The strange countess
Its headlights were burning very dimly, she noticed--in the idle way
of one whose mind was fully occupied elsewhere. The car came on,
gaining momentum, and then, when it was a dozen yards away, it swerved
suddenly towards her.
Her first impulse was to step back, but an instinct beyond
understanding made her leap ahead. If the driver had corrected his
swerve she could not have escaped death. That spring saved her; the
edge of the mudguard grazed her dress and some small and jagged
projection ripped a two-inch strip from her skirt as neatly as though
it had been cut by scissors. In another second the car had passed,
speeding towards Fitzroy Square, its rear light dark, its number
invisible.
For a second the girl stood, bereft of breath, trembling in every
limb; and then somebody darted out of the doorway of her house and
came towards her, and before she saw his face she knew him.
“Close call that,” drawled Michael Dorn.
“What happened?” she asked. “They must have lost control, I think.”
“Yes, they must have lost control,” he said quietly. “You didn’t see
the number, I suppose?”
She shook her head. In her then state of nerves the question irritated
her.
“Of course I did not see the number. Do you want me, Mr. Dorn?”
“I came to see how you were after your unpleasant experience.”
She faced him squarely.
“What do you mean? What unpleasant experience?” she asked.
“I was referring to the little accident for which I was partly
responsible,” he answered coolly. “I regard any road collision as
unpleasant. But possibly you’re a more hardened motorist than I am.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t mean that at all. You mean--you mean--what happened at the
prison.”
He bent down towards her.
“What did happen at the prison?” he asked in a low voice.
“If you don’t know, I can’t tell you,” she said, and, turning abruptly
from him, went into the house and closed the door almost in his face.
Before she had reached her room she regretted her act of rudeness. It
was too late now; she would not go back and apologise, even if she
could bring herself to such an act.
An alarmed Lizzy was waiting for her.
“Do you know it is nearly twelve o’clock? I thought you were going to
bed early?” she said.
“I’ve been to Fleet Street, looking up a case for--for Mr. Shaddles,
and look at my dress--a car ripped it.”
Lizzy’s nose wrinkled.
“If it’s true that you’ve been working overtime for that old
skinflint--and it probably isn’t--you’ve got something the matter with
your head,” she said, “and you ought to see a doctor. I’m disappointed
with you.”
“Why?” asked the girl, as she tossed her hat on to the bed and stooped
to a further examination of her torn skirt.
“Well, I thought you’d been out to see a Certain Person. Then, on the
other hand, I couldn’t understand, if you were with him, how he could
have sent you this.”
On the table, standing amidst its loosened wrappings, was a beautiful
round box, the satin cover of which was painted with a floral design.
“It was a bit of cheek on my part, taking it out of the paper,”
admitted Lizzy, “but I haven’t touched a single choc.”
“Chocolates?” said Lois incredulously, and lifted the cover,
displaying the most gorgeous selection of confectionery that had ever
come her way.
On the top was a small card with a line of writing: “From an Admirer.”
She frowned.
“From an Admirer,” nodded Lizzy. “No name? Now, I wonder who it can
be?”
Her smirk of amazement was too extravagant to leave any doubt in Lois’
mind.
“Did he bring it?” she asked.
“He? You mean Mike? Why, of course he brought it! At least, I suppose
so. It was here when I came in. How many other admirers have you got,
Lois?”
The girl replaced the lid with a vicious jab.
“I hate that man,” she said vehemently, “and if he doesn’t leave me in
peace I shall complain to the police. It isn’t enough to find him
sitting on the doorstep----”
“Was he here?” gasped Lizzy.
“Of course he was here! You knew he was here,” said Lois unjustly.
“Lizzy, you’re helping and abetting him, and I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Me?” said the indignant Lizzy. “Abetting? I like that! You take him
out driving all the afternoon and talk about me ‘abetting’! Why, I
haven’t seen the bird to speak to for a month!”
“Where does he live?” demanded Lois.
“How the blazes do I know?” stormed Lizzy. And then, more soberly:
“Yes I do. He lives in Hiles Mansions.”
“Then this goes back to Hiles Mansions to-morrow morning,” said Lois
with determination. “And with it a polite note asking him to refrain
from his attentions, which are getting a little objectionable.”
Lizzy shrugged her thin shoulders.
“I don’t know what you expect,” she said, in despair. “A good-looker,
with a nice car, and a perfect gentleman.”
“He may be all these things and still be objectionable to me,” said
Lois shortly, and to her surprise the ungainly Lizzy put her arm
around her with an affectionate hug and laughed.
“I won’t quarrel with you the last few nights you are here. And
another thing, Lois; I’m not going to take another mate. Your room
will be waiting for you when you get tired of the aristocracy.”
One big room in the suite had been divided by a wooden partition.
There was a doorless opening that communicated between the two
cubicles, over which a curtain was hung. And after Lois had made a
parcel of the confectionery and had addressed it to her “admirer,” she
carried the package into her bedroom and put it on her dressing-table.
She must not forget to return that gift, even though she could ill
afford the postage.
They chatted across the partition (which did not reach to the ceiling)
for some time, and presently Lois slipped into her bed feeling
unutterably tired.
“Good-night,” she called.
“Hark at old Mac!”
From below stole the sad wail of old Mackenzie’s fiddle. Softly it
rose and fell, and to one of the audience at least the sound was
infinitely sweet and soothing.
