Front matter (continued 2)

"Was she very pretty?" Lady Perivale asked, deeply interested.

"Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately for herself—she was an ugly child, and has grown into a plain girl; but she is as frank and honest as the daylight, and she is doing well as scullery-maid in a good family. My Slough cottager did her duty. That, Lady Perivale, is the nucleus of my story. I imagined circumstances more romantic—dazzling beauty, a poetic temperament, a fatal love—and my child of the slums grew into a heroine."

"And that is the way novels are manufactured," said Mr. Williams; "but Haldane ought not to be so ready to tell the tricks of our trade."

Grace Perivale and Arthur Haldane had been friends, but nothing more. There had been no suggestion of any deeper feeling, though when their friendship began, two seasons ago, it had seemed to her as if there might be something more. She looked back at last year, and saw that Colonel Rannock and his 'cello had kept this more valued friend at a distance. She remembered Haldane calling upon her one afternoon when she and Rannock were playing a duet, and how quickly he had gone, with apologies for having interrupted their music.

She had met him three or four times of late among the morning riders, and he had neither courted nor avoided her recognition which had been cold and formal. She did not take the initiative in cutting people, for that would have looked as if she had something to be ashamed of. She only made all salutations as distant as possible.

She stayed at home all day playing, reading, walking about her room, looking at the flowers, sitting in the balcony, which she had shaded with a striped awning, trying to make it like Italy. She was too eager for the old lawyer's visit to apply her mind seriously to anything.

The poodle, who followed all her movements with a tepid interest, wondered at her restlessness, and was glad when the maid came to take him for his afternoon airing in the park, where he ran on the flower-beds, and was regarded as an enemy by the park-keepers.

Half-past four came at last, and Mr. Harding was announced on the stroke of the half-hour. Lady Perivale received him in her largest drawing-room. She did not want him to see all the frivolities—jardinières, book-stands, easels, eccentric work-baskets, and fantastical china monsters—of her den, lest he should think lightly of her. The Louis Seize drawing-rooms, with their large buhl cabinets, holding treasures of old Sèvres and Dresden, were serious enough for the reception-rooms of a Lord Chief Justice or an Archbishop. Even her dress was severe, a blue cloth gown, with only a little bullion embroidery on the primrose satin waistcoat. Her dark auburn hair was brushed back from the broad brow, and her hazel eyes, with golden lights in them, looked grave and anxious, as she shook hands with the family counsellor.

"Please choose a comfortable chair, Mr. Harding," she said. "I have a long story to tell you. But perhaps you have heard it already?"

Mr. Harding looked mystified. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man of about sixty, with a massive brow and a benevolent head, and a countenance that had acquired dignity since his sandy hair and foxy beard had turned to silver.

"Indeed, Lady Perivale, I have heard nothing involving your interests."

"Well, then, I shall have to begin at the beginning. It is a horrid business, but so preposterous that one could almost laugh at it."

She proceeded to tell him how her friends had treated her, and the story that had been going about London. He listened gravely, and looked shocked and pained.

"And you have really heard nothing?"

"Not a syllable. My wife and I only visit among our country neighbours, and I suppose Beckenham people know very little of what is being talked about in London society. Our conversation is chiefly local, or about church matters. I never speak of my clients, so no one would know of my interest in your welfare."

"And my good name, which is more than my welfare. Now, Mr. Harding, advise me. What am I to do?"

The lawyer looked deeply concerned, but with the air of a man who saw no light.

"It is a very difficult case," he said, after a pause. "Has there been anything in the newspapers, any insolent paragraph in those columns which are devoted to trivial personalities? I don't mean to imply that this is trivial."

"No, I have heard of nothing in the newspapers—and I have a friend who is always out and about, and who would have been sure to hear of such a thing."

Mr. Harding was silent for some moments, pulling his beard with his large white hand in a meditative way.

"Have you seen Colonel Rannock since this story got about?" he asked.

"No. Colonel Rannock is in the Rocky Mountains. Ought I to see him if he were in London?"

"Certainly not, Lady Perivale; but I think if he were within reach you should send a friend—myself, for instance, as your legal adviser—to call upon him to contradict this story, and to assure your common friends in a quiet way, that you were not the companion of his travels. He could not refuse to do that, though, of course, it would be an unpleasant thing to do as involving the reputation of the person who was with him, and to whom," added the lawyer, after a pause, "he might consider himself especially accountable."

"Oh, no doubt all his chivalry would be for her," said Grace, bitterly. "I would give the world to know who the creature is—so like me that three or four different people declare they saw me—me—in three or four different places."

"You know of no one—you have no double in your own set?"

"No, I can recall no one who was ever considered very like me."

The lawyer looked at her with a grave smile. No, there were not many women made in that mould. The splendid hazel eyes—les yeux d'or—the burnished gold in the dark-brown hair, the perfect eyelids and long auburn lashes, the delicate aquiline nose and short upper lip with its little look of hauteur, the beautifully-modelled chin with a dimple in it, and the marble white of a throat such as sculptors love—no, that kind of woman is not to be matched as easily as a skein of silk.

"I think, Lady Perivale, the first and most important step is to discover the identity of this person who has been mistaken for you," Mr. Harding said gravely.

"Yes, yes, of course!" she cried eagerly. "Will you—will your firm—do that for me?"

"Well, no, it is hardly in our line. But in delicate matters of this kind I have occasionally—I may say frequently—employed a very clever man, whom I can conscientiously recommend to you; and if you will explain the circumstances to him, as you have to me, and tell him all you can about this Colonel Rannock, family surroundings, tastes, habits——"

"Yes, yes, if you are sure he is to be trusted. Is he a lawyer?"

"Lawyers do not do these things. Mr. Faunce is a detective, who retired from the Criminal Investigation Department some years ago, and who occasionally employs himself in private cases. I have known him give most valuable service in family matters of exceeding delicacy. I believe he would work your case con amore. It is the kind of thing that would appeal to him."

"Pray let me see him—this evening. There is not an hour to be lost."

"I will telegraph to him when I leave you. But he may be away from London. His business takes him to the Continent very often. You may have to wait some time before he is free to work for you."

"Not long, I hope. I am devoured with impatience. But can you—can the law of the land—do nothing for me? Can't I bring an action against somebody?"

"Not under the present aspect of affairs. If you were in a different walk of life—a governess, for instance, or a domestic servant, and you were refused a situation on account of something specific that had been said against you—an action might lie, you might claim damages. It would be a case for a jury. But in your position, the slander being unwritten, a floating rumour, it would hardly be possible to focus your wrongs, from a legal point of view."

"Then the law is very one-sided," said Grace, pettishly, "if a housemaid can get redress and I can't."

Mr. Harding did not argue the point.

"When you have seen Faunce, and he has worked up the case, we may be able to hit upon something in Bedford Row, Lady Perivale," he said blandly, as he rose and took up his highly respectable hat, whose shape had undergone no change for a quarter of a century.

There was a new hat of the old shape always ready for him in the little shop in St. James's Street, and the shopman could have put his hand upon the hatbox in the dark.

CHAPTER VI.

"Love is by fancy led about, From hope to fear, from joy to doubt."

It was a week before John Faunce appeared upon the troubled scene of Grace Perivale's life. He had been in Vienna, and he called in Grosvenor Square at half-past nine o'clock on the evening of his return, in answer to three urgent letters from her ladyship which he found on his office table in Essex Street.

Susan Rodney had been dining with her friend, and they were taking their coffee in the morning-room when Faunce was announced.

"Bring the gentleman here," Lady Perivale told the servant, and then turned to Miss Rodney.

"You don't mind, do you, Sue? If you have never seen a detective, it may be rather interesting."

"Mind? No! I am as keen as you are about this business. What a fool I was not to suggest a detective at the beginning. I shall love to see and talk with a detective. I have been longing to meet one all my life. Unberufen," added Miss Rodney, rapping the table.

"Mr. Faunce," said the butler; and a serious-looking, middle-aged man, of medium height and strong frame, with broad, high forehead, kindly black eyes, and short, close-cut black whiskers, came into the room.

There was a pleasant shrewdness in his countenance, and his manner was easy without being familiar.

"Pray be seated, Mr. Faunce," said Lady Perivale. "I am very glad to see you. This lady is Miss Rodney, my particular friend, from whom I have no secrets."

Faunce bowed to Miss Rodney, before seating himself very composedly outside the circle of light under the big lamp-shade.

"I must apologize for coming so late in the evening, madam; but I only arrived at my office, from Dover, an hour ago; and, as your letters seemed somewhat urgent——"

"It is not a moment too late. I would have seen you at midnight. But—perhaps you have not had time to dine. We have only just left the dining-room. Will you let them get you some dinner there before we begin our business?"

"Your ladyship is too good. I dined on the boat—a saving of time—and am quite at your service."

Lady Perivale told her story, Faunce watching her all the time with those tranquil eyes of his, never very keen, never restless. They were absorbent eyes, that took hold of things and held them tight; and behind the eyes there was a memory that never failed.

