It was a strange thing that the heir of one of the wealthiest men in Britain should have been abandoned in Bayswater. As a bachelor, I wondered as to the state of mind of the mother--a mother who could take out her child on a winter"s night, without hat or coat, and deliberately cast him adrift just to annoy her husband.
But the gentler s.e.x in these days of drugs and dancing are, it must be admitted, strangely abnormal. Women with crazes abound everywhere.
That women are emanc.i.p.ated from the almost Oriental thraldom in which they lived in the days of Victoria the Good is a bright sign of our times--the times of discovery, refinement, and mutual happiness of all cla.s.ses. But certain circles--those circles wherein women take drugs to enable them to dance the better, circles where opium is smoked, and where morals do not count, where religion is scoffed at and relegated to the limbo of an out-of-date fiction, and where only the possessor of money counts, there is a strange and mysterious phase of Society indescribable by the pen. Only those who know of them by personal experience--the experience of "fast living"--can understand it. And even the man-about-town stands aghast at the ultra-modern crazes.
As we sat chatting in that quiet comfortable room, I confess that I became rather fascinated by my host. Perhaps he was a trifle too cynical at times, but his matrimonial trouble no doubt accounted for it.
Suddenly he rose and stretched himself rather wearily, I thought. The thin, delicate hand which held his cigar was long and tapering, and upon his finger was an antique Florentine ring in the form of a small emerald moth. I particularly noticed it as of very unusual pattern. I recollected seeing one of the same design in the Louvre Museum in Paris several years before.
"Ah!" he sighed. "I shall very soon leave London again--thank goodness! Next week I return to Fiesole for the winter. I am no great lover of London--are you, Mr.--Mr. Garfield?"
"My business as an electrical engineer keeps me in London," was my reply. "Besides, I have recently sustained a very heavy financial loss. If, however, I were independent I should certainly live in the country. London has, to me, become unbearable since the war."
"Ah! I quite agree," replied my host. "All our fine British traditions seem to have gone by the board. That, at least, is my own view. But there--perhaps I am getting an old fogey."
"I don"t think so," I replied. "Everyone who knows you, Mr. De Gex, is well aware of your up-to-dateness, and your great generosity."
"Are they?" he asked, smiling wearily. "Personally I care very little.
Popularity and prosperity can be manufactured by any shrewd press-agent employed at so much a year. Without publicity, the professional man or woman would never obtain a hearing. These are the days when incompetency properly boomed raises the incompetent to greatness--and even to Cabinet rank. Neither would the society woman ever obtain a friend without her boom," he went on. "Bah! I"m sick of it all!" he added with a sweep of his thin white hand. "But it is refreshing to talk with you, a stranger."
He was certainly frank in his criticisms, and I was not at all surprised when he commenced to question me as to my profession, where I lived, and what were my future plans.
I told him quite openly of my position, and that I lived in Rivermead Mansions with my friend Hambledon; and I also mentioned again the financial blow I had just received.
"Well," he said lazily, "I"m greatly indebted to you, Mr. Garfield, for deigning to come in and see a much-worried man. Ah! you do not know how I suffer from my wife"s hatred of me. My poor little Oswald.
Fancy abandoning him in order that the police might find him. But happily he is back. Think of the publicity--for the papers would have been full of my son being lost." Then, after a pause, he added: "I hope we shall see each other again before I go back to Italy."
At that moment, the butler, Horton, entered with a card upon a silver salver, whereupon I rose to leave.
"Oh! don"t go yet!" my host urged quickly, as he glanced at the card.
"Is he waiting?" asked Mr. De Gex, turning to his servant.
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, well. Yes, I"ll see him," he said. And then, excusing himself, he rose and left, followed by the man.
Why, I wondered, had I been invited there? It seemed curious that this exceedingly rich man was bursting to confide his domestic troubles to a perfect stranger.
I glanced around the handsome, well-furnished room.
Upon the writing-table lay a number of letters, and upon the red blotting-pad was a big wad of Treasury notes, under an elastic band, cast aside heedlessly, as rich men often do.
As I sat there awaiting my host"s return, I recollected how, in the previous year, I had seen in the pictorial press photographs of the handsome Mrs. De Gex attired in jersey and breeches, with knitted cap and big woollen scarf, lying upon her stomach on a sleigh on the Cresta run. In another photograph which I recollected she was watching some ski-ing, and still another, when she was walking in the park with a well-known Cabinet Minister and his wife. But her husband never appeared in print. One of his well-known idiosyncrasies was that he would never allow himself to be photographed.
At the end of the room I noticed, for the first time, a pair of heavy oaken folding-doors communicating with the adjoining apartment, and as I sat there I fancied I heard a woman"s shrill but refined voice--the voice of a well-bred young woman, followed by a peal of light, almost hysterical, laughter, in which a man joined.
