The Four Faces

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When he had closed the door, and glanced about him to make sure that we
were alone, he said in a low voice:

"Look here, Mike, I tell you again, I have an idea: I wonder if you will
fall in with it. I have watched that fellow Gastrell pretty closely all
the evening; I am rather a good judge of men, you know, and I believe
him to be an impostor of some kind--I can't say just yet of what kind.
Anyway, he is the man I met on the _Masonic_; he can deny it as much as
he likes--he is. Either he is impersonating some other man, or some
other man is impersonating him. Now listen. I am going to that address
in Maresfield Gardens that he gave to his taxi-driver. I am going to
find out if he lives there, or what he is doing there. What I want to
know is--Will you come with me?"

"Good heavens, Jack!" I exclaimed, "what an extraordinary thing to do.
But what will you say when you get there? Supposing he does live
there--or, for that matter, supposing he doesn't--what reason will you
give for calling at the house?"

"Oh, I'll invent some reason quick enough, but I want someone to be with
me. Will you come? Will you or won't you?"

I glanced up at the clock. It wanted twenty minutes to eleven.

"Do you mean now? Do you intend to go at this time of the night?"

"I intend to go at once--as fast as a taxi will take me there," he
answered.

I paused, undecided. It seemed such a strange thing to do, under the
circumstances; but then, as I knew, Jack Osborne had always been fond of
doing strange things. Though a member of Brooks's, he was unconventional
in the extreme.

"Yes, I will," I said, the originality of the idea suddenly appealing to
me. In point of fact I, too, mistrusted this man Gastrell. Though he had
looked me so straight in the eyes when, two hours before, he had calmly
assured me that I was mistaken in believing him to be "his namesake in
Geneva," as he put it; still, as I say, I felt convinced he was the
same man.

"Good," Osborne answered in a tone of satisfaction. "Come, we will start
at once."

A strange feeling of repressed excitement obsessed me as our taxi passed
up Bond Street, turned into Oxford Street, then to the right into
Orchard Street, and sped thence by way of Baker Street past Lord's
cricket ground and up the Finchley Road. What would happen when we
reached Maresfield Gardens? Would the door be opened by a stolid footman
or by some frigid maidservant who would coldly inform us that "Mr.
Gastrell was not at home"; or should we be shown in, and, if we were
shown in, what excuse would Jack Osborne make for calling so late at
night? I cannot say that I felt in the least anxious, however, for
Osborne is a man who has knocked about the world and seen many queer
sides of life, and who never, under any circumstances, is at a loss
how to act.

I glanced at my watch as our taxi turned into Maresfield Gardens. It was
ten minutes past eleven. At the house indicated half-way up the hill the
taxi suddenly pulled up.

Osborne got out and pressed the electric bell-push. As I looked up at
the windows, I noticed that nowhere was any light visible. Nor was there
a light in the ground-floor windows.

"I believe everybody is in bed," I said to him, when the bell remained
unanswered. Without replying, he pressed the push again, and kept his
finger on it.

Still no one came.

"We'd better call to-morrow," I suggested, when he had rung a third time
with the same result.

The words had hardly left my lips, when we heard the door-chain rattle.
Then the bolts were pulled back, and a moment later the door was
carefully drawn open to the length of its chain.

Inside all was darkness, nor was anybody visible.

"What do you want?" a woman's voice inquired.

The voice had a most pleasant _timbre_; also the speaker was obviously a
lady. She did not sound in the least alarmed, but there was a note of
surprise in the tone.

"Has Mr. Gastrell come home yet?" Osborne asked.

"Not yet. Do you want to see him?"

"Yes. He dined at Brooks's Club this evening with Lord Easterton. Soon
after he had left, a purse was found, and, as nobody in the club claimed
it, I concluded that it must be his, so I have brought it back."

"That is really very good of you, Mr. Osborne," the hidden speaker
answered. "If you will wait a moment I will let you in. Are you alone?"

"No, I have a friend with me. But who are you? How do you know my name?"

There was no answer. The door was shut quietly. Then we heard the sound
of the chain being removed.

By the time Jack Osborne had paid our driver, and dismissed the taxi,
the door had been opened sufficiently wide to admit us. We entered, and
at once the door was shut.

We were now in inky blackness.

"Won't you switch on the light?" Osborne asked, when a minute or so had
elapsed, and we remained in total darkness.

Nobody answered, and we waited, wondering. Fully another minute passed,
and still we stood there.

I felt Osborne touch me. Then, coming close to me, he whispered in my
ear:

"Strike a match, Mike; I haven't one."

I felt in my pockets. I had not one either. I was about to tell him so
when something clicked behind us, and the hall was flooded with light.