He watched and listened. He had heard such stories before—stories of mistaken identity. They were somewhat common in divorce court business, and he very seldom believed them, or found that they would hold water. Nor had he a high opinion of women of fashion—women who lived in rooms like this, where a reckless outlay was the chief characteristic, where choicest flowers bloomed for a day, and delicate satin pillows were tossed about the carpet for dogs to lie upon, and toys of gold and silver, jewelled watches, and valuable miniatures, were crowded upon tables to invite larceny. Yet it seemed to him that Lady Perivale's voice rang true, or else that she was a more accomplished actress than those other women.

"Mr. Harding was right, madam," he said, when he had heard her to the end, and had questioned her closely upon some details. "We must find out who your double is."

"And that will be difficult, I'm afraid."

"It may take time and patience."

"And it will be costly no doubt; but you need not be afraid of spending money. I have no father or brother to take my part; no man-friend who cares enough for me——" She stopped, with something like a sob in her voice. "I have nothing but my money."

"That is not a bad thing to begin the battle with, Lady Perivale," answered Faunce, with his shrewd smile; "but money is not quite such an important factor in my operations as most people think. If things cannot be found out in a fairly cheap manner they cannot be found out at all. When a detective tells you he has to offer large bribes to get information, you may take it from me that he is either a fool or a cheat. Common sense is the thing we have most use for, and a capacity for putting two and two together and making the result equal a hundred."

"And when you have found this shameless creature what are we to do? Mr. Harding says I can't bring an action for slander, because I am not a housemaid, and loss of character doesn't mean loss of my daily bread."

"There are other kinds of actions."

"What—what action that I could bring? I should like to go to law with every friend I ever had. I think I shall spend the rest of my days in the law courts, pleading my own cause, like that pretty lady whose name I forget."

"You might bring an action for libel, if you had a case."

"But I have not been libelled—a libel must be written and published, must it not?"

"That is the meaning of the word, madam—'a little book.'"

"Oh that my enemy would write a book about me!"

"Are you sure there has been no offensive allusion to this rumour in any of the newspapers?"

"How can I tell? I have not been watching the papers."

"I should advise you to send a guinea to Messrs. Rosset and Son, the Press agents, who will search the papers for your name, and save you trouble."

Lady Perivale made a hurried note of Messrs. Rosset's address.

"An action for libel, if any one libelled me—what would that mean?"

"It would mean a thorough sifting of your case before a jury, by two of the cleverest counsel we could get. It would mean bringing your double into the witness-box, if possible, and making her declare herself Colonel Rannock's companion in those places where you are said to have been seen with him."

"Yes, yes; that would be conclusive. And all those cold-hearted creatures, whom I once called friends, would be sorry—sorry and ashamed of themselves. But if there is no libel—if people go on talking and talking, and nobody ever publishes the slander——"

"Make your mind easy, Lady Perivale. When we are ready for it there will be a libel."

"I don't understand."

"You may safely leave the matter in my hands, madam, and in Mr. Harding's. If I succeed in finding the lady who resembles you, the rest will not be difficult."

"And you think you will find her?"

"I mean to try. I shall start for Algiers to-morrow morning."

"May I give you a cheque for travelling expenses?" Lady Perivale asked, eagerly.

"That is as you please, madam. You may leave my account to be settled by Mr. Harding, if you like."

"No, no," she said, going to her davenport. "In spite of what you say about money, I want you to have plenty of cash in hand, to feel that you have no occasion to stint outlay."

"That is what I never do, when character is at stake."

She handed him a hastily written cheque for five hundred pounds.

"This is a high figure, madam, to start with," said Faunce, as he slipped the cheque into his letter-case.

"Oh, it's only a trifle on account. Call upon me for whatever sums you require. I would rather beggar myself than exist under this odious imputation."

"There is one thing more I must ask for, madam."

"What is that?"

"Your photograph, if you will be so good as to trust me with it."

"My photograph?" wonderingly, and with a touch of hauteur.

"It will help me to identify your double."

"Yes, of course! I understand."

She opened a drawer and took out a cabinet photograph of herself, choosing the severest dress and simplest attitude.

Faunce promised to report progress from Algiers. If he drew blank there, he would go on to Corsica and Sardinia. He would have bowed himself out of the room, with a respectful distance, but Grace held out her hand to him.

"You believe in me, don't you, Mr. Faunce?" she said, as they shook hands.

"With all my heart, madam."

"And you don't always believe in your clients, I think?"

Faunce smiled an enigmatic smile.

"I have some queer clients now and then," he said.

He had taken up his hat, and Lady Perivale's hand was upon the bell, when Susan broke in suddenly, exclaiming—

"Don't ring, Grace. Pray don't go, Mr. Faunce, unless you are in a desperate hurry."

"I am in no hurry, madam."

"Then pray sit down again, and let us have a little talk with you—now that we have done with Lady Perivale's business. Do you know that, ever since I read the 'Moonstone'—and I was little more than a child when I read that most enthralling book—I have been longing to meet a detective—a real detective?"

"I feel honoured, madam, for my profession. People are apt to think unkindly of our trade, though they can't do without us."

He was still standing with his hat in his hand, waiting for some sign from Lady Perivale.

"The world is full of injustice," she said. "Pray sit down, Mr. Faunce, and gratify my friend's curiosity about the mysteries of your art."

"I am flattered, madam, to find a lady interested in such dry work."

"Dry!" cried Susan; "why, it is the quintessence of fiction and the drama. And now, Mr. Faunce, tell me, to begin with, how you ever contrive to track people down when once they have got a fair start?"

"Well, you see, as we don't do it by following them about, the start doesn't much matter, provided we can pick up a trace of them somewhere."

"Ah, but that's where the wonder is! How do you pick up the first trace?"

"Ah, that's a secret!" Faunce answered gravely; and then, after a pause, smiling at Susan Rodney's eager face, all aglow in the lamplight, he added, "We generally have to leave that to the chapter of accidents."

"Then it is only a fluke when you run a man down?" asked Susan.

Lady Perivale was sitting on the sofa, caressing the irresponsive poodle, and too deep in thought about her own case to be greatly concerned in the secrets of Mr. Faunce's calling. She was glad for her friend to be amused, and that was all.

"Well, not quite a fluke," replied Faunce. "We expect a fugitive to do something foolish, something that puzzles some thick-headed person, who communicates with the police. A great deal of our information comes from the outside public, you see, madam. It's often good for nothing; but there's a little gold among the quartz."

"But if the fugitive is too clever for you?"

"Well, even if our man plays the game, we are on the look out for his moves. You see, my lady," turning to Lady Perivale, whose obvious indifference piqued him, "an old hand like me has a good many friends scattered up and down the world. I am able to put a good thing in the way of my friends every now and then. Consequently they are anxious to help me if they can, and they keep their eyes open."

"What sort of people are these friends of yours, Mr. Faunce?" asked Lady Perivale, feeling that the detective's shrewd eyes were upon her face, and that he wanted her to be interested in his discourse.

"That's another secret, a secret of the trade. I can only answer questions about myself, not about my friends. But I might suggest that the porter of a large Metropolitan hotel, anywhere on the main stream of travel, would be a useful ally for a man like me. Then there are people who have retired from the French or English police, who are fond of their old work, and not too proud to undertake an odd job."

"And these people help you?" asked Susan.

"Yes, Miss Rodney"—the name clearly spoken; no mumbled substitute for a name imperfectly heard, or forgotten as soon as heard. John Faunce's educated memory registered every name at the first hearing.

"Experience has taught me never to task them beyond their power. That's the keystone of my business. Only the other day, my lady"—addressing himself pointedly to Lady Perivale, in whom he saw signs of flagging attention, "I nearly let some one slip through my fingers by over-taxing the ability of one of my agents. I had great confidence in the man—a first-rate watcher! Tell him to look out for a particular person at a particular place, and, sure as that person came to that place, my man would spot him, and most likely would find out where he went. Well, I gave the fellow a little job last week that required delicate handling—a good many discreet questions had to be put to a certain person's domestics, and no alarm raised in their minds that might communicate itself to their master."

"And did your man prove a failure?" Miss Rodney asked eagerly.

"He did, madam. He overdid the part—gave himself away, as the Yankees say. The bird was scared off the nest, took wing for foreign parts, and I might have lost him altogether. But it wasn't my man's fault. He is quite reliable at his own work—watching. It was my own fault. I ought to have done the thing myself."

"Then you do things yourself sometimes?" Lady Perivale asked, her interest re-awakened, since she wanted the man to give her case his individual attention.

"Yes, madam, often. I am going to Algiers, for instance, to hunt down Colonel Rannock's travelling companion. I would not trust that task to the best of my agents. I may say that, for the higher class of inquiry, I have never found any one whom I could trust absolutely. The fact is, no one can be sufficiently keen who hasn't the whole game in sight."

"And are you not afraid of your agents turning rogues and trying to make money out of your clients' secrets?" asked Susan.

"No, Miss Rodney—because I never tell them my clients' secrets. They have to ferret out certain facts, to watch certain people; but they never know the why and the wherefore. Human nature is weak. I know my people. They wouldn't attempt blackmail: that's the rock ahead in our business, Lady Perivale. But they might talk, and I am not sure that isn't worse sometimes."