My adventure was certainly a strange one. I had started out to visit my prosaic old uncle--as I so often did--and I had antic.i.p.ated a very boring time. But here I was, by a most curious circ.u.mstance, upon friendly terms with one of the richest men in England.
Further, he seemed to have taken an unusual fancy to me. Probably because I had been sympathetic regarding the rescue of little Oswald De Gex. But why he should have confided all this to me I failed to realize.
As I sat there by the cheerful fire I heard the voices again raised in the adjoining room--the voices of a man and a woman.
Suddenly a sweet perfume greeted my nostrils. At first it seemed like that of an old-fashioned _pot-pourri_ of lavender, verbena and basalt, such as our grandmothers decocted in their punch-bowls from dried rose-leaves to give their rooms a sweet odour. The scent reminded me of my mother"s drawing-room of long ago.
Gradually it became more and more pungent. It seemed as though some pastille were burning somewhere, for soon it became almost sickening, an odour utterly overbearing.
At the same time I felt a curious sensation creeping over me. Why I could not tell.
I was both agitated and annoyed. I had only half finished my drink, and it was certainly not alcohol that was affecting me. Rather it seemed to be that curious old-world perfume which each moment grew more pungent.
I struggled against it. What would my newly-found friend think if he returned to find me overcome?
I gained my feet with difficulty and managed to walk across the carpet, holding my breath.
Certainly my night"s adventure was, to say the least, a curious one.
Yet in our post-war days in London the man who ventures about town after dark can easily meet with as strange occurrences and narrow escapes as ever were described by the pioneers of Central Africa. The explorer Stanley himself declared that the African jungle was safer than the crossing of the Strand.
I suppose I must have remained in the chair into which I again sank for a further ten minutes. My head swam. My mental balance seemed to have become strangely upset by that highly pungent odour of lavender and verbena. I could even taste it upon my tongue, and somehow it seemed to paralyse all my senses save two, those of sight and reason.
I had difficulty in moving my mouth, my fingers, and my shoulders, but my sense of smell seemed to have become extremely acute. Yet my muscles seemed rigid, although my brain remained perfectly clear and unimpaired.
It was that scent of verbena--now terrible and detestable--a million times more potent than any bath soap--which filled my nostrils so that it seemed to choke me. I longed for fresh air.
By dint of persistent effort I rose, dragged myself across the room, drew aside the heavy silken curtain, and opening the window leaned out into the cold air, gasping for breath.
Where was Mr. De Gex?
For about five minutes I remained there, yet even the night air gave me little relief. My throat had become contracted until I seemed to be choking.
By the exercise of greater effort I staggered back, aghast at the sudden and unaccountable attack, and pressed the electric bell beside the fireplace to summon my host or the estimable Horton. Then I sank back into the arm-chair, my limbs paralysed.
How long I remained there I cannot tell for that pungent odour had, at last, dulled my brain. I had heard of cocaine, of opium, and of other drugs, and it occurred to me that I might be under the influence of one or the other of them. Yet the idea was absurd. I was Mr. De Gex"s guest, and I could only suppose that my sudden seizure was due to natural causes--to some complication of a mental nature which I had never suspected. The human brain is a very complex composition, and its strange vagaries are only known to alienists.
I seemed stifled, and I sat clutching the arms of the big leather chair when my host at last entered, smiling serenely and full of apologies.
"I"m awfully sorry to have left you, Mr. Garfield, but my agent called to do some very urgent business. Pray excuse me, won"t you?"
"I--I"m awfully sorry!" I exclaimed. "But I--I don"t feel very well. I must apologize, Mr. De Gex, but would you ask your man to order me a taxi? I--well, I"ve come over strangely queer since you"ve been out."
"Bah! my dear fellow," he laughed cheerily. "You"ll surely be all right in a few minutes. Stay here and rest. I"m sorry you don"t feel well. You"ll be better soon. I"ll order my car to take you home in half an hour."
Then he crossed to the telephone, rang up a number, and ordered his car to be at the house in half an hour.
Then he rang for Horton, who brought me a liqueur gla.s.s of old brandy, which at my host"s suggestion I swallowed.
Mr. De Gex, standing upon the thick Turkey hearthrug with his cigar between his lips, watched me closely. Apparently he was considerably perturbed at my sudden illness, for he expressed regret, hoping that the brandy would revive me.
It, however, had the opposite effect. The strong perfume like _pot-pourri_ had confused my senses, but the brandy dulled them still further. I felt inert and unable to move a muscle, or even to exercise my will power. Yet my sense of sight was quite unimpaired.