Never before had I beheld, and I doubt if I shall ever behold again, a
woman as lovely as the tall, graceful being upon whom our eyes rested at
that instant. In height quite five foot nine, as she stood there beneath
the glow of the electrolier in the luxurious hall, in her dinner dress,
the snowy slope of the shoulders and the deep, curved breast, strong,
yet all so softly, delicately rounded, gleamed like rosy alabaster in
the reflection from the red-shaded light above her.

Our eyes wandered from exquisite figure to exquisite face--and there was
no sense of disappointment. For the face was as nearly perfect as a
woman's may be upon this earth of imperfections. The uplift of the brow,
the curve of the cheek to the rounded chin, the noble sweep of delicate,
dark eyebrows were extraordinarily beautiful. Her hair was "a net for
the sunlight," its colour that of a new chestnut in the spring when the
sun shines hotly upon it, making it glow and shimmer and glisten with
red and yellow and deepest browns. Now it was drawn about her head in
shining twists, and across the front and rather low down on the brow was
a slim and delicate wreath of roses and foliage in very small diamonds
beautifully set in platinum. The gleam of the diamonds against the
red-brown of the wonderful hair was an effect impossible to
describe--yet one felt that the hair would have been the same miracle
without it.

"Mrs. Gastrell! Why, I didn't recognize your voice," I had heard Osborne
exclaim in a tone of amazement just after the light had been turned on.
but my attention had been so centred upon the Vision standing there
before us that I had hardly noticed the remark, or the emphasis with
which it was uttered. I suppose half a minute must have passed before
anybody spoke again, and then it was the woman who broke the silence.

"Will you show me the purse?" she asked, holding out her hand for it and
addressing Osborne.

On the instant he produced his own and gave it to her. She glanced at
it, then handed it back.

"It is not his," she said quietly. Her gaze rested steadily upon
Osborne's face for some moments, then she said:

"How exceedingly kind of you to come all this way, and in the middle of
the night, just to find out if a purse picked up at your club happens to
belong to the guest of a friend of yours."

In her low, soft voice there was a touch of irony, almost of mockery.
Looking at her now, I felt puzzled. Was she what she appeared to be, or
was this amazing beauty of hers a cloak, a weapon if you will, perhaps
the most dangerous weapon of a clever, scheming woman? Easterton had
told us that Gastrell was a bachelor. Gastrell had declared that he had
never before met either Jack Osborne or myself. Yet here at the address
that Gastrell had given to the taxi-driver was the very woman the man
calling himself Gastrell, with whom Osborne had returned from Africa,
had passed off as his wife.

"My husband isn't in at present," she said calmly, a moment later, "but
I expect him back at any minute. Won't you come in and wait for him?"

Before either of us could answer she had walked across the hall,
unlocked and opened a door, and switched on the light in the room.

Mechanically we followed her. As we entered, a strange, heavy perfume of
some subtle Eastern scent struck my nostrils--I had noticed it in the
hall, but in this room it was pungent, oppressive, even overpowering.
The apartment, I noticed, was luxuriously furnished. What chiefly
attracted my attention, however, were the pictures on the walls.
Beautifully executed, the subjects were, to say the least, peculiar. The
fire in the grate still burned brightly. Upon a table were two syphons
in silver stands, also decanters containing spirits, and several
tumblers. Some of the tumblers had been used. As I sank, some moments
later, into an easy chair, I felt that its leather-covered arms were
warm, as if someone had just vacated it.

And yet the door of this room had been locked. Also, when we had
arrived, no light had been visible in any of the windows of the house,
and the front door had been chained and bolted.

"Make yourselves quite at home," our beautiful hostess said, and, as she
spoke, she placed a box of cigars, newly opened, upon the table at my
elbow. "I am sorry," she added, "that I must leave you now."

There was a curious expression in her eyes as she smiled down at us, an
expression that later I came to know too well. Then, turning, she swept
gracefully out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I looked across at Osborne. For some moments neither of us spoke. The
mysterious house was still as death.

"Well, Jack," I said lightly, though somehow I felt uneasy, "what do you
make of it, old man?"

"It is just as I thought," he answered, taking a cigar out of the box
and beginning to trim it.

"How do you mean--'just as you thought'?" I asked, puzzled.

"Gastrell is an impostor, and--and that isn't his wife."

He did not speak again for some moments, being busily occupied in
lighting his long cigar. Presently he leaned back, then blew a great
cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.

Suddenly we heard a click, like the wooden lid of a box suddenly shut.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed suddenly, "what's that?"

"What's what?"

"Why! Look!" he gasped.

His gaze was set upon something in the shadow of a small table in a
corner of the room--something on the floor. In silence, now, we both
stood staring at it, for Osborne had risen suddenly. Slowly it moved. It
was gradually gliding along the floor, with a sound like paper being
pushed along a carpet. Whence it came, where it began and where it
ended, we could not see, for the shadow it was in was very deep. Nor was
its colour in the least discernible.