"I dare say it is," said Susan; "for the blackmailer doesn't want to peach upon his victim. It's only a question of hard cash."

"I see you understand the business, madam. I have been at the game a good many years, and there are things I can do that would puzzle a younger hand. Ah, Miss Rodney," said Faunce, attracted by her keen and animated expression, "I could tell you incidents in my professional career that would make your hair stand on end."

"Oh, pray do. I adore stories of that kind."

"But it is nearly eleven o'clock!" glancing at the Sèvres timepiece opposite him, "and I have already trespassed too long on Lady Perivale's patience. And I have to catch a train for Putney, where I live when I am at home. I haven't seen my wife for ten days, and I shall start for Marseilles at nine o'clock to-morrow morning."

"You are not often at home, I suppose?"

"No, madam. A good deal of my life is spent like Satan's, 'Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it;' and then I have my pied à terre in Essex Street, where I am generally to be found for business purposes when I am in London. I used to live in Bloomsbury, where I was always on the spot, ready for contingencies; but when I left the Force some years ago, I took a cottage at Putney—a pretty little place enough—where my wife lives, and where I go when I have a little leisure, and where I am supposed to be very fond of the garden."

"And don't you love your garden? It must be such a relief after your exciting work."

"Oh yes, I like the garden. I find the slugs particularly interesting."

"The slugs!"

"Oh, there's more in a slug than most people think. His capacity has been very much under-rated. Of course he's not a patch upon the spider. The subtle villainy of the spider is worth a life-long study. I know nothing but a sixty per cent. money-lender that can touch him. And the ant—well, he's a thorough-going Philistine, always moves in a grove, and doesn't so much appeal to my fancy. But again, I am encroaching," said Faunce, standing up straight and stiff, in an attitude reminiscent of "the Force." "I wish you good night, ladies, and I hope your ladyship will pardon me for having prosed all this time."

"I am greatly obliged to you for having given us so much interesting information."

"And some day you will tell us one of your blood-curdling stories?" said Susan Rodney, shaking hands with him.

"I like that man!" exclaimed Susan, when the door closed upon him. "I have always wanted to know a detective, like Bucket, the beloved of my childhood; or Mr. Cuff, the idol of my riper years. You must invite Mr. Faunce to a quiet little luncheon some day. There is no question of class distinction with a clever man like that."

Lady Perivale smiled. She was accustomed to her friend's enthusiasms and ultra-Liberal ideas.

"It's time for me to go home, Grace. I asked Johnson to order a cab at eleven. Oh, by-the-by, it is ages since you took a cup of tea in my cottage. I wish you'd come at five o'clock next Saturday. I have picked up an old print or two—genuine Bartolozzis—rural subjects—that I am dying to show you."

"I should love to go to you, Sue. But you may have people."

"No, no; Friday is my day. I never expect any one on Saturday."

"Then I'll come. It will seem like old times—like last year, when I had nothing on my mind."

"Oh, but that business is on Mr. Faunce's mind now, and off yours. You are going to be in good spirits again; and I shall come and make music with you once or twice a week, if you'll have me. There is that little German, who fiddles so beautifully, Herr Kloster. You heard him at my party, last year. I'll bring him to play duets with you."

"It would be delightful; but I doubt if I shall be in spirits for music."

"Oh, I am not going to let you mope. What a fool I was not to suggest a detective the day you came home. Good night, dear. Saturday next, as soon as you like after half-past four."

Miss Rodney lived in a pretty little house facing Regent's Park, the kind of house that agents describe as a bijou residence, and which rarely contains more than two habitable bedrooms. It was a picturesque little house, with a white front, a verandah below, and a balcony above, and a tiny pretence of a garden, and the rent was higher than Susan could afford when she set up in London as a teacher of singing and the pianoforte, leaving her three sisters to vegetate in the paternal home, a great red-brick house in a Midland market town, where their father was everybody's family solicitor.

During the earlier years of her London career, Susan had worked hard for her house, and for her pretty furniture, her bits of genuine Sheraton and Chippendale, picked up cheaply in back streets and out-of-the-way corners, her chintz curtains and chair-covers and delicate carpets. Her own maintenance, and her one devoted servant, who did all the work of the house, yet always looked a parlourmaid, cost so little; and, after helping the girls at home with handsome additions to their pocket-money, Miss Rodney could afford to dress well, and keep her house in exquisite order, every now and then adding some artistic gem to that temple of beauty.

The view from her windows, her old prints, her little bits of Lowestoft china, her small but choice collection of books, were the delight of her solitary existence; and, perhaps, there were few happier women in London than Susan Rodney, who worked six days in the week, and rarely for less than an eight hours' day, and who had long ago made up her mind that for some women there is nothing better in life than freedom from masculine control and a congenial avocation.

The afternoon sunshine was shining full upon the house-front when Lady Perivale was announced; so the sliding venetian shutters had been drawn across the two French windows, and Miss Rodney's drawing-room was in shadow. Coming in out of the vivid out-of-door light, Grace did not, on the instant, recognize a gentleman, who rose hurriedly and took up his hat as she entered the room. But a second glance showed her that the visitor was Arthur Haldane.

She shot an angry glance at Susan. Was it chance, or some mischievous plan of hers that brought him here? They bowed to each other coldly, and neither held out the hand of friendship.

"You are not going, Mr. Haldane?" said Susan. "Tea will be in directly. You must have some tea. You know I am rather proud of my tea. It is the only thing a pauper with one servant can be proud of."

"I—I have an engagement in the City," Haldane answered rather vaguely, moving towards the door, but with his eyes on Grace Perivale's pale face.

"The City? Why, the City will be dead asleep before you can get there."

"True. You are very kind. I know how good your tea is." He put down his hat, and dropped into a chair near the sofa where Lady Perivale had seated herself.

"I hope you are not one of those horrid men who make believe to like tea, and then go about reviling one for offering it to them," said Susan, who foresaw a dead silence.

"Oh no; I am a genuine tea-drinker. The male tea-drinker is by no means a rare animal."

"When are you going to write another novel, Mr. Haldane?" asked Susan, while the inimitable parlourmaid, in a Parisian cap, was bringing in the tea-tray.

"You have been good enough to make that inquiry two or three times a year, for the last five years. I know you think it flatters my vanity."

"And I shall go on asking the same question. When? When? When?" handing him a cup and saucer, which he carried, with the cream-jug, to Lady Perivale, without relaxing the stiffness that had come over his manner when she entered the room.

But the moment had come when he must speak to her, or seem absolutely uncivil.

"Don't you think there are novelists enough between Central Europe and London without my pushing into the field, Lady Perivale?" he asked.

"Oh, but you have been in the field, and have won your battle. I think everybody would like another story from the author of 'Mary Deane.'"

"You do not consider how easily people forget," he said.

"Oh yes, I do," she answered, moved by that faint tremor in his voice which a less interested hearer might not have observed. "You yourself are an instance. It is just a year since you called upon me one afternoon—when Colonel Rannock and I were playing a duet. I suppose our music frightened you, for you stayed hardly five minutes, and you have been unconscious of my existence ever since."

She was determined to speak of Rannock, to let him see that the name was not difficult of utterance; but she could not help the sudden flame-spot that flew into her cheeks as she spoke it.

"Perhaps I had an idea that you did not want me," he said; and then his heart sickened at the thought that this woman, whom he had honoured and admired, whose face had haunted his solitary hours, whose beauty still attracted him with a disquieting charm, was possibly a woman of lost character, whom no self-respecting man could ever dream of as a wife.

He took two or three sips out of the Swansea tea-cup which Susan handed him, put it down hurriedly, snatched his hat, shook hands with his hostess, bowed to Lady Perivale, and had left the house before even the most alert of parlour-maids could fly to her post in the hall.

"Well, Susan," said Grace, when the door had closed upon him. "Don't you think you have done a vastly clever thing?"

"Anyhow, I would rather have done it than left it undone!" her friend answered savagely, furious at Haldane's conduct.

"What on earth possessed you to bring that man and me together?"

"I wanted you to meet. I know you like him, and I know he worships you."

"Worships! And he would scarcely hand me a cup of tea—did it as if he were carrying food to a leper! Worship, forsooth! When it's evident he believes the worst people say of me."

"Perhaps he takes the scandal more to heart than another man would, because you have been his bright particular star."

"Nonsense! I know he used to like coming to my house—he used to jump at my invitations. I thought it was because I always had pretty people about me, or that it was on account of my chef. But as for anything more——"

"Well, there was something more. He was deeply in love with you."

"Did he tell you so?"

"He is not that kind of man. But he and I have been pals ever since I came to London. I taught a sister of his when his people lived in Onslow Square—a sister he adored. She married a soldier, and died in India a year after her marriage, and Arthur likes to talk to me about her. She was very fond of me, poor girl. And then, last year, I found that he liked to talk about you—and I know the inside of people's minds well enough to know most of the things they don't tell me."

"If he cared for me last year why didn't he ask me to marry him?"

"Because he is, comparatively speaking, a poor man, and you are rich."

"It's all nonsense, Sue. If he cared for me—in that way—he could never condemn me upon an idle rumour."

