A Queen's Error. Henry Curties
again?"
I did so.
"Now please put the key in your pocket, and take care of it for me. I give you full authority to open that safe again in case of necessity."
"What necessity?" I asked.
"You will discover that in due course," she answered.
This was about the last thing I should have expected her to ask, but nevertheless I did as she told me and put the key in my pocket.
"Please notice how I close it again," was her next request.
She pushed back the displaced square of the wall paper pattern, which was simply the door of a cupboard. It closed with a snap and fitted so exactly into the pattern of the paper that it was impossible to detect it.
Then with a glance towards me to see that I was paying attention, she touched a carved rose on the frame of the over-mantel on the opposite side to that which had caused the looking-glass to move, and at once the latter slowly slid down again into its place.
I stood gazing at her as this was accomplished, and she noted the look of inquiry on my face.
"There is only one thing now I have to ask you," she said, "and then I will detain you no longer. Will you oblige me by coming to see me here at five o'clock to-morrow?"
I considered for a moment or two, and then recollected that there was nothing in my engagements for the next day to prevent my complying with the old lady's request. My life for the last week had been occupied in taking the baths and the waters at regular intervals, with the daily diversion of the Pump Room concert at three.
"Yes," I answered, "I shall be very pleased to come and see you again at five to-morrow."
Although up to now I looked upon her proceedings as simply the whims of an eccentric old lady, yet I felt some considerable interest in them.
"Then let me fill your glass again with liqueur?" she suggested.
Alluring as the offer was I declined it.
I buttoned up my overcoat and prepared to depart, accepting, however, the offer of another cigarette.
The old lady insisted upon accompanying me to the door, and went on in front with a candle, despite my remonstrances, to show me the way upstairs.
She had one foot on the stair when she stopped.
"Do you mind telling me your name?" she asked.
I handed her my card, and she put up her glasses.
"'William Anstruther,'" she read. "That is a coincidence." "I had nearly forgotten one thing," she continued. "I must give you a duplicate latch-key to let yourself in with. I have a habit of falling asleep in the afternoon, and you might ring the bell for half an hour and I should not hear you."
She went back into the room we had left and returned in a few moments with the latch-key, which she gave me.
Despite my endeavours to persuade her, she went with me to the front door, and I felt a deep pity for her when I left, thinking that she was to spend the night alone in that dismal old house.
"Au revoir until five to-morrow," I said cheerfully, as I bowed and left her.
She smiled benignantly upon me.
"Au revoir," she answered.
When the door had closed and it was too late to call her back, I recollected one piece of forgetfulness on my part; I had never thought to ask her name!
CHAPTER II
THE MAN WITH THE GLASS EYE
I took a note of the number of the house—it was 190 Monmouth Street—and gazed a little while at its neglected exterior before I walked away into the mist towards my hotel.
Over the whole of the front windows faded Venetian blinds were drawn down; it was one of those houses, sometimes met with, shut up for no apparent reason, and without any intention on the part of the owner, apparently, to dispose of it, for there was no board up. It was not until later that I learned that the house belonged to the old lady herself.
I returned to my hotel, that luxurious resort of the wealthy and rheumatic, its well furnished interior looking particularly comfortable in the ruddy glow of two immense fires in the hall. I had left it early in the afternoon, before the lamps were lit, tired of being indoors; the change was most agreeable from the damp, misty atmosphere without.
I betook myself to the smoking-room, and, being a lover of the beverage, ordered tea, with the addition of buttered toast. Delighted with the big glowing fire in the room, and believing myself to be alone, I threw myself back luxuriously into a big, saddle-bag chair.
As it ran back with the impetus of my descent into it, it jammed into one behind, and from this immediately arose a very indignant face which looked into mine as I turned round. It was a dark, foreign-looking face, the red face of a man who wore a black moustache and a little imperial, and whose bloodshot brown eyes simply glared through a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez. There was something very strange about these eyes.
"I really beg your pardon," I said. "I didn't know you were there!"
The fierce expression of the bloodshot eyes changed to one of somewhat forced amiability.
"Pray don't apologise," he answered, with just the merest touch of a foreign accent in his voice, that sort of undetectable accent which some men of cosmopolitan habits possess, though they are rarely met with.
"I think I must have been asleep," he added, "and the little shock awoke me from a disagreeable dream. There is really so little to do in this place besides bathing and sleeping."
"And water drinking," I suggested, with a smile.
"I do as little of that," he answered hastily, with a grimace, "as I possibly can. By the bye though," he continued, wheeling round his chair sociably beside mine, "do you know that the Bath water taken hot with a good dash of whisky in it and two lumps of sugar is not half bad?"
I took a good look at his face as he sat leering at me through his glasses. From the congested look of it, I could quite believe that he had sampled this mixture, or others of a similar alcoholic nature, sufficiently to give an opinion on the point; his bloodshot eyes also testified to the fact.
But concerning these latter features, the reason of the curious look about them was solved by the firelight; one of them was of glass! I saw that it remained stationary whilst the other leered round the corner of the gold-rimmed pince-nez at me. It was a very good imitation, and was made bloodshot to match the other.
My tea and buttered toast arrived now, and I made a vigorous attack upon the latter.
"The idea of mixing whisky with Bath water," I replied, laughing, "never struck me. It appears novel."
"I can assure you," continued my new acquaintance, "that many of the old men who are ordered here to Bath do it, and I should not be surprised to hear that it is a practice among the old ladies too. Look at their faces as they come waddling down to table d'hôte!"
This appeared to me rather a disrespectful remark with regard to the opposite sex, and I answered him somewhat stiffly, "I hope you are deceived."
He was not a tactful person by any means: he made an observation then concerning my tea and buttered toast.
"I really wonder," he said, "how you can drink that stuff," with a nod towards my cup. "It would make me sick; put it away and have a whisky and soda with me?"
I naturally considered this a very rude remark from a perfect stranger.
"I am much obliged," I snapped, "but I prefer tea."