass of beer, his friends, his occupation, and was supposed to know more about the hand rearing of birds and the ways of vermin than any keeper in Norfolk. It was plain, however, at this moment, that he was thinking of other things. What those things were Cecil Fernham probably knew. At any rate he made a quick movement towards the door and, finding it frustrated, opened his mouth. With surprising quickness it was covered by Heggs’ horny hand.

“You know what I’m here for,” the latter said. “You can guess what I’m going to do. If you hadn’t come to-night I should have done it to-morrow in front of all your friends. If I had a son I’d have let you two have it out. But he’s in Australia. You can squeal if you like. They won’t hear you, and if they interrupt before I’ve finished, you’ll get the rest another day.”

Cecil Fernham struggled and did his best to call for help. Neither proceeding availed him very much. With the first fierce plunge his beautifully laundered white shirt was ripped from the studs, and his collar torn. Presently graver things happened. Heggs was a kindly man and humane where his fellow creatures were concerned, but he was cruel to vermin. The affair would probably have been brought to its natural conclusion–Cecil Fernham would have spent a fortnight in his room, owing to some regrettable accident, and Heggs would have accepted one of the many other places always open to him–but for a slight and untoward incident. A scullery maid passing down the passage heard something of what was happening. She rushed, breathless, into the kitchen. There was a stampede of servants along the passageway and Heggs heard them coming. The thought that he was to be robbed of one single blow, baulked of one single second of the punishment he was dealing out, for a moment maddened him. As the door was being opened, he lifted the half-insensible body of the young man whom he had been castigating, a grim and unpleasing sight, held it over his head as he might have done the carcase of a fox, shook him and flung him on to the floor, which was unfortunately of stone. Then he turned to the door, passed through the little throng of servants, not one of whom showed the least desire to stop him, and out through a back exit into the park.

*     *

*

John Heggs conformed to type up to a certain point, and at a certain juncture in the psychological tree departed from it. On reaching home, he presented very much the appearance of a man who has got through a disagreeable piece of business and means to forget it. He completed a task upon which he had been engaged earlier in the day–cleaning a couple of guns which had been sent down for that purpose from the house. Afterwards he poured himself out a tumbler of beer, glanced into the kitchen to see that the woman, who came in to look after him since the days of his widowerhood, had prepared his breakfast, and finally filled a pipe, found the local paper, and sat down in his easy-chair to await events. He was on the point of retiring for the night, when the long expected knock at the door came. In response to the invitation to enter, his old friend and companion, P. C. Choppin, the local policeman, crossed the threshold. Choppin, who had been disturbed in the act of going to bed, was wearing his official trousers, but an old tweed coat and a hat. The gravity of his manner, however, atoned for any irregularities of toilet. He closed the door firmly behind him and there was an ominous jangle in his coat pocket in which he was feeling.

“This is a very bad job, Mr. Heggs,” he said gloomily.

Heggs folded up his paper and rose to his feet.

“It’s none so terrible, Choppin,” was the undisturbed reply. “I’ve just gi’en one of them young varmints up at the house sum’at that he deserved. I’m willing to go to jail for it, though, if it’s their wish.”

It is doubtful whether this was not the moment of P. C. Choppin’s life. He realised that it had fallen to him to convey the fell tidings. He was not an ill-natured man but he was carried away by the enormity of his news.

“You’ve broke his neck, Heggs,” he announced solemnly. “He’s dead! He were stone dead when they picked him up!”

Heggs looked a little dazed.

“I didn’t go for to do that,” he muttered, half to himself.

Choppin shook his head mournfully.

“You ma’un put ‘em up, John Heggs,” he said. “I hurried here before the Sergeant from Fakenham, who be on the way. I thought you’d rather it were a friend.”

The handcuffs clicked on Heggs’ wrists. For the first time in his life P. C. Choppin had arrested a murderer.

*     *

*

John Heggs, notwithstanding a strong recommendation to mercy, was hanged by the neck until he was dead, and Israel, Baron Honerton, sat outside Norwich jail in his automobile and listened to the tolling of the bell as one who hears music. As he gave the word to drive off he found himself surrounded by a small but hostile crowd. It was a matter of common report in the City that but for his tireless efforts the jury’s recommendation to mercy would have had due effect. They had heard, these people, of his frequent visits to the Home Secretary. There were rumours that he had threatened a withdrawal from the political party to which his entire adherence had been given, if any measure of leniency were shown to the condemned man. They closed in upon him now menacingly and the words they shouted were not pleasant to hear. Yet, for the first time since his son’s death, Israel smiled. He let down the window of his automobile and looked out into the driving rain.