"You allow nothing for jealousy. He thought you were encouraging Rannock, and that you meant to marry him."

"And I had refused the wretch three times," said Grace, despairingly.

"What was the good of refusing him if you let him hang about you—lunch at your house twice a week—dance attendance upon you at Ascot and Henley?"

"Yes, it was foolish, I suppose. Everybody can tell me so, now it is too late. Good-bye, Sue. Don't lay any more traps for me, please. Your diplomacy doesn't answer."

"I'm sorry he behaved like a bear; but I am glad you have met, in spite of his coldness. I know he loves you."

"And you think that an ostracized person like me ought to be grateful for any man's regard?"

"No, Grace; but I think Arthur Haldane is just the one man whose affection you value."

"I have never said as much to you."

"There was no necessity. Don't be down-hearted, dear. Things will right themselves sooner than you think."

"I am not down-hearted. I am only angry. Good-bye. Come to lunch to-morrow, if you want me to forgive you."

"I'll be there. I believe I am more appreciative of your chef than Arthur Haldane ever was."

CHAPTER VII.

"There's a woman like a dewdrop, she's so purer than the purest; And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the surest: And this woman says, 'My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!' And I, who—(ah, for words of flame!) adore her! Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her."

Lady Perivale's victoria was standing at Miss Rodney's gate, but before she could step into it her path was intercepted by the last person she expected to see at that moment, though he had so recently left her. It was Haldane, who had been pacing the avenue in front of Miss Rodney's windows, and who crossed the road hurriedly as Grace came out of the gate.

"Will you let your carriage wait while you walk with me for a few minutes in the Park, Lady Perivale?" he asked gravely. "I have something to say to you—that—that I want very much to say," he concluded feebly, the man whose distinction of style the critics praised finding himself suddenly at a loss for the commonest forms of speech.

Grace was too surprised to refuse. She gave a tacit assent, and they crossed the road side by side, and went into the Park, by a turnstile nearly opposite Miss Rodney's house. They walked along the quiet pathway between two rows of limes that were just beginning to flower, and through whose leafy boughs the evening light showed golden. They walked slowly, in a troubled silence, neither of them venturing to look at the other, yet both of them feeling the charm of the hour, and that more subtle charm of being in each other's company.

"Lady Perivale, when I left Miss Rodney's drawing-room just now, my mind was so overwhelmed with trouble that I wanted to be alone—wanted time to think. I have been pacing this pathway ever since, not long, perhaps, in actual moments, but an age in thought, and—and—the end of it all is that, in the most profound humility and self-contempt, I have to implore your pardon for having suffered my thoughts to wrong you. My judgment has been to blame—not my heart. That has never wavered."

"Oh, Mr. Haldane, was it worth while to apologize? You have acted like all my other society friends—except one. People who have known me ever since my marriage choose to believe that I have made myself unworthy of their acquaintance. I cannot call it friendship, for no friend could believe the story that has been told of me."

"You cut me to the heart. No friend, you say! And I—I who have so honoured you in the past, I was fool enough to believe the slander that was dinned into my ear, chapter and verse, with damning iteration. I struggled against that belief—struggled and succumbed—because people were so sure of their facts, and because—well, I confess, I believed the story. But I thought there might have been a marriage—that for some reason of your own you wanted to keep it dark. I could not think of you as other people thought, but I believed that you were lost to me for ever. I had seen Rannock at your house, seen him about with you—and—and I thought you cared for him."

"You were mistaken. I know now that I was foolish in receiving him upon such a friendly footing."

"Only because the man is unworthy of any woman's confidence or regard. Lady Perivale, I think last year you must have had some suspicion that I was fighting a battle with my own heart."

"I don't quite follow you."

"I must be a better actor than I fancy myself if you did not know that I loved you."

"I can see no reason for fighting battles—if—if that were so."

"Can you not? You don't know—or you did not know then—how malevolent the world can be—this modern world, which measures everything in life by its money value. You are rich, and I have just enough to live upon comfortably without watching my bank-book. From the society point of view I am a pauper."

"What would other people's opinion matter if I knew you were sincere?"

"Yes, that is the question. That was why I kept silence. My pride could not endure that you should rank me with such men as Rannock. And there were others of the class pursuing you—ruined spendthrifts, to whom your fortune would mean a new lease of profligate pleasures. I saw Rannock favoured by you——"

"He was never favoured. I liked his society because he was unlike the rest of the world. I was sorry for him, for his disappointment, his lost opportunities. I thought him a broken-hearted man."

"Broken-hearted? Yes, that is the reprobate's last card; and unfortunately it often wins the game. Broken-hearted!—as if that battered heart could break! A man who has lived only to do mischief, a man whose friendship meant ruin for younger and better men."

"Women know so little of men's lives."

"Not such women as you."

"I confess that he interested me. He seemed a creature of whim and fancy, fluctuating between wild fun and deepest melancholy. I thought him generous and large-minded; since he showed no unkindly feeling when I refused to marry him, as other men had done whom I once thought my friends."

"Rannock looks longer ahead than other men. Be sure he did not love you for your refusal, and that he hung on in the hope you would change your mind. No man of that stamp was ever a woman's friend."

"Don't let us talk of him. I hate the sound of his name."

"Yet you pronounced it so bravely just now in Miss Rodney's drawing-room, and looked me in the face, as if you defied me to think ill of you."

"Well, it was something like a challenge perhaps. And did that convince you?"

"You convinced me. I rushed from the house in a tumult of wonder and doubt. But I had seen you, and could not go on doubting. Your eyes, your voice, the pride in your glance, the pride of wounded innocence, defiant, yet pathetic! Who that had seen you could go on doubting? Lady Perivale—Grace—can you forgive a jealous fool who made his love for you a rod to scourge him, whose thoughts have been cruel to you, but, God knows, how much more cruel to himself?"

"I am glad you are beginning to think better of me," she answered quietly.

"Beginning! I have not the shadow of a thought that wrongs you. I am humbled in the dust under your feet. I ask for nothing but to be forgiven, to be restored to your friendship, to help you as a friend, brother, father might help you, in any difficulty, in any trouble."

"Thank you," she said quietly, holding out her hand to him; and their hands met in a firm and lingering grasp, which meant something more than everyday friendliness.

"I am very glad you trust me, in the face of that odious rumour," she said. "I confess that I felt your unkindness—for it was unkind to hold yourself aloof like other people whose friendship I had never particularly valued. As to their preposterous story about me, it would be easy to answer it with an alibi, since I was at my villa on the Italian Riviera from November to April, and have not seen Colonel Rannock since the last Goodwood, when we were both in Lady Carlaverock's house party."

They walked up and down the little avenue of limes till the golden light took a rosier glow and shone upon a lower level, and until Lady Perivale's servants thought she had gone home in somebody else's carriage, and forgotten that her own was waiting for her.

She told Haldane all that had happened to her since her return to London—her indignation, her contempt for her false friends, Lady Morningside's kindness, her engagement of Faunce, the detective, and her hope that she would be able to refute the slander in a court of law.

"Everybody in London has seen my disgrace, and everybody in London must know of my rehabilitation," she said; and then, in a contemptuous tone, "Is it not absurd that I must take all this trouble simply because another woman happens to be like me?"

"And because a man happens to be a villain. I believe the thing was a deep-laid scheme of Rannock's."

"But why should he do such a vile thing?"

"Because he wanted to be even with you—that would be his expression—for your refusing to marry him."

"Oh, surely no man could be capable of anything so diabolical."

"I know a good deal about Rannock's antecedents, and I believe he could."

"But, even if he were capable of such baseness, how could he plan the thing so as to be met by people who know me?"

"That was not difficult. He had only to watch the papers, and throw himself in people's way. He knew that wherever he went there would be travellers who knew you. He chose Algiers, Corsica, Sardinia, as less public than Cannes or Nice, and so affected an air of avoiding the rush of tourists. God forgive me, if I wrong the man—I hate him too much to reason fairly about him, but the fact of his absence from London this season counts against him. It looks as if, having fired his shot, he kept himself clear of the consequences."

"Nobody would have cut him if he had been in London!" Lady Perivale said scornfully.

"Not more than usual. He was not liked—by the best people!"

"No! But he was so clever, so amusing, played the 'cello divinely—and he flattered me by telling me his troubles, and how hardly the world had used him. I thought him a victim. Oh, what an idiot I have been!"

"No, no. You have only been not quite a woman of the world."

"And I thought I was one. I thought I had learnt everything in my half-dozen years of society, and that the pristine simplicity of my father's parsonage was a thing of the past. And I suffered myself to be talked about, my name bandied about."

"Give me the privilege of your friendship till you think me worthy of a dearer bond, and I will protect you from all the errors of unworldliness. I would not have you one jot more of a worldling than you are. I have worldly wisdom enough for both of us—the wisdom of Mayfair and Belgravia, which the angels call folly."

He took her to her carriage, but he did not ask to be allowed to call upon her.

"I shall be leaving town shortly," he said, "but I hope we may meet in the autumn."

"Are you going abroad?"

"I think so, but I have not determined the direction. I will write to you from—wherever I am—if you will allow me."

