The Four Faces: A Mystery Part 17

"Yes."

"What is his name?"

"Gastrell--Hugesson Gastrell, that's the name the brute is known by. He always was a blackguard--a perisher! I shall refuse to betray any of the others; they are my friends. But Hugesson Gastrell--don't forget that name, Sir Roland. You may some day be very glad I told it to you--the man of The Four Faces!"

He paused. He seemed suddenly to be growing weaker. As we sat there, watching him, I could not help in a sense feeling pity for the fellow, and I knew that Sir Roland felt the same. It seemed terrible to find a man like this, quite young--he was certainly under thirty--a man with the unmistakable _cachet_ of public school and university, engaged in a career of infamy. What was his life's story I wondered as I looked at him, noting how refined his features were, what well-shaped hands he had. Why had he sunk so low? Above all, who was he? for certainly he was no ordinary malefactor.

Suddenly he turned on to his back, wincing with pain as he did so; he had been lying partly on his side.

"I can't betray my friends, Sir Roland," he murmured, "but believe me when I say I am deeply grateful for your kindness to me. I was not always what I am now, you know," his voice grew weaker still; "not always an adventurer--a criminal if you will. Yes, I am a criminal, and have been for many years; unconvicted as yet, but none the less a criminal. I was once what you are, Sir Roland; I took pride in being a gentleman and in calling myself one. Educated at Marlborough and at Trinity--but why should I bore you with my story--eh, Sir Roland? Why should I bore you with, with--ah! The Four Faces! The Four Faces!"

he repeated.

His eyes rolled strangely, then looked dully up at the ceiling. What did he mean by "The Four Faces"? Did he refer to the medallion worn by Gastrell? His mind was beginning to wander. He muttered and murmured for a minute, then again his words became articulate.

"Jasmine--oh, Jasmine my darling, I love you so!"

I started.

"Jasmine, if only you would ... oh, yes, that is all I ask, all I want, my darling woman, all I ... you remember it all, don't you? ... yes ...

oh, it was her fault ... he wouldn't otherwise have killed her ... oh, no, discovery is impossible, the ... it was quite unrecognizable.... The Four Faces--ha! ha! ... I myself saw it, black, charred beyond all hope of recognition ... he did right to ... dear, I should have done the same...."

Between these sc.r.a.ps of sentences were words impossible to catch the meaning of, so indistinctly were they uttered, some being said beneath his breath, some muttered and inarticulate, some little more than murmurings.

He moved restlessly on the bed. Then his eyes slowly closed, and for a minute he lay still. And then, all at once, he seemed to spring back into life.

"Mother!" he shouted suddenly in quite a strong voice.

He started up in bed, and now sat erect and still, his wide-stretched eyes staring straight before him.

The nurse had, at Sir Roland's request, left the room before the stranger had begun to speak to him. Now, opening the door quickly, Sir Roland called to her to return.

The stranger's eyes were fixed. Motionless he sat there glaring, as it seemed to us, at some figure facing him. Instinctively we followed the direction of his gaze, but naught was visible to us save the artistic pattern upon the pink-tinted wall-paper opposite the foot of the bed.

His lips were slightly parted, now. We saw them move as though he spoke rapidly, but no words came. And then, all at once, he smiled.

"The Four Faces!" he repeated, almost inaudibly.

It was not a vacant smile, not the smile of a man mentally deficient, but a smile charged with meaning, with intelligent expression; a smile of delight, of greeting--a smile full of love. It was the first time we had seen a smile, or anything approaching one, upon his face, and in an instant it revealed how handsome the man had been.

"Mother!"

This time the word was only murmured, a murmur so low as to be barely audible. The fellow's pyjama jacket, one Sir Roland Challoner had lent to him, had become unfastened at the throat, and now I noticed that a thin gold chain was round his neck, and that from it there depended a flat, circular locket.

Sir Roland was seated close beside the bed. Almost as I noticed this locket, he saw it too. I saw him bend forward a little, and take it in his fingers, and turn it over. I could see it distinctly from where I sat. Upon the reverse side was a miniature--the portrait of a woman--a woman of forty-five or so, very beautiful still, a striking face of singular refinement. Yes, there could be no doubt whatever--the eyes of the miniature bore a striking likeness to the stranger's, which now gazed at nothing with that fixed, unmeaning stare.

I had noticed Sir Roland raised his eyebrows. Now he sat staring intently at the miniature which lay flat upon the palm on his hand. At last he let it drop and turned to me, while the stranger still sat upright in the bed, gazing still at something he seemed to see before him.

"I believe I have discovered his ident.i.ty," Sir Roland whispered. "I recognize the portrait in that locket; I couldn't possibly mistake it seeing that years ago I knew the original well. It's a miniature of Lady Logan, who died some years ago. Her husband, Lord Logan, was a gambler, a spendthrift, and a drunkard, and he treated her with abominable cruelty. They had one child, a son. I remember the son sitting on my knee when he was quite a little chap--he couldn't at that time have been more than five or six. He went to Marlborough, I know; then crammed for the army, but failed to pa.s.s; and yet he was undoubtedly clever. His father became infuriated upon hearing that he had not qualified, and, in a fit of drunkenness, turned him with curses out of the house, forbidding him ever to return, in spite of Lady Logan's pleading on the lad's behalf. The lad had from infancy been pa.s.sionately devoted to his mother, though he couldn't bear his father.