“Is there any one who wishes to speak to me?” he asked.

There was a volley of catcalls and abuse, sounding oddly enough against the background of that slowly tolling bell, but no single person accepted the challenge. Israel was on the point of giving his chauffeur orders to drive on when a girl came from the edge of the crowd and approached the automobile. She was young, good-looking in a somewhat quiet manner, neatly, even fashionably dressed. She advanced to the side of the automobile and looked in at its occupant.

“Are you Cecil’s father?” she enquired.

“I am,” he assented.

She pointed to the jail.

“He was my father,” she said.

Israel scrutinised her from underneath his heavy grey eyebrows and there was neither interest nor pity in his face.

“It is you loose-living women,” he declared, “who bring death in amongst us. Do you realise that it is for the gratification of your lust that I have lost my son and you your father?”

She answered him quite calmly. She was obviously a person of education. She was, also, undoubtedly possessed of a rare gift of restraint.

“What about your son?” she asked. “He was my first lover.”

“That may be so or it may not,” he rejoined. “A wanton has no knowledge of the truth. Are you here to beg from me?”

For the first time she showed some sign of emotion. Her eyes were lit with anger.

“Money! Money! That is all you and your breed think of!” she exclaimed passionately. “You buy your pleasures, your wives, and you would buy your way into heaven if there were such a place. It is perhaps as well that your son died. He would have grown like the rest of you.”

“He bought you, I suppose,” Israel remarked.

She took off her glove deliberately, removed a small platinum ring from her finger and threw it into the bottom of the car.

“That is the only present I ever had from your son,” she announced–“the only one of value I was ever willing to receive from him.”

“What do you want from me?” he demanded abruptly.

The bell had ceased to toll. The crowd of people were slowly dispersing. One or two policemen had put in a casual appearance. There was still every now and then, however, a menacing shout, and once a stone struck the back of the car. A brewer’s dray, passing, spattered her with mud. She waited until it had gone before she tried to speak.

“I came to remind you of what you already know,” she said. “Of you two men–you and my father–it is you who are the murderer, not he. My father has died at your hands a shameful death. I found him reading the Old Testament when I paid him my farewell visit. He was reading your code–‘Life for life, eye for eye.’ Something like that, isn’t it?”

“Well?”

“I have not come to threaten you,” she continued, “but I am here to tell you this. For the deed which you have permitted to take place this morning you and your race will suffer. My father killed your son by accident; you murdered my father with foul and beastly premeditation. You bought his death with your money. This money shall spread itself like a foul cobweb of hate and decay over you and your family of whom you are so proud.”

He looked at her unmoved, cold and stern, his eyes steely, his tone, when he spoke, bitter.

“So you are a prophetess,” he sneered.

She leaned a little forward so that her face was framed in the place where the window would have been. The rain glistened upon her cheeks and clothes, her perfect self-control seemed for a moment disturbed by some new emotion.

“Why not?” she demanded. “You come of a race who have trafficked generations ago with soothsayers and the magicians. Have you never heard that there is just one moment in a woman’s life when she may see a little beyond the world–a little above it? That moment is with me now. It is your son’s child, drawing near to life. You are an old man, and you will not live to see the things of which I tell you, but nevertheless they are true. The millions for which you have toiled are changing already into the poison which will bring your people to nought and worse than nought. The fear of it is in your heart already. You will never lose it. You will die in your bed and not on that shameful scaffold, but your heart will be as heavy as his because, like all others in those fading moments, you will see the truth.”

As quietly and unobtrusively as she had come she turned and passed away. The old man sat in his place and watched her. She walked, notwithstanding her dripping state, with dignity and self-possession. He pulled up the window and muttered a brief order to the chauffeur. Somehow or other he felt baulked of the sullen joy with which he had entered upon the morning. Ghosts rode with him.

During the afternoon, Israel sought his wife in her sitting room. She was a large lady, addicted to post-luncheon repose, and neither the persuasions of her more modish children, nor the stern disapproval of her husband had ever succeeded in preventing her from adorning herself by daytime as well as night with a great profusion of costly and glittering gems. Her husband stood and watched her for several moments. By some irony of fate he found his thoughts wandering back to the day of their marriage–she, a slim, half-frightened child, with dark eyes still holding a touch of the visionary. This was what his wealth had brought; the result of forty years of luxury! She opened her eyes slowly and returned his gaze.

“What is it, Israel?” she asked, a little peevishly.

“It came to my mind to ask you a question,” he said. “This girl of Heggs’, do you know anything of her?”

“Know anything of her?” Lady Honerton gasped. “Would I be likely to, Israel? She never lived here. She only visited once that summer.”