"I shall be pleased to hear from you," she answered gently. "I am very glad we are friends again."

On this they clasped hands and parted, lovers half avowed.

Grace went home radiant. She had always liked him. It might be that she had always loved him. His coldness had cut her to the heart, yet now that he was at her feet again, she respected him for having held himself aloof while there was a shadow of doubt in his mind. The fortune-hunter would have taken advantage of her isolation, and pursued her all the more ardently while she was under a cloud. And she was touched by his surrendering at once to her personal influence, to the eyes and voice that he loved. He could not meet her face to face, and go on doubting her.

CHAPTER VIII.

"All we that are called women, know as well As men, it were a far more noble thing To grace where we are graced, and give respect There, where we are respected: yet we practise A wilder course, and never bend our eyes On men with pleasure, till they find the way To give us a neglect; then we, too late, Perceive the loss of what we might have had, And dote to death."

Mr. Faunce's profession, more especially since he left Scotland Yard, had lain for the most part among the upper classes. He had been employed in delicate investigations that had brought him in touch with some of the mightiest in the land, and he knew his peerage almost as well as if his own name had been recorded in that golden book. His aristocratic clients found him as kindly and sympathetic as he was shrewd and trustworthy. He never made the galled jade wince by a tactless allusion. He always took an indulgent view of the darkest case when he discussed it with the delinquent's family. He could turn a father's wrath to pity by his shrewd excuses for a son's misconduct, making forgery appear only a youthful ebullition, proceeding rather from want of thought than want of honesty. But he was always on the side of the angels, and always urged generous dealing when a woman was in question. If wrongs had to be righted, a breach of promise case quashed, Faunce was always the victim's advocate. His tactfulness soothed the offended parent's pride, the betrayed husband's self-respect. People liked him and trusted him; and the family skeleton was brought out of the cupboard, and submitted freely to his inspection.

He knew a good deal of the lives of men about town; and among the baser specimens of this trivial race he knew Richard Rannock, late of the Lanarkshire Regiment. When he left Grosvenor Square, with Lady Perivale's case neatly engraved upon the tablet of his brain, needing no shorthand note to assist his memory, he was prepared to find that the slander from which the lady suffered had been brought about by some deliberate perfidy on the part of her rejected suitor. He knew of cruel things, and dastardly things, that Rannock had done in the course of his chequered career, mostly in the relation of hawk to pigeon; he knew the man's financial affairs to have been desperate for the last ten years; and that although he had contrived to live among young men of means and position, with the reputation of being an open-hearted, wild kind of fellow, he had lived like the buzzard and the kite, and the cruel eye had been ever on the watch, and the hungry beak ever ready to pounce upon the unsuspecting quarry.

Faunce's first business was to find the woman. When he had marked her down, he would turn his attention to the man. He was in Algiers as soon as train and boat could take him there, and being as much at his ease in Africa as at Charing Cross, sauntered slowly under the meridian sun along the dazzling street from the steamer to the hotel, chose his room amidst the echoing emptiness of the corridors, where the hum of the mosquito was the only sound, made his expeditious toilet, and, with clean-shaved chin, spotless shirt, and well-brushed alpaca coat, lounged into the French manager's bureau.

The manager knew Mr. Faunce, who had spent a week at the hotel during the previous autumn, in the interests of a wronged husband, whose high-born wife had danced away from the marital mansion with a favourite partner, as gaily as if an elopement were only a new figure in the cotillon. Faunce had run the poor little lady to earth in this very hotel, hidden in an armoire, among perfumed silk petticoats and lace flounces. He had found her, and had taken her straight home to her husband, tearful and ashamed, but only guilty of such a girlish escapade as husbands can forgive.

She had parted with her lover at Marseilles. He was to cross in a different steamer, to throw pursuers off the scent. And his steamer had been delayed, and she was alone at the hotel in Algiers, frightened out of her wits, when Faunce retrieved her.

The manager was delighted to see the English detective, offered his cigar-case, proposed drinks. Faunce never refused a cigar, and rarely accepted a drink.

"Merci, mon ami, I had breakfast on the steamer half an hour ago," and then Faunce unfolded his business.

He affected no secrecy with M. Louis, the manager, who was bon zig, and the essence of discretion.

Such and such a man—here followed a graphic description of Colonel Rannock—had been at the hotel in the last tourist season—date unknown. It might have been before Christmas, or it might have been any time before April. He had come from Sardinia or Corsica, or he was going to one of those islands. He had a lady with him, young and handsome, and he was supposed to be travelling under an alias, and not under his own name—Rannock.

The manager looked puzzled. The most minute description will hardly conjure up the distinct image of one particular man. There are generally a dozen men in any prosperous hotel who would fit Faunce's description of Colonel Rannock—tall, dark, an aquiline nose, a heavy moustache, eyes rather too near together, forehead prominent over the eyes, receding sharply above the perceptive ridge, hands and feet small, air thoroughbred.

"Que diable," said the manager, "we had a very good season. Les messieurs de cette espèce fourmillaient dans l'hôtel. I could count one such on every finger."

"Could you count ten such women as that?" asked Faunce, taking Lady Perivale's photograph from his letter-case and laying it on the manager's desk.

"Sapristi!" said M. Louis, looking at Lady Perivale's photograph. "Yes, I remember her. Elle était une drôlesse."

If Faunce's mind had harboured any lingering doubt of Lady Perivale's innocence, that phrase would have dispelled it. In no circumstances could the woman he had seen in Grosvenor Square have so conducted herself as to merit such a description.

"Look at it a little closer," said Faunce, "and tell me pour sûr that you know the lady."

"No, I don't know her. Your photograph is uncommonly like her, but not the very woman—unless it was taken some years ago. This lady is younger than the woman who was here last February, by at least half a dozen years."

"The photograph was taken recently, as you can see by the dress," said Faunce; "and now tell me about the woman who was here."

"You are looking for her?"

"Yes!"

"Forgery, or"—and the manager's eyes opened wider, and his nostrils quivered with excitement—"murder?"

"Neither. I want the lady in the witness-box, not in the dock. Her evidence is required in the interests of a client of mine, and I am prepared to pay handsomely for any information that will help me to find her."

"Monsieur Faunce has always the good sense. Well, what do you want to know about her?"

"Everything that you or any of your personnel can tell me."

"She was here for a little over a fortnight, with her husband—now that I think of him, just the man you describe—tall, dark, hook-nose, prominent brow, eyes near together, heavy moustache, drank a good deal, chiefly Cognac, the lady preferred champagne; spent every night at the club, seldom came home till the hotel was shut; the night porter would tell you his hours; quarrelled with the lady, tried to beat her, and got the worst of it; came to the déjeuner with a black eye and a scratched cheek. My faith, but they were a pretty couple! They would have made a pretty scandal if they had stayed much longer."

"Was he able to pay his bill?"

"Oh yes; he would always be able. There were two young Americans—what is it you others call your richards? Les oiseaux d'ouf. They went to the club with him every night, they played piquet in his salon of an afternoon, they brought flowers and gloves and chocolates for the lady. The poor children! How they were played! And there was a diamond merchant from the Transvaal. He, too, admired Madame, and he, too, played piquet in the salon."

"And Madame; was she very civil to these gentlemen?"

"Civil? She treated them like the dirt under her feet. She laughed at them to their noses. Elle faisait ses farces sur tout le monde. Ah! but she had a droll of tongue. Quel esprit, quelle blague, quel chic! But it was a festival to listen to her."

"Had she the air of a woman who had been a lady, and who had dégringolé?"

"Pas le moins du monde. She was franchement canaille. Elle n'avait pas dégringolé. She had rather risen in the world. Some little grisette, perhaps; some little rat of the Opera—but jolie à croquer—tall, proud, with an air of queen!"

"You often had a chat with her, I dare say, Monsieur Louis, as she went in and out of the hotel?"

"Mais, oui. She would come into the bureau, to ask questions, to order a carriage, and would stop to put on her gloves—she had no femme de chambre—and though her clothes were handsome, she was a slovenly dresser, and wore the same gown every day, which is not the mark of a lady."

"In these casual conversations did you find out who she is, where she lives, in London or elsewhere?"

"From her conversation I would say she lives nowhere—a nomad, drifting about the world, drinking her bottle of champagne with her dinner, crunching pralines all the afternoon, smoking nine or ten cigarettes after every meal, and costing pas mal d'argent to the person who has to pay for her caprices. She talked of London, she talked of Rome, of Vienna—she knows every theatre and restaurant in Paris, but not half a dozen sentences of French."

"A free lance," said Faunce. "Now for the name of this lady and gentleman."

The name had escaped Monsieur Louis. He had to find the page in his ledger.

"Mr. and Mrs. Randall, numbers 11 and 12, first floor, from February 7th to February 25th."

Randall! The name that Miss Rodney's Duchess had told her, and which Lady Perivale had told Faunce.

"And the lady's Christian name? Can you remember that? You must have heard her pseudo-husband call her by it."

Louis tapped his forehead smartly, as if he were knocking at the door of memory.

"Tiens, tiens, tiens! I heard it often—it was some term of endearment. Tiens! It was Pig!"

