Part 38 (1/2)

EPILOGUE

The Affair of the Man Who Was Found

Mr. Maverick Narkom glanced up at the calendar hanging on the office wall, saw that it recorded the date as August 18th, and then glanced back to the sheet of memoranda lying on his desk, and forthwith began to scratch his bald spot perplexedly.

”I wonder if I dare do it?” he queried of himself in the unspoken words of thought. ”It seems such a pity when the beggar's wedding day is so blessed near--and a man wants his last week of single blessedness all to himself, by James--if he can get it! Still, it's a case after his own heart; the reward's big and would be a nice little nest egg to begin married life upon. Besides, he's had a fairly good rest as it is, when I come to think of it. Nothing much to do since the time when that Mauravanian business came to an end. I fancy he rather looked to have something come out of that in the beginning from the frequent inquiries he made regarding what that johnnie Count Irma and the new Parliament were doing; but it never did. And now, after all that rest--and this a case of so much importance----Gad! I believe I'll risk it. He can't do any more then decline. Yes, by James! I will.”

His indecision once conquered, he took the plunge instantly; caught up the desk telephone, called for a number, and two minutes later was talking to Cleek, thus:

”I say, old chap, don't snap my head off for suggesting such a thing at such a time, but I've a most extraordinary case on hand and I hope to heaven that you will help me out with it. What's that? Oh, come, now, that's ripping of you, old chap, and I'm as pleased as Punch. What? Oh, get along with you! No more than you'd do for me under the same circ.u.mstances, I'll be sworn. Yes, to-day--as early as possible. Right you are. Then could you manage to meet me in the bar parlour of a little inn called the French Horn, out Shere way, in Surrey, about four o'clock? Could, eh? Good man! Oh, by the way, come prepared to meet a lady of t.i.tle, old chap--she's the client.

Thanks very much. Good-bye.”

Then he hung up the receiver, rang for Lennard, and set about preparing for the journey forthwith.

And this, if you please, was how it came to pa.s.s that when Mr.

Maverick Narkom turned up at the French Horn that afternoon he found a saddle horse tethered to a post outside, and Cleek, looking very much like one of the regular habitues of Rotten Row who had taken it into his mind to canter out into the country for a change, standing in the bar parlour window and looking out with appreciative eyes upon the broad stretch of green downs that billowed away to meet the distant hills.

”My dear chap, how on earth do you manage it?” said the superintendent, eying him with open approval, not to say admiration. ”I don't mean the mere putting on the clothes and _looking_ the part--I've seen dozens in my time who could do that right enough, but the beggars always 'fell down' when it came to the acting and the talking, while you--I don't know what the d.i.c.kens it is nor how you manage to get it, but there's a certain something or other in your bearing, your manner, your look, when you tackle this sort of thing that I always believed a man had to be born to and couldn't possibly acquire in any other way.”

”There you are wrong, my dear friend. It _is_ possible, as you see. That is what makes the difference between the mere actor and the real _artiste_,” replied Cleek, with an air of conceited self-appreciation which was either a clever illusion or an exhibition of great weakness. ”If one man might not do these things better than another man, we should have no Irvings to illuminate the stage, and acting would drop at once from its place among the arts to the undignified level of a tawdry trade. And now, as our American cousins say, 'Let's come down to bra.s.s tacks.' What's the case and who's the lady?”

”The widow of the late Sir George Essington, and grandmother of the young gentleman in whose interest you are to be consulted.”

”Grandmother, eh? Then the lady is no longer young?”

”Not as years go, although, to look at her, you would hardly suspect that she is a day over five-and-thirty. The Gentleman with the Hour Gla.s.s has dealt very, very lightly with her. Where he has failed to be considerate, however, the ladies, who conduct certain 'parlours'

in Bond Street, have come to the rescue in fine style.”

”Oh, she is that kind of woman, is she?” said Cleek with a pitch of the shoulders. ”I have no patience with the breed! As if there was anything more charming than a dear, wrinkly old grandmother who bears her years gracefully and fusses over her children's children like an old hen with a brood of downy chicks. But a grandmother who goes in for wrinkle eradicators, cream of lilies, skin-tighteners, milk of roses, and things of that kind--faugh! It has been my experience, Mr. Narkom, that when a woman has any real cause for worrying over the condition of her face, she usually has a just one to be anxious over that of her soul. So this old lady is one of the 'face painters,' is she?”

”My dear chap, let me correct an error: a grandmother her ladys.h.i.+p may be, but she is decidedly not an old one. I believe she was only a mere girl when she married her late husband. At any rate, she certainly can't be a day over forty-five at the present moment.

A frivolous and a recklessly extravagant woman she undoubtedly is--indeed, her extravagances helped as much as anything to bring her husband into the bankruptcy court before he died--but beyond that I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with her 'soul.'”

”Possibly not. There's always an exception to every rule,” said Cleek. ”Her ladys.h.i.+p may be the s.h.i.+ning exception to this unpleasant one of the 'face painters.' Let us hope so. English, is she?”

”Oh, yes--that is, her father was English and she herself was born in Buckinghams.h.i.+re. Her mother, however, was an Italian, a lineal descendant of a once great and powerful Roman family named de Catanei.”

”Which,” supplemented Cleek, with one of his curious one-sided smiles, ”through an ante-papal union between Pope Alexander VI and the beautiful Giovanna de Catanei--otherwise Vanozza--gave to the world those two arch-poisoners and devils of iniquity, Caesar and Lucretia Borgia. Lady Essington's family tree supplies a mixture which is certainly unique: a fine, fruity English pie with a rotten apple in it. Hum-m-m! if her ladys.h.i.+p has inherited any of the beauty of her famous ancestress--for in 1490, when she flourished, Giovanna de Catanei was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world--she should be something good to look upon.”

”She is,” replied Narkom. ”You'll find her, when she comes, one of the handsomest and most charming women you ever met.”

”Ah, then she has inherited some of the attractions and accomplishments of her famous forbears. I wonder if there has also come down to her, as well, the formula of those remarkable secret poisons for which Lucretia Borgia and her brother Caesar were so widely famed. They were marvellous things, those Borgia decoctions--marvellous and abominable.”

”Horrible!” agreed Narkom, a curious shadow of unrest coming over him at this subject rising at this particular time.

”Modern chemistry has, I believe, been quite unable to duplicate them. There is, for instance, that appalling thing the aqua tofana, the very fumes of which caused instant death.”