“But since–you have made enquiries?”

“Not I!” was the indignant response. “What do you mean? Has she been to ask for money?”

Israel shook his head, moved away, and his wife once more closed her eyes.

Israel made his way to his library, a room of solemn magnificence, yet somehow imbued with a touch of its new owner’s austerity. He sent for his butler.

“Groves,” he said, “you have lived in this neighbourhood all your life.”

“All my life, your lordship,” the man assented.

“I should like you,” Israel continued calmly, “to tell me what you know of the young person, Heggs’ daughter.”

“Very good, my lord,” Groves replied. “There was–your lordship will pardon my asking–there was no reprieve?” he added, with a note of anxiety in his tone.

“There was no reprieve. Heggs was hanged at eight o’clock this morning.”

The man stood for a moment without speech. His master read his thoughts with grim resentment.

“The young lady, my lord,” the former proceeded, “was a very superior person. Heggs himself came from a family of yeomen–gentlemen farmers they call themselves. They have lived in these parts for generations. The young lady won scholarships and went to college and Oxford University. She was very clever and very gifted. She was–if your lordship will pardon my saying so–very much esteemed here.”

“Do you know where she is now?” Israel enquired, after a moment’s pause.

“I have no idea, my lord. She has not been seen in these parts for some time.”

His master dismissed him with a little wave of the hand, and presently wrote a letter to his lawyers. In three or four days he received a reply.

17, Lincoln’s Inn.

Dear Lord Honerton,

We have carried out your instructions and have been in communication with the young lady, who, as seems natural under the somewhat shameful circumstances, has changed her name. We regret, however, to inform you that she declines in the most absolute and uncompromising terms to hold any communication with any member of your family. We may add that there is no indication of her being in any financial distress.

Faithfully yours, Fields, Marshall & Fields.

Israel had received the letter after dinner one night and had taken it to his library to read. Slowly he tore it to pieces and threw them on to the fire. He stood there with his hands behind his back, wrapped in thought. Through the half-open door came the brazen sounds of jazz music from the latest and most expensive gramophone. Some of the family had motored down from London in luxurious motor cars “to cheer up the old people.” He could hear the sound of their heavy footsteps upon the polished floor, almost the sound of their breathing, the high-pitched voices, shrieks of laughter, the popping of corks–for the family of Israel, Baron Honerton, preferred champagne to all other wines and drank it at all hours. A wave of something almost like nausea swept through his mind. He felt a sudden giddiness, staggered towards his easy-chair and rang the bell.

That night, Israel, Lord Honerton, died.

CHAPTER II

Joseph, second Baron Honerton, was, unlike his long defunct father, in no sense of the word a dreamer or an idealist. He had finished a very excellent dinner, a meal which would have evoked the strongest remonstrances from his physician had he been present, before he even thought of disengaging himself for a moment from the conversation of the honoured guest on his right and taking a self-congratulatory glance down his sumptuous dining table. The room itself was unchanged since Israel, the founder of the family, had sat in his son’s place thirty years ago; the tapestries perhaps had grown a shade softer, the walls in their dark perfection a trifle more mysterious, the faces which gleamed from the half-seen canvasses a thought paler. Three decades of years, however, had made little change in a room whose atmosphere was the growth of centuries. It was the guests, the men and women seated around the table, who marked the progress of time. This was no family party such as would have been dear to the heart of Israel. In thirty years the new Lords of the Manor had grafted themselves upon the soil they had purchased. It was a tolerant age where social qualifications were concerned, and, after all, a son of Joseph had been in the Eton Eleven and was doing well to-day in the Embassy at Paris, apart from which, Judith, the younger daughter, was without any rival the beauty of the season. Great painters approached her humbly for sittings. Very desirable young men had sought her and her millions. She had only one drawback, as many of those in her immediate circle had already discovered. She was amazingly and unpleasantly clever. Her father’s eyes rested for a moment upon her beautiful face, with just the same contented, self-approving pleasure with which he would have contemplated some objet d’art which he had bought that afternoon at Christie’s. They passed from her to his only surviving brother, Samuel–an irritable dyspeptic, out of health and temper with the world–whose presence was some faint concession to the spirit of the departed Israel. They passed over a little row of well-dressed, well-bred people with complacent indifference, rested for a moment kindly upon his wife at the other end of the table with her elaborately coiffured white hair, parchment skin, and brilliant eyes, and finally lingered, with something nearer real affection upon the handsome yet rather obtrusively Semitic form of Ernest, his younger son, who had just entered the business. It was a company with which any host might be satisfied, a son and daughter of whom any father might be proud. No wonder that Joseph, second Baron Honerton, pulled down his waistcoat over his rotund stomach and felt nothing of that wild unhappy impulse which thirty years before had spelled the grim writing on the wall to Israel’s haggard gaze.