"Pig!—Pigs are for good luck. I wonder what kind of luck this one will bring Colonel——Randall. And what did she call him? Another term of endearment?"

"She called him sometimes Dick, but the most often Ranny. When they were good friends, bien entendu. There were days when she would not address him the word. Elle savait comment se faire valoir!"

"They generally do know that, when they spring from the gutter," said Faunce.

He had learnt a good deal. Such a woman—with such beauty, dash, devilry—ought to be traceable in London, Paris, or New York, anywhere. He told himself that it might take him a long time to find her—or time that would be long for him, an adept in rapid action—but he felt very sure that he could find her, and that when he found her he could mould her to his will.

There was only one thing, Faunce thought, that would make her difficult—a genuine attachment to Rannock. If she really loved him, as such women can love, it might be hard work to induce her to betray him, even though no fatal consequences to him hung upon her secrecy. He knew the dogged fidelity which worthless women sometimes give to worthless men.

The hotel was almost empty, so after a prolonged siesta Mr. Faunce dined with the manager in the restaurant, which they had to themselves, while half a dozen tourists made a disconsolate little group in the desolation of the spacious dining-room.

Faunce did not pursue the subject of the Randalls and their behaviour during the social meal, for he knew that the manager's mind having been set going in that direction he would talk about them of his own accord, a surmise which proved correct, for M. Louis talked of nothing else; but there were no vital facts elicited over the bottle of Pommery which Mr. Faunce ordered.

"The lady was something of a slattern, you say?" said Faunce. "In that case she would be likely to leave things—odd gloves, old letters, trinkets—behind her. Now, in my work things are often of the last importance. Trifles light as air, mon ami, are sign-posts and guiding stars for the detective. You may remember Müller's hat—his murdered victim's, with the crown cut down—thriftiness that cost the German youth dear. I could recall innumerable instances. Now, did not this lady leave some trifling trail, some litter of gloves, fans, letters, which your gallantry would treasure as a souvenir?"

"If you come to that, her room was a pig-sty."

"To correspond with her pet name."

"But the hotel was full, and I set the chambermaids at work ten minutes after the Randalls drove to the boat. We had people coming into the rooms that afternoon."

"And you had neither leisure nor curiosity to seek for relics of the lovely creature?"

Monsieur Louis shrugged his shoulders.

"Is my room on the same floor?"

"Mais oui."

"And I have the same chambermaid?"

"Yes. She is the oldest servant we have, and she stays in the hotel all the summer; while most of our staff are in Switzerland."

This was enough for Faunce. He retired to his room early, after smoking a couple of cigarettes under the palm trees in front of the hotel, in the sultry hush of the summer night. The scene around him was all very modern, all very French—a café-concert on the right, a café-concert on the left—and it needed an occasional Arab stalking by in a long white mantle to remind him that he was in Africa. He meant to start on his return journey to London by the next boat. He was not going to Corsica or Sardinia in search of new facts. He trusted to his professional acumen to run the lady to ground in London or Paris.

He shut the window against insect life, lighted his candles, and seated himself at the table, with his writing-case open before him, and then rang the dual summons which brings the hotel chambermaid.

"Be so good as to get me some ink," he said.

The chambermaid, who was elderly and sour-visaged, told him that ink was the waiter's business, not hers. He should have rung once, not twice, for ink.

"Never mind the ink, Marie," he said, in French. "I want something more valuable even than ink. I want information, and I think you can give it to me. Do you remember Monsieur and Madame Randall, who had rooms on this floor before Easter?"

Yes, she remembered them; but what then?

"When Madame Randall left she was in a hurry, was she not?"

"She was always in a hurry when she had to go anywhere—unless she was sulky and would not budge. She would sit like a stone figure if she had one of her tempers," the chambermaid answered, with many contemptuous shrugs.

"She left hurriedly, and she left her room in a litter—left all sorts of things behind her?" suggested Faunce, with an insinuating smile.

The chambermaid's sharp black eyes flashed angrily, and the chambermaid tossed her head in scorn. And then she held out a skinny forefinger almost under Faunce's nose.

"She has not left so much as that," she said, striking the finger on the first joint with the corresponding finger of the other hand. "Not so much as that!" and from her vehemence Faunce suspected that she had reaped a harvest of small wares, soiled gloves and lace-bordered handkerchiefs, silk stockings with ravelled heels.

"What a pity," he said in his quietest voice, "for I should have been glad to have given you a couple of napoleons for any old letters or other documents that you might have found among the rubbish when you swept the rooms."

"For letters, they were all in the fireplace, torn to shreds," said the chambermaid; "but there was something—something that I picked up, and kept, in case the lady should come back, when I could return it to her."

"There is always something," said Faunce. "Well, Marie, what is it?"

"A photograph."

"Of the lady?"

"No, Monsieur, of a young man—pas grand' chose. But if Monsieur values the portrait at forty francs it is at his disposition, and I will hazard the anger of Madame should she return and ask me for it."

"Pas de danger! She will not return. She belongs to the wandering tribes, the people who never come back. Since the portrait is not of the lady herself, and may be worth nothing to me, we will say twenty francs, ma belle."

The chambermaid was inclined to haggle, but when Faunce shrugged his shoulders, laid a twenty-franc piece upon the table, and declined further argument, she pocketed the coin, and went to fetch the photograph.

It was the least possible thing in the way of portraits, of the kind called "midget," a full-length portrait of a young man, faded and dirty, in a little morocco case that had once been red, but was soiled to blackness.

"By Jove!" muttered Faunce, "I ought to know that face."

He told himself that he ought to know it, for it was a familiar face, a face that spoke to him out of the long ago; but he could not place it in the record of his professional experiences. He took the photo out of the case, and looked at the back, where he found what he expected. There is always something written upon that kind of photograph by that kind of woman.

"San Remo, "Poor old Tony. November 22th, '88."

The 22th, the uneducated penmanship sprawling over the little card, alike indicated the style of the writer.

"Poor old Tony!" mused Faunce, slowly puffing his last cigarette, with the midget stuck up in front of him, between the two candles. "Who is Tony? A swell, by the cut of his clothes, and that—well, the good-bred ones have an air of their own, an air that one can no more deny than one can describe it. Poor old Tony! At San Remo—condemned by the doctors. There's death in every line of the face and figure. A consumptive, most likely. The last sentence has been passed on you, poor beggar! Poor old Tony! And that woman was with you at San Remo, the companion of a doomed man, dying by inches. And she must have been in the flower of her beauty then, a splendid creature. Was she very fond of you, I wonder, honestly, sincerely attached to you? I think she was, for her hand trembled when she wrote those words! Poor old Tony! And there is a smudge across the date, that might indicate a tear. Well, if I fail in running her to earth in London, I could trace some part of her past life at San Remo, and get at her that way. But who was Tony? I'm positive I know the face. Perhaps the reflex action of the brain will help me," concluded Faunce.

The reflex action did nothing for Mr. Faunce, in the profound slumber which followed upon the fatigue of a long journey. No suggestion as to the original of the photograph had occurred to him when he put it in his letter-case next morning. It was hours afterwards, when he was lying in his berth in the steamer, "rocked in the cradle of the deep," wakeful, but with his brain in an idle, unoccupied state, that Tony's identity flashed upon him.

"Sir Hubert Withernsea," he said to himself, sitting up in his berth, and clapping his hand upon his forehead. "That's the man! I remember him about town ten years ago—a Yorkshire baronet with large estates in the West Riding—a weak-kneed youth with a passion for the Fancy, always heard of at prize-fights, and entertaining fighting men, putting up money for private glove-fights; a poor creature, born to be the prey of swindlers and loose women."

Faunce looked back to that period of ten years ago, which seemed strangely remote, more by reason of the changes in ideas and fashions, whim and folly, than by the lapse of time. He searched his mind for the name of any one woman in particular with whom Sir Hubert Withernsea had been associated, but here memory failed him. He had never had business relations with the young man, and though his ears were always open to the gossip of the town, he kept no record of trivial things outside the affairs of his clients. One young fool more or less travelling along the primrose path made no impression upon him. But with the knowledge of this former episode in the pseudo-Mrs. Randall's career, it ought to be easy for him to find out all about her in London, that focus of the world's intelligence, where he almost invariably searched for information before drawing any foreign capital.

CHAPTER IX.

"What begins now?" "Happiness Such as the world contains not."

Faunce wrote to Lady Perivale on his arrival in town, and told her the result of his journey briefly, and without detail. She might make her mind easy. The woman who resembled her would be found. He was on her track, and success was only a question of time.

Grace read the letter to Susan Rodney, who was dining with her that evening. She had been in much better spirits of late, and Sue rejoiced in the change, but did not suspect the cause. She had gone to her own den at the back of her house when Grace left her, and had not seen the carriage standing by the park gate, nor had the interview in the park come to her knowledge. Her friend, who confided most things to her, was reticent here. She attributed Lady Perivale's cheerfulness to a blind faith in Faunce the detective.

The season was drawing towards its close. Lady Morningside's white ball had been a success, all the prettiest people looking their prettiest in white frocks, and the banks of gloxinias in the hall and staircase and supper-rooms being a thing to rave about. The London season was waning. The Homburg people and the Marienbad people were going or gone. The yachting people were rushing about buying stores, or smart clothes for Cowes. The shooting people were beginning to talk about their grouse moors.

