Hushed Up! A Mystery of London. William Le Queux
life because he has impersonated me!”
Philip Poland, without replying, snatched at the detective’s left hand and examined it. There was no ring upon it.
Swiftly he bent beside the victim, and there, sure enough, upon the dead white finger was revealed the curious ring he had noticed—an oval amethyst engraved with a coat-of-arms surmounted by a cardinal’s hat—the ring worn by the man who had called upon him an hour before!
THE STORY OF OWEN BIDDULPH
CHAPTER ONE
BESIDE STILL WATERS
If I make too frequent use of the first person singular in these pages, I crave forgiveness of the reader.
I have written down this strange story for two reasons: first, because I venture to believe it to be one of the most remarkable sequences of curious events that have ever occurred in a man’s life; and secondly, by so doing, I am able to prove conclusively before the world the innocence of one sadly misjudged, and also to set at rest certain scandalous tales which have arisen in consequence.
At risk of betraying certain confidences; at risk of placing myself in the unenviable position of chronicler of my own misfortunes; at risk even of defying those who have threatened my life should I dare speak the truth, I have resolved to recount the whole amazing affair, just as it occurred to me, and further, to reveal completely what has hitherto been regarded as a mystery by readers of the daily newspapers.
You already know my name—Owen Biddulph. As introduction, I suppose I ought to add that, after coming down from Oxford, I pretended to read for the Bar, just to please the dear old governor—Sir Alfred Biddulph, Knight. At the age of twenty-five, owing to his unfortunate death in the hunting-field, I found myself possessor of Carrington Court, our fine Elizabethan place in North Devon, and town-house, 64a Wilton Street, Belgrave Square, together with a comfortable income of about nine thousand a year, mostly derived from sound industrial enterprises.
My father, before his retirement, had been a Liverpool ship-owner, and, like many others of his class, had received his knighthood on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. My mother had been dead long since. I had but few relatives, and those mostly poor ones; therefore, on succeeding to the property, I went down to Carrington just to interview Browning, the butler, and the other servants, all of them old and faithful retainers; and then, having given up all thought of a legal career, I went abroad, in order to attain my long-desired ambition to travel, and to “see the world.”
Continental life attracted me, just as it attracts most young men. Paris, with its glare and glitter, its superficial gaiety, its bright boulevards, and its feminine beauty, is the candle to the moth of youth. I revelled in Paris just as many a thousand other young men had done before me. I knew French, Italian and German, and I was vain enough to believe that I might have within me the making of a cosmopolitan. So many young men believe that—and, alas! so many fail on account of either indolence, or of narrow-mindedness. To be a thorough-going cosmopolitan one must be imbued with the true spirit of adventure, and must be a citizen of all cities, a countryman of all countries. This I tried to be, and perhaps—in a manner—succeeded. At any rate, I spent nearly three whole years travelling hither and thither across the face of Europe, from Trondhjem to Constantinople, and from Bordeaux to Petersburg.
Truly, if one has money, one can lead a very pleasant life, year in, year out, at the various European health and pleasure resorts, without even setting foot in our dear old England. I was young—and enthusiastic. I spent the glorious golden autumn in Florence and in Perugia, the Tuscan vintage in old Siena; December in Sicily; January in Corsica; February and March at Nice, taking part in the Carnival and Battles of Flowers; April in Venice; May at the Villa d’Este on the Lake of Como; June and July at Aix; August, the month of the Lion, among the chestnut-woods high up at Vallombrosa, and September at San Sebastian in Spain, that pretty town of sea-bathing and of gambling. Next year I spent the winter in Russia, the guest of a prince who lived near Moscow; the early spring at the Hermitage at Monte Carlo; May at the Meurice in Paris; the summer in various parts of Switzerland, and most of the autumn in the high Tatra, the foot-hills of the Carpathians.
And so, with my faithful Italian valet, Lorenzo, a dark-haired, smart man of thirty, who had been six years in my service, and who had, on so many occasions, proved himself entirely trustworthy, I passed away the seasons as they came and went, always living in the best hotels, and making a good many passing acquaintances. Life was, indeed, a perfect phantasmagoria.
Now there is a certain section of English society who, being for some reason or another beyond the pale at home, make their happy hunting-ground in the foreign hotel. Men and women, consumptive sons and scraggy daughters, they generally live in the cheapest rooms en pension, and are ever ready to scrape up acquaintance with anybody of good appearance and of either sex, as long as they are possessed of money. Every one who has lived much on the Continent knows them—and, be it said, gives them a wide berth.
I was not long before I experienced many queer acquaintanceships in hotels, some amusing, some the reverse. At Verona a man, an Englishman named Davis, who had been at my college in Oxford, borrowed fifty pounds of me, but disappeared from the hotel next morning before I came down; while, among other similar incidents, a dear, quiet-mannered old widow—a Russian, who spoke English—induced me at Ostend to assist her to pay her hotel bill of one thousand six hundred francs, giving me a cheque upon her bank in Petersburg, a cheque which, in due course, was returned to me marked “no account.”
Still, I enjoyed myself. The carelessness of life suited me, for I managed to obtain sunshine the whole year round, and to have a good deal of fun for my money.
I had a fine sixty horse-power motor-car, and usually travelled from place to place on it, my friend Jack Marlowe, who had been at Oxford with me, and whose father’s estates marched with mine on the edge of Dartmoor, frequently coming out to spend a week or two with me on the roads. He was studying for the diplomatic service, but made many excuses for holidays, which he invariably spent at my side. And we had a merry time together, I can assure you.
For nearly three years I had led this life of erratic wandering, returning to London only for a week or so in June, to see my lawyers and put in an appearance for a few days at Carrington to interview old Browning. And I must confess I found the old place deadly dull and lonely.
Boodles, to which I belonged, just as my father had belonged, I found full of pompous bores and old fogeys; and though at White’s there was a little more life and movement now they had built a new roof, yet I preferred the merry recklessness of Monte Carlo, or the gaiety of the white-and-gold casinos at Nice or Cannes.
Thus nearly three years went by, careless years of luxury and idleness, years of living à la carte at restaurants of the first order, from the Reserve at Beaulieu to the Hermitage at Moscow, from Armenonville in the Bois to Salvini’s in Milan—years of the education of an epicure.
The first incident of this strange history, however, occurred while I was spending the early spring at Gardone. Possibly you, as an English reader, have never heard of the place. If, however, you were Austrian, you would know it as one of the most popular resorts on the beautiful mountain-fringed Lake of Garda, that deep blue lake, half in Italian territory and half in Austrian, with the quaint little town of Desenzano at the Italian end, and Riva, with its square old church-tower and big white hotels, at the extreme north.
Of all the spring resorts on the Italian lakes, Gardone appeals to the visitor as one of the quietest and most picturesque. The Grand Hotel, with its long terrace at the lake-side, is, during February and March, filled with a gay crowd who spend most of their time in climbing the steep mountain-sides towards the jealously guarded frontier, or taking motor-boat excursions