“I can’t tell you how much Frederick is looking forward to his shooting to-morrow,” the Marchioness, who was seated on his right, observed. “Our own pheasants this year have been so disappointing. The fact is we don’t rear nearly enough birds, and haven’t been able to for years.”

Her host nodded sympathetically. It was not a pleasing gesture, as it drove his second chin on to his collar. He had learned many lessons during the passing of the years, and with a conscious effort he omitted all mention of his standing order for ten thousand of the best eggs.

“We’ll try and give the Marquis some sport,” he promised genially. “I’m shooting myself to-morrow. I’ve been looking after things the last two or three times, but my boy’s taking that on now–good sportsman, Ernest.”

“How very unselfish of you,” his neighbour purred. “I hear great accounts of your elder son, Lord Honerton. They tell me that he will be First Secretary at Paris, if he stays there, before many years have passed.”

“Henry’s a good lad,” his father admitted, “and his head’s screwed on all right. I sometimes wish we’d had him in the business. Still, one can’t have it all ways.”

“I should think not, indeed,” the Marchioness assented. “You ought to be very proud of your children, Lord Honerton. There wasn’t a person at the last Court who didn’t declare that Judith is the most beautiful girl who has been seen at Buckingham Palace for years. My boy Frederick was in the Throne Room on duty. He could talk of nobody else–couldn’t remember what he had to do in the least.”

Lord Honerton glanced down the table.

“He seems to have recovered himself now,” he remarked.

“Frederick is always at his best when he is with some one he really likes,” his mother confided. “He’s a dear fellow though elder sons are rather an expense,” she sighed. “Polo and all those things cost so much money nowadays. I am afraid there’ll be nothing of the sort for the younger boys. We thought of trying to get Dick into a good business where he could make some money. What do you think, Lord Honerton?”

Her host became a little less expansive. There were plenty of millions to be made in the great Fernham business, but they were most distinctly to be made by members of the Fernham family. Clerks and managers and travellers were all very well, but he had a shrewd idea as to the outlook of a woman like the Marchioness who was seeking a commercial career for her son. There was no room for anything in the least ornamental at the Fernham Works.

“It depends whether he’s got it in him or not,” he remarked in a noncommittal sort of way. “As a rule the man who makes money in commerce is the man who has inherited the instinct for it. I can’t imagine Lord Frederick, for instance, or any son of yours, holding his own nowadays in the commercial world.”

“Unless he were helped,” the Marchioness murmured.

“There are only two sorts of help,” Lord Honerton declared. “One is the giving of an opportunity. That’s all right, but it isn’t worth a damn unless the recipient’s got the right stuff in him to make use of it. The second kind simply means providing an income which the recipient doesn’t earn. I call that charity.”

The Marchioness was a little ruffled. The worst of these princes of commerce, she decided, was that they had no sensibility. She was preparing to change the conversation when an event happened which to just three people in the room–to Lord Honerton, his wife, and Samuel, his brother–was possessed of a peculiar, almost a sinister significance. It was the lifting once more of a forgotten curtain of tragedy. A servant had entered the room and whispered to Martin, the impeccable butler. The latter, with a brief nod, had moved to behind Ernest Honerton’s chair, and with a little bow leaned forward.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Middleton, the head keeper, is outside. He has just brought the plan of the beats up to the house. He wondered, sir, whether you had any further orders to give before he left.”

The young man rose to his feet. There was perhaps a spice of vanity in the situation, but he was indeed keenly interested in the morrow’s sport. He glanced towards his mother.

“Might I be excused for a moment or two?” he asked. “Middleton has brought up the plan of the beats for to-morrow, and I should like to have just a word or two with him. We lost a lot of birds at the park coverts last month, and as we finished there we didn’t get them again.”

The men of the party smiled approvingly, well-pleased at this reminder of the morrow’s sport. The women were pleasantly indifferent, although Ernest’s neighbour, who was a little minx, made a grimace at him and whispered something about not being long. But there were three people there who sat as though turned to stone. Lady Honerton’s dark eyes, so much more brilliant in these later days, it had seemed, owing to the wasting of her skin, held for a moment a gleam of almost inhuman terror. From her husband’s face, the patch of colour, heritage of his recent indulgences, faded into a streaky slur. His fat, pudgy fingers gripped the table on either side of him, his beady eyes seemed to have crept from underneath his eyelids till they were in danger of dropping out altogether. Further down the table, Samuel had leaned forward, his hands clasped on the top of his stout stick, his gaze wandering alternately from his brother to his sister-in-law. Ernest had walked several paces towards the door before he realised that anything was the matter. He stopped short at once as he caught sight of his father’s face.