“He used to be an orchestra leader--what’s the word? Conductor,” said
Lizzy. “I wish he’d keep his moonlight sonatas until I was out of the
house.”
“I like it,” said Lois.
In truth the sad melody attuned to her own troubled heart.
“It gives me the hump,” grunted Lizzy, as she jerked off her stockings
and examined her toes critically. “After you’ve gone I’m going to ask
him to give up his midnight folly.”
“He has very little amusement,” protested Lois.
“Why doesn’t he go out and get it? The old niggard never leaves the
house. He’s got plenty of money. He owns this property.”
Lois was listening. The old man was playing the Intermezzo from
_Cavalleria Rusticana_, and, hackneyed as the melody was, it sounded
to the girl as though it expressed all the sorrows, all the fears, all
the inarticulate protests of her own soul.
“Music’s all right in its place,” said Lizzy, “if it’s the right kind.
What’s the matter with ‘Maggie! Yes, Ma?’ I bought a copy of it cheap
a week ago and gave it to him and he’s not played it once!”
Presently there was silence on the other side of the partition. The
music had ceased. Lois, turning over, fell into a troubled sleep. She
dreamt she was in Telsbury Prison; it was she, among the colourless
women, who was walking that dreary circle. Somebody stood watching her
where she had stood by the doctor’s side; a great, fleshy-nosed woman
whose hard black eyes smiled sneeringly as she passed. In the centre
of the circle was the little old man, Mackenzie, his fiddle cuddled
under his chin, and he was playing a vulgar tune she had heard Lizzy
whistle.
Suddenly she woke with a start.
A light had flashed on her face--somebody was in the room. She could
hear their soft movements, and then came to her ears the rustle of
paper. It was Lizzy, of course. Lizzy frequently came in the middle of
the night, when her cough was troublesome, for the voice lozenges
which Lois kept in the drawer of her dressing-table. Without a word
she stretched out her hand and switched on the little hand-lamp which
was one of her luxuries.
As she turned the switch, she remembered drowsily that the battery had
nearly run out. There was a flicker of white light, that died down to
yellow, and then to darkness. But in that second of time she had seen
the figure of a man standing by the dressing-table, and recognised him
before she saw the startled face of Michael Dorn!
Chapter Seven
For a second she remained, paralyzed, and then, as the sound of his
feet crossing the floor came to her, she screamed.
“What is it?”
She heard the creak and rumble of Lizzy’s bed, the scratch of a match,
and saw the white gleam of the gas as it was lit. In another second
Lizzy was in her room.
Lois was out of bed now and with trembling fingers was lighting her
own lamp. Otherwise the room was empty.
“Somebody was here--a man,” she said shakily.
“You’ve been dreaming.”
“I was not dreaming. Listen!”
There was the thud of a closing door. Running to the window, Lois
threw up the sash and leant out. She had time to see a man’s figure
walking swiftly down Charlotte Street.
“There he is! Don’t you recognise him? It is Dorn!”
Lizzy craned farther out of the window and after a time came in with a
scared face.
“I shouldn’t like to say it wasn’t,” she said cautiously. “Do you mean
to say Dorn’s been here?”
Lois nodded. This shock, coming on top of the other, had almost
unnerved her.
“But was he here--in this room?” Still Lizzy was not convinced, but
one glance at the girl’s face told her that Lois had not been
mistaken.
She hurried out into the kitchen, drew a glass of water. Lois drank
the refreshingly cold liquid eagerly.
“Well, he’s got a nerve!” said Lizzy, sitting down on a chair and
staring blankly at her companion. “What was he doing?”
“I don’t know. He was standing in front of the dressing-table. I only
saw him for a second, and then this wretched light went out.”
“He’s got a nerve,” said Lizzy again. “There’s a limit to everything.
Going into a young lady’s bedroom in the middle of the night to get an
introduction seems to me to be ungentlemanly.”
Lois laughed weakly.
“He didn’t speak to you?”
She shook her head.
“Jack scuttled off like a rabbit, I suppose.”
Lizzy walked to the door and opened it, gazing reflectively at the
stairs, as though she wished to visualise the undignified character of
the visitor’s exit.
“He sends you chocolates overnight----”
Lois’ eyes strayed to the dressing-table, and she sprang to her feet
with a cry.
“They’re gone!” she said, and the stenographer’s jaw dropped.
“Gone? Were they there?” She pointed.
“I put them on the dressing-table to remind me in the morning--at
least, I think I did.”
A hurried search of the kitchen discovered no trace of the missing
package.
“Perhaps he knew you wouldn’t like them and came to get them back?”
was the inane suggestion that Lizzy offered.
“I don’t know--I don’t understand.”
At that moment a voice hailed them and Lizzy opened the door.
“Is anything wrong?”
It was old Mackenzie.
“That man never sleeps,” groaned Lizzy under her breath. “He ought to
be a night watchman. No, everything’s all right, Mr. Mackenzie.”
“I heard somebody come down the stairs and go out a little time ago,”
said the old man, “I thought maybe one of you was ill.”
“This is where our characters go west,” said Lizzy, and, in a louder
voice: “No, Mr. Mackenzie, it was only me! I went down to make sure
that Miss Reddle had closed the front door. Good-night.”
She came back, looking very thoughtful.
“‘Three o’clock in the morning’ is a pretty nifty fox-trot, but it is
a bad time for young men to come sneaking round other people’s rooms.
What are you going to do, Lois? Anyway, he’s saved you the postage on