The mother died soon afterwards--of a broken heart it was said--and Lord Logan survived her only a few months, dying eventually of _delirium tremens_. Upon his death the little money he left was swallowed up in paying his debts. The son, whose name was Harold, didn't show up even at the funerals--none knew where he was or what had become of him. It was generally believed that he had gone abroad, and Logan's executors thought it probable that the son had not had news of either his mother's or his father's death. Altogether it was a very sad story and--"

He checked himself, for the stranger had turned his head and was looking at us--never shall I forget the infinite pathos of his expression at that moment. There was something in the face which betrayed misery and dejection so abject that for days afterwards the look haunted me. Again I saw the lips move, but no sound came.

He had sunk back upon his pillows. Once more his eyes gazed fixedly at the ceiling. Some moments later the mouth gaped, the lips turned slowly blue, a dull, leaden hue spread over the pale features.

The nurse hurried forward, but there was nothing to be done. Harold Logan, Lord Logan's wastrel son, was dead.

CHAPTER XI

CONCERNS MRS. STAPLETON

Ten days had pa.s.sed since the events I have set down in the previous chapter, and still no clue of any kind had been obtained to the robbers at Holt, or the perpetrators of the outrage at the house in Grafton Street. Nor, indeed, had any light been thrown upon the mystery of the forged telegram, while the incident of the discovery of the charred body of a murdered woman among the _debris_ of the house in Maresfield Gardens destroyed by fire on Christmas Eve had, to all intents, been entirely forgotten.

In the firelight in a small room leading out of the large library, Dulcie and I sat and talked. Perched on the broad arm of a giant padded chair, swinging her small, grey-spatted feet to and fro, she glanced at me moodily, replying in monosyllables to most of my remarks. Presently I rose with a gesture of annoyance, and began to pace the floor.

It was not a comfortable atmosphere by any means--metaphorically. In point of fact, Dulcie and I quarrelled.

We had quarrelled during our afternoon walk over the hard-frozen snow to a neighbouring hamlet to take a deserving widow a can of soup, and old "Captain" Barnacle in Wheatsheaf Lane a promising Christmas pudding.

The cause of our quarrel was a curious one. Though Aunt Hannah appeared to have overcome her belief concerning the telegram she had felt so certain I had sent, I felt that she was now prejudiced against me--why, heaven only knew. Her manner towards me, as well as her expression, and the way she spoke to me, all betrayed this. Women dislike being proved to be in the wrong even more than men do, and the conclusion I had come to was that Aunt Hannah would never forgive my having, in a sense, made her eat her words and look ridiculous. It was on the subject of Aunt Hannah, then, that Dulcie and I had begun our quarrel, for Dulcie had stood up for her when I condemned her--that I condemned her rather bitterly, I admit. From that we had presently come to talk of Mrs.

Stapleton, for whom Dulcie had suddenly developed a most extraordinary infatuation.

On the morning that d.i.c.k, on his way to the station, had pa.s.sed Mrs.

Stapleton in her car, Mrs. Stapleton had called at Holt and asked to see Dulcie. At that moment Dulcie was in the train with Aunt Hannah, on her way to London in response to the telegram. The widow had then asked to see Aunt Hannah Challoner, and then Sir Roland.

Upon hearing that all three were absent from home, she had asked if she might come into the house to write a note to Dulcie, and the maid who had opened the door to her--the butler and footman having, as we know, gone into Newbury--had politely but firmly refused to admit her, declaring that she had orders to admit n.o.body whomsoever.

This refusal had apparently annoyed Mrs. Stapleton a good deal, and on the same evening she had called again, and again asked to see Dulcie, who by that time had returned. It was while she was alone with Dulcie in her boudoir that Sir Roland and d.i.c.k and I had returned to Holt, and that the stranger--whom we now knew to have been Lord Logan's son--had been discovered in the hiding-hole. Mrs. Stapleton had remained with Dulcie over an hour, and during that hour it was that she had apparently cast the spell of her personality over Dulcie. It was on the subject of this infatuation of Dulcie's that Dulcie and I had ended by quarrelling rather seriously.

"I won't hear a word said against her," Dulcie suddenly declared impetuously, kicking her heel viciously against the chair. "I think she is the most fascinating woman I have ever met, and the more you abuse her the more I shall stand up for her--so there."

"Abuse her!" I answered irritably. "When did I abuse her? Repeat one word of abuse that I have uttered against her. You know quite well that I haven't said a syllable that you can twist into abuse. All I have said is that I mistrust her, and that I think it a pity you should for ever be metaphorically sitting on her skirts, as you have been during the past few days."

"And you don't call that abuse?" Dulcie retorted. "Then tell me what you do call it."

"I myself like Mrs. Stapleton up to a point," I answered, evading the question. "She is capital company and all that, but--"

"But what?" Dulcie asked quickly, as I hesitated.

"But who is she? And where does she come from? How is it that n.o.body about here, and apparently n.o.body in town either, knows anything at all about her? Such an attractive-looking woman, young, apparently well off, and a widow--surely somebody ought to know something or other about her if she is quite--well, quite all right. It's most singular that she shouldn't have any friends at all among our rather large circle of acquaintance."

"I shall tell her just what you have said about her," Dulcie exclaimed quite hotly. "I never thought you were that kind, Michael--never. You pride yourself upon being broadminded--you have often told me so--and yet because Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry don't know all about poor Mrs.

Stapleton--who her husband was, who her parents were, and where she comes from--you immediately become suspicious, and begin to wonder all sorts of horrid things about her."

"My dear Dulcie," I said, becoming suddenly quite calm, so anxious was I to soothe her at any cost, for I hated our falling out like this, "you put words into my mouth I never spoke, and thoughts into my mind which never occurred to me. I have said only one thing, and I shall say it again. I mistrust Mrs. Stapleton, and I advise you to be on your guard against her."