“Hullo, Dad!” he exclaimed. “Nothing wrong, is there? You wanted me to look after the shooting? It’s all right for me to have a word with Middleton, isn’t it? I’ll be back directly.”

“Quite all right,” his father muttered.

“Don’t be long,” his mother begged.

“I feel like a naughty boy who has got down without permission,” the young man laughed, as he continued his progress towards the door. “If Middleton keeps me more than a few minutes I’ll join you all in the bridge room.”

He passed out and the door was closed behind him. Very few people had realised the depths of the shock which for their host and hostess had brought, for a moment, an atmosphere of horrified reminiscence into the room. Conversation was resumed again almost directly. It was not until the Marchioness noticed the little beads of perspiration all over her host’s forehead, that a sudden wave of memory assailed her.

“My dear Lord Honerton!” she exclaimed. “Do forgive us for not having recognised at once this most distressing coincidence. I was very young at the time–it must be thirty years ago, isn’t it?–but I remember distinctly the shock we all felt, every one in the county felt, when they heard the terrible news. It was your brother, of course, who was murdered by that madman, wasn’t it? And if I remember rightly he was fetched out of the room in precisely the same manner.”

“The message was almost identical,” Lord Honerton groaned, mopping his forehead.

“Most distressing,” the Marchioness declared. “However, in this instance there need be no anxiety. Middleton is a most respectable man–Frederick thinks highly of him–and he has–er–no family. It was the association, of course, which was so painful.”

Lady Honerton rose a little abruptly, and the men, after the departure of the women, drew closer together, loud in their praises of their host’s port, eager in their discussion of the possible bag to-morrow. The Marquis would have moved up to his host’s left hand, but Samuel Fernham had just anticipated him–Samuel, leaning heavily upon his ivory-knobbed stick, had hobbled up and sunk into the chair adjoining his brother’s. He leaned over and laid his shrivelled, yellow hand upon the other’s thick one.

“That was a shock, brother,” he said quietly. “It was like looking back into the past–that horrible night! Never mind. That all lies thirty years behind. That is finished.”

Joseph looked at him gratefully, but with some of the old terror still smouldering in his face.

“That is finished, Samuel,” he acquiesced. “It is the memory that never dies!”

CHAPTER III

Lord Honerton allowed his guests that evening far less time than usual for discussing his admirable port. He rose a little abruptly just as every one was settling down and led the way towards the door.

“They are waiting for some of us to play bridge,” he vouchsafed by way of explanation. “The coffee and cigars will be in the card room.”

There was something almost like consternation amongst those who had just filled their glasses. The Marquis declined to be hustled.

“We’ll follow you in a minute, if we may, Honerton,” he said. “Your port is too good to be treated in such a cavalier fashion.”

Joseph mumbled something and hurried on. He was not usually a nervous man, but a queer little demon of unrest was sitting in his heart. He crossed the hall at a speed which left Samuel far behind, and looked eagerly around the bridge room. Most of the women were collected there, some already at the bridge table, one or two around the great log fire. There was no sign of Ernest, however. Through the half-closed portière he could hear the sound of billiard balls in the room beyond. He looked in there and found Judith playing another youthful member of the house party a game of pool.

“Seen anything of Ernest?” he enquired.

Judith paused in the act of chalking her cue.

“He hasn’t been in here, Dad,” she said. “I expect he’s still with Middleton.”

Joseph dropped the curtain, stepped back into the bridge room and made his way with somewhat greater deliberation towards the servants’ quarters. He skirted these and, passing through a green baize door into a stone-flagged passage which led to the rear of the house, pushed open the door of the gun room. A little blue cigarette smoke was still hanging about, but the room was empty. Robinson, one of the under keepers, came out of an adjoining apartment, with the gun which he had been cleaning in his hand.

“Have you seen Mr. Ernest?” Joseph asked quickly.

“Not for the last ten minutes, my lord,” the man replied. “He was in the gun room with Middleton then.”

“Where is Middleton?”

“Gone home about ten minutes since, my lord.”

Joseph nodded and turned away with the intention of rejoining his guests, continually telling himself he was a fool, and continually wondering at the damp on his forehead, the queer sense of impending disaster in his heart. He did his best to struggle against it, however, and exchanged casual greetings with the little stream of men whom he met crossing the hall. Arrived in the dining room, he summoned Martin.