"Sue, we must positively go somewhere," Grace said. "Even you must be able to take a holiday within an hour of London; and you may be sure I shan't go far while I have this business on hand. You will come with me, won't you, Sue? I am beginning to sicken of solitude."

"I shall love to come, if you are near enough for me to run up to town once or twice a week. I have three or four pig-headed pupils who won't go away when I want them; but most of my suburbans are packing their golf clubs for Sandwich, Cromer, or North Berwick."

"You will come! That's capital! I shall take a house on the river between Windsor and Goring."

"Make it as near London as you can."

"If you are good it shall be below Windsor, even if the river is not so pretty there as it is at Wargrave or Taplow. I want to be near London, for Mr. Faunce's convenience. I hope he will have news to bring me. I wrote to beg him to call to-morrow morning—I want to know what discoveries he made in Algiers."

People who have twenty thousand a year, more or less, seldom have to wait for things. Lady Perivale drove to a fashionable agent in Mount Street next morning, and stated her wishes; and the appearance of her victoria and servants, and the fact that she made no mention of price, indicated that she was a client worth having. The agent knew of a charming house on a lovely reach of the river near Runnymede—gardens perfection, stables admirable, boat-house spacious, and well provided with boats at the tenant's disposal. Unluckily, he had let it the day before; but he hoped that little difficulty might be got over. He would offer his client a villa further up the river. He would write to Lady Perivale next morning.

The little difficulty was got over. The client, actual or fictitious, was mollified, and Lady Perivale took the house for a month at two hundred guineas, on the strength of a water-colour sketch. She sent some of her servants to prepare for her coming, and she and Susan Rodney were installed there at the end of the week.

The house and gardens were almost as pretty as they looked in water-colour, though the river was not quite so blue, and the roses were not quite so much like summer cabbages as the artist had made them. There were a punt and a couple of good skiffs in the boat-house; and Lady Perivale and her friend, who could both row, spent half their days on the river, where Grace met some of those quondam friends whom she had passed so often in the park; met and passed them with unalterable disdain, though sometimes she thought she saw a little look of regret, an almost appealing expression in their faces, as if they were beginning to think they might have been too hasty in their conclusions about her.

One friend she met on the river whom she did not pretend to scorn. On the second Saturday afternoon a skiff flashed past her through the July sunshine, and her eyes were quick to recognize the rower. It was Arthur Haldane. She gave an involuntary cry of surprise, and he turned his light craft, and brought it beside the roomy boat in which she and Sue were sitting, with books and work, and the marron poodle, as in a floating parlour.

"Are you staying near here, Lady Perivale?" he asked, when greetings had been exchanged.

"We are living close by, Miss Rodney and I, at Runnymede Grange. I hope you won't laugh at our rowing. Our idea of a boat is only a movable summer-house. We dawdle up and down for an hour or two, and then creep into a backwater, and talk, and work, and read, all the afternoon, and one of the servants comes to us at five o'clock, and makes tea on the bank with a gipsy kettle."

"You might ask him to one of our gipsy teas, Grace," suggested Susan.

"With pleasure. Will you come this afternoon? We shall be in the little creek—the first you come to after passing Runnymede Grange, which you will know by the Italian terrace and sundial."

"I shall come and help your footman to boil the kettle."

He looked radiant. He had seen Lady Perivale's happy look when his boat neared hers, and his heart danced for joy. All the restraint he had set upon himself was flung to the winds. If she loved him, what did anything matter? It was not the world's mistrust he dreaded, or the world's contempt. His only fear had been that she should doubt him, misread his motives, rank him with the fortune-hunters who had pursued her.

"Are you staying near here?" asked Susan.

"I come up the river for a day or two now and then. There is a cottage at Staines kept by a nice old spinster, whose rooms are the pink of cleanliness, and who can cook a mutton chop. I keep a quire or two of foolscap in her garden parlour, and go there sometimes to do my work. Her garden goes down to the water, and there is a roomy arbour of hops that I share with the caterpillars, a kind of berceau, from which I can see the river and the boats going by, through the leafy screen, while nobody can see me. It is the quietest place I know of near London. The rackety people seldom come below Maidenhead."

He spent the hours between tea-time and sunset with Grace and her friend, in a summer idleness, while the poodle, who found himself receiving less attention from his mistress than usual, roamed up and down, scratching holes in the bank, and pretending to hunt rats among the sedges, evidently oppressed with ennui. Of those three friends there were two who knew not the lapse of time, and were surprised to see the great golden disc sink below the rosy water where the river curved westward, and the sombre shadows steal over keep and battlements yonder where the Royal fortress barred the evening sky.

"How short the days are getting," Grace said naively.

They two had found so much to talk about after having lived a year without meeting. All the books they had read, all the plays they had seen, the music they had heard—everything made a subject for discussion; and then it was so sweet to be there, in the full confidence of friendship, spell-bound in a present happiness, and in vague dreams of the future, sure that nothing could ever again come between them and their trust in each other.

"The days are shortening by a cock's step or so," said Sue, looking up from an afternoon tea-cloth, which she was decorating with an elaborate design in silk and gold thread, and which she had been seen engaged upon for the last ten years.

It was known as "Sue's work." It went everywhere with her, and was criticized and admired everywhere, and everybody knew that it would never be finished.

"The days are shortening, no doubt," repeated Sue; "they must begin, or we should never get to the long winter evenings, but I haven't perceived any difference yet, and I don't think there's anything odd in the sun going down at eight o'clock."

"Eight o'clock! Nonsense, Sue!" cried Lady Perivale, flinging down a volume of "The Ring and the Book," which she had been nursing all the afternoon.

"And as we are supposed to dine at eight, I think we ought to go home and put on our tea-gowns," pursued Sue, sedately.

Can there be such happiness in life; bliss that annihilates thought and time? Grace blushed crimson, ashamed of having been so happy.

Mr. Haldane bade them good night at the bottom of the garden steps, where his outrigger was waiting for him. It would have been so easy to ask him to dinner, so easy to keep him till midnight, so easy to prolong the sweetness of golden hours. But Grace was discreet. They were not lovers, only friends. She wanted to spin to its finest thread this season of sweet uncertainty, these exquisite hours on the threshold of Paradise. And then Sue might think him a bore. Sue was not overfond of masculine society. She liked to put her feet on a chair after dinner, and she sometimes liked a cigarette.

"I never smoke before men," she told Grace. "They think we do it to please, or to shock them."

CHAPTER X.

"True as steel, boys! That knows all chases, and can watch all hours."

In the course of that summer afternoon's talk with Grace Perivale, Arthur Haldane had explained the change in his plans since their meeting in Regent's Park.

The business which would have taken him away from England for some time had hung fire, and his journey was postponed indefinitely. He did not tell her that his contemplated journey was solely in her interests, that he had thought of going to America in quest of Colonel Rannock, with the idea that he, the man with whose name Lady Perivale's had been associated, should himself set her right before that little world which had condemned her. He knew not by what machinery that rehabilitation could be accomplished; but his first impulse was to find the man whose acquaintance had brought this trouble upon her.

Two days after that golden sunset in which he and Lady Perivale had parted, with clasped hands that vowed life-long fidelity, while yet no word had been spoken, Mr. Haldane called upon John Faunce at his pied à terre in Essex Street.

He had written for an appointment on business connected with Lady Perivale's case, and Faunce had replied asking him to call at his rooms in Essex Street at ten o'clock next morning. An early hour, which denoted the man whose every hour was valuable.

He found the house one of the oldest in the old-world street, next door to a nest of prosperous solicitors, but itself of a somewhat shabby and retiring aspect. The bell was answered by a bright-eyed servant girl, clean and fresh looking, but with an accent that suggested the Irish Town Limerick, rather than a London slum—a much pleasanter accent to Haldane's ear.

To the inquiry if Mr. Faunce lived there, she answered with a note of interrogation.

"Mr. Wh-hat?"

"Mr. Faunce."

"Yes, he does. Any message?"

"Is he at home?"

"I don't know. I'll go and see. Wh-hat name?"

A quick-eyed scrutiny of the visitor's spotless holland waistcoat, the neat dark stripes of the straight-knee'd trousers falling in a graceful curve over the irreproachable boots, and the sheen of a silk-faced coat, had assured her of his respectability before she committed herself even so far as that.

But when this well-groomed gentleman, who was far too quietly dressed to be a member of the swell-mob, produced an immaculate card out of a silver case, she grasped it and dashed up the steep stairs.

"Will I tell 'um you want to see 'um?"

"Thanks."

"I shall!" and she vanished round the first landing.

She was back again and leaning over the same spot on the bannister rail in half a minute.

"You're to be good enough to step up, if ye plaze, surr."

Mr. Faunce occupied the second floor, front and back, as sitting-room and bedroom; the busy nature and uncertain hours of his avocations during the last few years having made his rural retreat at Putney impossible for him except in the chance intervals of his serious work, or from Friday to Monday, when that work was slack. It was not that he loved wife and home less, but that he loved duty more.

