Devil's Dice. Le Queux William
leaving me in order to attend to another customer.
The announcement was incredible. It staggered belief. Emerging from the shop, I jumped into a cab and gave the man the address in Gloucester Square. Then, as we drove along, I took out the photograph of my well-beloved and examined it for a long time closely. Yes, there was no mistake about her identity. The same sweet, well-remembered face, with its clear, trusting eyes looked out upon me, the same half-sad expression that had so puzzled me. I raised the cold, polished card to my lips and reverently kissed it. Presently the cab drew up suddenly, and I found myself before a wide portico extending across the pavement to the curb, in front of a rather gloomy, solid-looking mansion. Alighting, I crossed to the door, and as I did so counted the steps. There were three, the same number that I remembered ascending on that eventful night I had raised my hand to ring the visitors’ bell when suddenly a voice behind me uttered my name. It sounded familiar, and I looked round hastily. As I turned, the Countess of Fyneshade, warmly clad in smart sealskin coat and neat seal toque trimmed with sable, confronted me. Standing upon the pavement beneath the wide gloomy portico, she was smiling amusedly at the sudden start I had given on hearing my name.
“I declare you’ve turned quite pale, Stuart,” she cried with that gay, irresponsible air and high-pitched voice habitual to her. “You gave such a jump when I spoke that one would think you had been detected in the act of committing a burglary, or some other crime equally dreadful.”
“I really beg your pardon,” I exclaimed quickly, descending the steps and raising my hat. “I confess I didn’t notice you.” Then, for the first time, I observed standing a few yards from her a slim, well-dressed young man in long dark overcoat and silk hat.
“Gilbert,” she said, turning to him, “you’ve not met Mr Ridgeway before, I believe. Allow me to introduce you – Mr Gilbert Sternroyd, Mr Stuart Ridgeway, one of my oldest friends.”
We uttered mutual conventionalities, but an instant later, when my eyes met his, the words froze upon my lips. The Countess’s companion was the original of the photograph that had been exhibited at my dead love’s request in the same frame as her own.
Of what words I uttered I have no remembrance. Bewildered by this strange and unexpected encounter, on the very threshold of the mysterious house that for months I had been striving in vain to discover, I felt my senses whirl. Only by dint of summoning all my self-possession I preserved a calm demeanour. That Mabel should have admitted acquaintance with the strange and rather shady person who had met me at Richmond was curious enough, but her friendship with Sybil’s whilom companion was a fact even more incomprehensible.
An hour ago I had discovered the picture of this man called Sternroyd, yet here he stood before me in the flesh, accompanied by the one person of my acquaintance who knew that nameless man who had inveigled me to this house of shadows. Heedless of Mabel’s amusing gossip, I surveyed her companion’s face calmly, satisfying myself that every feature agreed with the counterfeit presentment I carried in my pocket. The portrait was strikingly accurate, even his curiously-shaped scarf-pin in the form of a pair of crossed daggers with diamond hilts being shown in the picture. He was tall, fair, of fresh complexion, aged about twenty-four, with grey eyes rather deeply set, and a scanty moustache a little ragged. Lithe, active, and upright, his bearing was distinctly athletic, although his speech was a trifle languid and affected. What, I wondered, had been the nature of his relations with Sybil? The horrifying thought flashed across my mind that he might have been her lover, but next second I scorned such a suggestion, convinced that she had been devoted to me alone.
Yet how could I reconcile the statement of the photographer that the portrait had only been taken a few weeks with my own personal investigation that she at that time was dead? Had I not, alas! kissed her cold brow and chafed her thin dead hands, hoping to bring back to them the glow of life? Had I not raised her gloved arm only to find it stiffening in death? The remembrance of that fateful night chilled my blood.
“Who are you calling upon, Stuart?” the Countess asked, her light words bringing me at last back to consciousness of my surroundings.
“Upon – upon friends,” I stammered.
“Friends! Well, they can’t live here,” she observed incredulously.
“They do,” I answered. “This is number seventy-nine.”
“True, but the place is empty.” She laughed.
I glanced at the doorway, and my heart sank within me when I noticed that the unwhitened stones were littered with drifting straws and scraps of paper, the flotsam and jetsam of the street, that the glass of the wide fanlight was thickly encrusted with dirt, and that the board fixed over the door, announcing that the “imposing mansion” was to let, had, judging from its begrimed, blistered, and weather-stained appearance, been in that position several years.
To reassure myself, I glanced at my cuff and inquired of the cabman whether the house was not Number 79 Gloucester Square.
“Quite right, sir,” answered the plethoric driver. “This ’ere’s Radnor Place, but these ’ouses fronts into the square. This row ’ain’t got no entrances there, but the front doors are at the back here. I’ve known these ’ouses ever since I was a nipper. This ’ere one’s been to let this last four years. A French gentleman lived ’ere before.”
“I fancy you’ve mistaken the number,” drawled the Countess’s companion, putting up his single eye-glass to survey the place more minutely. “So confoundedly easy to make mistakes, don’t yer know,” and he laughed, as if amused at his witticism.
I resented this apparent hilarity, and with difficulty restrained some hot words that rose quickly to my lips. It had occurred to me that if I preserved silence and gave no sign, I might perhaps discover the identity of this foppish young man. The mansion, silent, dismal, and deserted, was drab-painted and of unusually imposing proportions. The drawing-room on the first floor was evidently of vast extent, running the whole width of the house and commanding in front a wide view across the square, while at the rear it opened upon a fine domed conservatory constructed over the great portico.
“If you can’t find your friends, Stuart, I’ll give you a lift homeward. My carriage is at the corner,” Mabel said, evidently anxious to get away. “I’m going down to the Reform, to fetch Fyneshade.”
In this invitation I saw an opportunity of obtaining some further knowledge of her mysterious companion, and, after settling with my cabman, lost no time in embracing it. A few moments later the Countess’s smart victoria drew up, and entering, I took the place beside her, while Sternroyd seated himself opposite.
As we drove around Southwick Crescent in the direction of Park Lane, Mabel, in the course of conversation, let drop the fact that Gilbert, a protégé of her husband’s, was spending a few days at Eaton Square prior to returning to his studies at Oxford.
“Yes,” he drawled. “A fellow appreciates town after poring over musty volumes, as I unfortunately am compelled to do. Beastly bore!”
Then he told me he was at Balliol – my old college – and our conversation afterwards turned mainly upon dons and duns.
“I always have such jolly times with Mab – Lady Fyneshade – each time I come to town,” he said. “Whenever I go back I feel absolutely miserable.”
“Yet memories of the past are sometimes painful,” I observed, smiling. At the same time I glanced at Mabel, knowing that the strange circumstances in which we had parted at the cotton-king’s reception must still be fresh in her mind. Darting at me a swift look of inquiry, she picked at the buttons of her pearl-grey glove, laughed lightly, and exclaimed flippantly:
“We have no memories when we arrive at years of discretion. Idle memory wastes time and other things. The moments as they drop must disappear and be simply forgotten as a child forgets. Nowadays one lives only for the future, and lets the past be buried.”
“And if the past refuses to be interred?” I asked.
She started visibly, and a frown of annoyance rested for a brief moment upon her handsome countenance. I fancied, too, that her companion looked askance at me, but not waiting for either to reply, I said:
“I