The strange countess
Lady Moron was sitting at her small writing-table when the girl was
announced, and rose magnificently to meet her. She was arrayed in a
bright emerald velvet gown, which no other woman could have worn. On
her ample bosom sparkled and flashed a great diamond plaque which was
suspended from her neck by a chain of pearls. Her face was powdered
dead white, against which her jet-black eyebrows seemed startlingly
prominent. Lois noticed, now that she had time to inspect her new
employer, that, though the blackness of her hair was natural, both
eyebrows and eyelashes had been treated, and the scarlet lips were
patently doctored.
“The maid will show you your room, Miss Reddle,” said the Countess in
her deliberate way. “I hope you will be happy with us. We are
extremely unpretentious people, and you will not be called upon to
perform any duties that would be repugnant to a lady.”
Lois inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of this promise, and
a few minutes later was viewing her new bedroom with pleasant
surprise. It was a big room at the top of the house, overlooking the
square. There was here everything for comfort, and, for some reason
which she could not define, she compared the furnishings of those she
had seen of Mr. Michael Dorn’s and decided that they were in the same
category of luxury.
She changed and came down to the drawing-room, which was also, she
learnt, Lady Moron’s “work-room.” She opened the door and stopped. Two
men were there; the first of these she recognised as the weak-kneed
holder of the title. The second man was shorter and more sturdily
built. His fleshy red face was eloquent of his love of good living,
and when he smiled, as he did frequently, he showed two lines of large
white teeth, that in some manner reminded the girl of a tiger’s,
though there was certainly nothing tigerish about this gentleman, with
his plump body and his curly red hair that ran back from a rather high
forehead.
“Let me introduce Mr. Chesney Praye,” said her ladyship, and Lois
found her hand engulfed in a large moist palm.
“Glad to meet you, Miss Reddle.” His voice was pleasantly husky. His
keen eyes looked at her with undisguised admiration.
“You know Lord Moron?”
His lordship nodded and muttered something indistinguishable.
“Miss Reddle is my new secretary,” said her ladyship. She pronounced
the four syllables of the word as though they were separated. “You may
see a great deal of her, Chesney--Mr. Praye is my financial adviser.”
He certainly did not look like one who could offer any other advice
than on the correct cut of a morning coat or the set of a cravat. He
himself was perfectly dressed. Lois had often read the phrase
“well-groomed” and now for the first time realised all that it
signified, for Mr. Chesney Praye looked as though he had come from the
hands of an ardent, hissing hostler, who had brushed and smoothed him
until he was speckless and shining.
“A pretty nice pitch for you, this, Miss Reddle,” said Praye. “If you
don’t get on with her ladyship, I’m a Dutchman! Ever been on the
stage?”
“No, I haven’t,” she said, with a faint smile, as she recalled old
Mackenzie’s warning.
“A pity. You ought to have done well on the stage,” he prattled on.
“You’ve got the style and the figure and the voice and all that sort
of thing. I’ve played for a few years in comedy--it’s a dog’s life for
a man and not much better for a woman.”
He laughed uproariously, as though at some secret joke, and Lois was
surprised that the majestic countess did not chide him for the free
and easy attitude which seemed hardly compatible with that of a
trusted financial adviser.
“I’d like to go on the stage.”
It was the silent Lord Moron, and his tone had a note of sulkiness
which was surprising. It was as though he were a small boy asking for
something which had already been refused.
The countess turned her dark, unfriendly eyes upon her son. “You will
never go on the stage, Selwyn,” she said firmly. “Please get that
nonsense out of your head.”
Lord Moron played with his watch-guard, and moved his feet
uncomfortably. He was, she judged, between thirty and forty years of
age, and she guessed he was not married, and had more than a suspicion
that he was mentally deficient. She was to learn later that he was a
weakling, entirely under the domination of his mother, a quiet and
harmless man with simple, almost childish, tastes.
“Not for you, my boy,” said Mr. Chesney Praye, as he slapped the other
on the shoulder, and Lord Moron winced at the vigour of this form of
encouragement. “There is plenty of occupation for you, eh, countess?”
She did not answer him. She was standing by the long French windows
looking down into the square, and now she turned and, fixing a pair of
horn-rimmed lorgnettes, lifted them to her eyes.
“Who is that man?” she asked.
Chesney Praye looked past her, and Lois, who was watching at the time,
saw his mouth twitch and the geniality fade from his face.
“Damn him!” he said under his breath, and the countess turned slowly
and surveyed him with a stare.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“He’s the cleverest ‘busy’ in London--that’s who he is. Detective, I
mean. I’d give a thousand for the privilege of going to his funeral.
He’s got a grudge against me----”
He stopped, as though he realised he was saying too much. Lois looked
over his shoulder at the man in the street. He was walking slowly on
the opposite pavement.
It was Michael Dorn!
Chapter Nine
Lady Moron was talking.
“A detective? Really, I don’t see why you should be worried about
detectives, Chesney. You are not, I hope, a member of the criminal
classes?”
“Of course I’m not,” he said brusquely, almost rudely, “but I loathe
this fellow. His name’s Dorn--Michael Dorn. He is the only private
detective in England who is worth twopence. They call him into
Scotland Yard for consultations; they think so much of him. He was the
fellow that organised the raid on the Limbo Club, and he tried to get
a conviction against me for being one of the proprietors, which of
course I wasn’t.”