He emerged from the bedroom as Haldane entered the sitting-room, in the act of fixing a collar to his grey flannel shirt, and welcomed his visitor cordially, with apologies for not being dressed. He had been late overnight, and had been slower than usual at his toilet, as he was suffering from a touch of rheumatism. His profession was betrayed by a pair of regulation high-waisted trousers of a thick blue-black material, over Blucher boots, which were also made to the sealed pattern of the Force. But his costume was rounded off by a pepper-and-salt Norfolk jacket of workman-like cut.

There was no paltry pride about Mr. Faunce. Although a man of respectable parentage, good parts, and education, he was not in the least ashamed of having been for many years a respected member of the Police. In ordinary life he somewhat affected the get-up of a country parson with sporting tastes; but here, in his own den, and quite at his ease, he was nothing more or less than a retired police-officer.

His rheumatism had taken him in the arm, he explained, or he would have been at his table there writing up one of his cases.

"There is often as much in one of 'em as would make a three-volume novel, Mr. Haldane;" and then, with a polite wave of the hand—"in bulk," he added, disclaiming all literary pretentions, and at the same time motioning his guest to a chair.

This laborious penwork was perhaps the most remarkable feature in John Faunce's career. The hours of patient labour this supremely patient man employed in noting down every detail and every word concerning the case in hand, which may have come to the notice of himself or any of his numerous temporary assistants, in and out of the police-force, stamped him as the detective who is born, not made, or, in other words, the worker who loves his work.

The room reflected the man's mind. It was a perfectly arranged receptacle of a wonderful amount of precise information. It was like the sitting-room of an exceptionally methodical student preparing for a very stiff examination. The neat dwarf bookcase contained a goodly number of standard books of reference, and a lesser number of the most famous examples of modern fiction.

One corner of the room was occupied by a stack of japanned tin boxes that recalled a solicitor's office; but these boxes had no lettering upon them. A discreet little numeral was sufficient indication of their contents for Faunce, who was incapable of forgetting a fact once registered in the book of his mind.

"You must find papers accumulate rapidly in your work, Mr. Faunce," said Haldane.

"They would if I let them, sir; but I don't. When once a case is settled or withdrawn from my hands, I return all letters and other papers that may have reached me, and I burn my history of the case."

"You will have nothing left for your Reminiscences, then?"

"They are here, sir," the detective replied sharply, tapping his massive brow; "and one day—well, sir, one day I may let the reading world know that truth is stranger—and sometimes even more thrilling—than fiction. But I must have consummate cheek to talk of fiction to the author of 'Mary Deane.'"

Haldane started, half inclined to resent an impertinence; but a glance at the man's fine head and brilliant eye reminded him that the detective and the novelist might be upon the same intellectual plane, or that in sheer brain power the man from Scotland Yard might be his superior.

Faunce had seen the look, and smiled his quiet smile.

"It's one of the penalties of being famous, Mr. Haldane, that your inferiors may venture to admire you. I have your book among my favourites."

He pointed to the shelf, where Haldane saw the modest, dark-green cloth back of his one novel, between "Esmond" and "The Woman in White."

"And now to business, sir. And first allow me to say that I am glad to see any friend of Lady Perivale's."

"Thank you, Mr. Faunce. You must not suppose that Lady Perivale sent me here. She did not even know that I wanted to see you; and I must ask you not to mention my visit. I heard of what you were doing from a friend of Lady Perivale's, not from herself, and I am here to consult you on a matter that only indirectly affects her case."

"Well, sir, I am at your service."

"I shall be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Faunce. I believe a gentleman of your profession may be considered a kind of father confessor, that anything I say in this office will be—strictly Masonic."

"That is so."

"Well, then, I may tell you in the first place that Lady Perivale is the woman whom I admire and respect above all other women, and that it is my highest ambition to win her for my wife."

"I think that is a very natural ambition, sir, in any gentleman who—being free to choose—has the honour to know that lady," Faunce replied, with a touch of enthusiasm.

"I know something of Colonel Rannock's antecedents, and have met him in society, though he was never a friend of mine; and when I heard the scandal about Lady Perivale, it occurred to me that the best thing I could do, in her interest, was to find Rannock and call upon him to clear her name."

"A difficult thing for him to do, sir, even if he were willing to do it."

"I thought the way might be found, if the man were made to feel that it must be found. I have the worst possible opinion of Colonel Rannock; but a man of that character has generally a weak joint in his harness, and I thought I should be able to bring him to book."

"A very tough customer, I'm afraid, sir. A human armadillo."

"The first matter was to find him. He was said to be in the Rocky Mountains, and I was prepared to go there after him; only such an expedition seemed improbable at the time of year. I had heard of him in chambers in the Albany; but on inquiry there I found he gave up his chambers last March, sold lease and furniture, and that his present address, if he had one in London, was unknown."

"Then I take it, sir, not having my professional experience, you were baffled, and went no further."

"No; I wasn't beaten quite so easily. I think, Faunce, your profession has a certain fascination for every man. It is the hunter's instinct, common to mankind, from the Stone Age downwards. After a good deal of trouble I found Rannock's late body-servant, a shrewd fellow, now billiard-marker at the Sans-Souci Club; and from him I heard that Rannock's destination was not the Rockies, but Klondyke. He left London for New York by the American Line at the end of March, taking the money he got for his lease and furniture, and he was to join two other men—whose names his servant gave me—at San Francisco, on their way to Vancouver. He was to write to his servant about certain confidential matters as soon as he arrived in New York, and was to send him money if he prospered in his gold-digging, for certain special payments, and for wages in arrear. I had no interest in knowing more of these transactions than the man chose to tell me; but the one salient fact is that no communication of any kind has reached the servant since his master left him, and the man feels considerable anxiety on his account. He has written to an agent in San Francisco, whose address Rannock had given him, and the agent replied that no such person as Colonel Rannock had been at his office or had communicated with him."

"Well, sir, Colonel Rannock changed his mind at the eleventh hour; or he had a reason for pretending to go to one place and going to another," said Faunce, quietly, looking up from a writing-pad on which he had made two or three pencil-notes.

"That might be so. I cabled an inquiry to the agent, whose letter to the valet was six weeks old, and I asked the whereabouts of the two friends whose party Rannock was to join. The reply came this morning. No news of Rannock; the other men started for Vancouver on April 13th."

"Do you want me to pursue this inquiry further, Mr. Haldane?"

"Yes; I want to find Rannock. It may be a foolish idea on my part. But Lady Perivale has been cruelly injured by the association of her name with this man—possibly by no fault of his—possibly by some devilish device to punish her for having slighted him."

"That hardly seems likely. They may have done such things in the last century, sir, when duelling was in fashion, and when a fine gentleman thought it no disgrace to wager a thousand pounds against a lady's honour, and write his wager in the club books, if she happened to offend him. But it doesn't seem likely nowadays."

"I want you to find this man," pursued Haldane, surprised, and a little vexed, at Faunce's dilettante air.

He had not expected to find a detective who talked like an educated man, and he began to doubt the criminal investigator's professional skill, in spite of his tin boxes and reference books, and appearance of mental power.

"In Lady Perivale's interest?"

"Certainly."

"Don't you think, sir, you'd better let me solve the problem on my own lines? You are asking me to take up a tangled skein at the wrong end. I am travelling steadily along my own road, and you want me to go off at a tangent. I dare say I shall come to Colonel Rannock in good time, working my own way."

"If that is so, I won't interfere," Haldane said, with a troubled look. "All my anxiety is for Lady Perivale's rehabilitation, and every hour's delay irritates me."

"You may safely leave the matter to me, sir. Festina lente. These things can't be hurried. I shall give the case my utmost attention, and as much time as I can spare, consistently with my duty to other clients."

"You have other cases on your hands?"

Faunce smiled his grave, benign smile.

"Four years ago, when I retired from the C.I., I thought I was going to settle down in a cottage at Putney, with my good little wife, and enjoy my otium cum dignitate for the rest of my days," said Faunce, confidentially, "but, to tell you the truth, Mr. Haldane, I found the otium rather boring, and, one or two cases falling in my way, fortuitously, I took up the old business in a new form, and devoted myself to those curious cases which are of frequent occurrence in the best-regulated families, cases requiring very delicate handling, inexhaustible patience, and a highly-trained skill. Since then I have had more work brought me than I could possibly undertake; and I have been, so far, fortunate in giving my clients satisfaction. I hope I shall satisfy Lady Perivale."

There was a firmness in Faunce's present tone that pleased Haldane.

"At any rate, it was just as well that you should know the result of my search for Rannock," he said, taking up his hat and stick.

"Certainly, sir. Any information bearing on the case is of value, and I thank you for coming to me," answered Faunce, as he rose to escort his visitor to the door.

He did not attach any significance to the fact that Colonel Rannock had announced his intention of going to Klondyke, and had not gone there. He might have twenty reasons for throwing his servant off the scent; or he might have changed his mind. The new gold region is too near the North Pole to be attractive to a man of luxurious habits, accustomed to chambers in the Albany, and the run of half a dozen rowdy country houses, where the company was mixed and the play high.