Michael Dorn had passed out of sight now, and the girl was thankful
that their interest had been so concentrated upon his hateful presence
that they had not noticed her; otherwise she must have betrayed her
knowledge of the man.
A detective! At this moment Mr. Chesney Praye was amplifying his
description.
“That fellow’s got the nerve of the devil,” he said, unconsciously
echoing Elizabetta Smith. “He is utterly unscrupulous, and would
‘shop’ his own maiden aunt to get a conviction. He used to be a Deputy
Commissioner of Police in India, but resigned to take up the case of
an African millionaire who lost some documents and paid him a fortune
for recovering them--at least, that’s the yarn I’ve heard.”
What did “shop” mean, she wondered, and guessed that it was synonymous
with “betray.” And what sort of a man was this Mr. Chesney Praye that
he could use these cant terms in the face of his noble employer? She
had heard of men and women who occupied so well-established a position
in the households of the great that they could grow familiar with the
people they were paid to respect, and she supposed this was one such.
It was left to Lord Moron to protest.
“Don’t like ‘shop,’ old thing,” he quavered. “Sort of a low-down term
to use before a young lady--what?”
Again those menacing eyes of his mother cowed him.
“It does not shock me, Selwyn, and I have no reason to suppose that my
secretary will be shocked either.”
He wilted under the glance, muttered something incoherent and stole
guiltily out of the room. Lois would gladly have followed, but there
was no excuse. Instead, it was Mr. Chesney Praye who was dismissed.
“You must run along now, Chesney,” said the countess. “I want to have
a little talk with Miss Reddle.”
Chesney, with his ever-ready grin, took a somewhat elaborate farewell
of his hostess, bending to kiss her plump white hand that was so
covered with jewels that Lois wondered whimsically whether he would
cut his lip.
“You, young lady, I hope to meet again,” he said briskly, as he shook
hands with unnecessary warmth, his bright eyes never leaving hers. “I
might take her around a bit, don’t you think, countess? Is she from
the country?”
“Miss Reddle has lived for some years in town,” said Lady Moron, and
the reproof in her voice would have chilled most persons, but Chesney
Praye was not the kind to be snubbed.
“Anyway, she hasn’t seen the sights I shall probably show her. Perhaps
her ladyship will let you come and dine one night at the club. Do you
dance?”
“If I’m allowed to choose my own partners, I dance rather well,” said
Lois.
“Then you shall choose me,” said the thick-skinned young man, “for I’m
a dandy hopper!”
It was some time after they were left alone before Lady Moron spoke.
She stood, surveying the square below, her hands behind her, and Lois
thought her ladyship must have forgotten that she was present, until
the countess spoke, without turning her head.
“There will be nothing for you to do to-day. I’ve answered all my
letters. We lunch at one-thirty, and you, of course, will invariably
be at our table except when we have visitors. Dinner is at eight
o’clock. You will be allowed to go out every other afternoon from five
to ten, and such weekends as I am in the country will be your own.
Thank you very much, Miss Reddle,” and with this dismissal Lois went
directly up to her room, wondering how she would fill in her spare
time between meals.
When Chesney Praye left the house in Chester Square he looked left and
right, and presently saw what he sought. An idle man, standing at the
corner of the street, his back towards the red-faced young man.
Hesitating only a moment, he turned resolutely towards the seemingly
unconscious Michael Dorn.
“Look here, Dorn!”
Dorn turned round slowly.
“Good morning, Mr. Praye,” he said, with a lift of his eyebrows, as
though the man who confronted him was the last person in the world he
expected to meet in that place at that time.
“What’s your idea in tailing me?”
Michael Dorn’s eyebrows met in seeming perplexity.
“‘Tailing’? Oh, you mean following you, I suppose? I haven’t quite got
used to the argot of the London underworld. In India we call it----”
“Never mind what you call it in India,” said the other roughly.
“What’s the great idea?”
Dorn looked at him with a thoughtful expression.
“Are you under the impression that I’m tailing you?”
“I’m not only under that impression--I know,” said the other, his face
growing darker. “I spotted you this morning when I came out of my
rooms in St. James’ Street, and thought you were there by accident.
And one of your bloodhounds has been up to the Limbo Club, pumping the
waiters. What’s the general scheme?”
“Curiosity,” murmured the other, “just idle curiosity. I’m thinking of
writing a book on the bizarre criminal, and naturally you’d have a few
pages all to yourself.”
Chesney Praye’s eyes were veritable slits as he tapped the other
gently on the waistcoat.
“I’m going to give you a tip, Dorn,” he said. “Keep your finger out of
my pie, or you’re going to get it burnt!”
“One good tip deserves another,” said Dorn. “And mine is, keep your
finger off my waistcoat or you’ll be severely kicked!”
He said it in the most pleasant manner, but the furious man knew that
he meant every word, and dropped his hand. Before he could master his
wrath, Dorn went on:
“You’ve got a good job, Praye--don’t lose it. I understand that you’re
financial adviser to a very noble lady--unprepossessing, but noble.
If, by chance, I hear you’re advising her to put money in some of your
wildcat schemes, or advising her to finance some of the little