All we could make out was that some long, sinuous, apparently endless
Thing was passing along the room, close to the wall farthest from us,
coming from under the sofa and disappearing beneath the table.

All at once Osborne sprang towards me with an exclamation of alarm, and
I felt his grip tighten upon my arm.

"Good God!" he cried.

An instant later a broad, flat head slowly reared itself from beneath
the red table-cover which hung down almost to the floor, rose higher and
higher until the black, beady, merciless eyes were set upon mine, and in
that brief instant of supreme suspense my attention became riveted on
the strange, slate-grey mark between and just behind the reptile's cruel
eyes. Then, as its head suddenly shot back, Osborne dashed towards
the door.

Once, twice, three times he pulled frantically at the handle with all
his force.

"Good God! Berrington," he cried, his face blanched to the lips, "we're
locked in!"

Almost as he spoke, the serpent with head extended swept forward towards
us, along the floor.

I held my breath. Escape from its venomous fangs was impossible.

We had been trapped!

CHAPTER III

A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY

With a shriek of alarm I leapt to the further side of the table which
stood in the middle of the room, and at that moment hurried footsteps
became audible.

Our wild shouts for help had evidently been heard, for someone was
hurrying down the bare oak stairs into the hall.

"Hang this confounded lock--it catches!" we heard a voice exclaim as the
handle turned. Then an instant later the door was flung open, and
Gastrell stood before us.

"I am dreadfully sorry, you fellows," he said apologetically, "that you
should have been alarmed in this way, because I can assure you that my
tame cobra, 'Maharaja,' is quite harmless--look at him now," and we saw
that the horrid reptile had swung round the instant its master had
entered, and was sliding towards his feet. "He's a pet of mine--I
brought him home with me, and he follows me like a dog--no, you needn't
be in the least nervous," he added quickly, seeing that I instinctively
edged away as the reptile passed. "I'm awfully sorry to have kept you
waiting. I must apologize, too, for that confounded door--I myself got
locked in here the other day. My wife told you I was out, but I was not.
I came in by the side door, and she didn't know I was back, because I
went straight upstairs. If you'll wait a moment I'll take our friend
'Maharaja' out."

He left the room, and the snake slid rapidly along the floor after him,
almost, as he had said, like a dog following his steps.

"A nice cheerful pet to keep," I remarked, annoyed at my experience; but
at that moment the mysterious Gastrell bustled in alone.

"So sorry," he said, and, after thanking us for coming out so far to
ascertain if he had lost his purse, he pulled up a chair, seated himself
between us, lit a big cigar, and helped us to whiskey from a
silver tantalus.

"You had better add the soda yourselves," he said. "And now there is
something I want to say to you both. You must have been surprised at my
declaring so emphatically this evening that I had not met either of you
before--eh?"

"I can answer for myself," Osborne exclaimed quickly. "Are you going to
admit, after all, that you were on the _Masonic_?"

"Of course! Who else could it have been? Any more," he added, addressing
me, than it could have been someone other than me whom you met
in Geneva?"

"Then why did you deny it?" Osborne said rather irritably, looking hard
at him with an expression of disapproval and mistrust, while my eyes
wandered to that little gold medallion upon his chain.

"Because I had to,--that is, it was expedient that I should," was his
reply. "I have a reason for not wanting it to be generally known that I
am married,--least of all did I want Easterton, whose house I have just
leased, to know me to be a married man; indeed, I told him some weeks
ago that I was a bachelor--I had to, for reasons which I can't reveal
at present."

He stopped speaking, and we watched him narrowly.

"Still," I remarked, "I don't see how you could have been on board ship
in the middle of the ocean, and at the same time in London."

"I didn't say I was. I wasn't. I was in London a fortnight ago, and
spent some hours with Lord Easterton. On the same day I sailed for
Madeira, where I joined my wife on the homeward-bound _Masonic_. Think,
Mr. Osborne," he ended, his curious gaze set on my companion's face,
"think when we first met on board. It was not before the ship reached
Madeira, surely."

Jack Osborne reflected.

"By Jove, no!" he suddenly exclaimed. "How odd I should all along have
thought you had embarked at Capetown with the rest of us. But Mrs.
Gastrell came from the Cape, surely?"

"She did, and the name 'Mr. Gastrell' was also in the passenger list,
because a cousin of mine should have been on board. At the eleventh hour
he was prevented from sailing, and it was upon receipt of a cable from
him that I decided to catch the next boat to the Canaries and there
meet my wife."

I admit that, as he paused, I felt rather "small"; and I believe Osborne
felt the same. We had driven from the club right out here to Swiss
Cottage, and on the way we had conjured up in our imaginations all sorts
of mysterious happenings, even possible intrigues; and now the whole
affair proved to have been "quite ordinary," with a few commonplace
incidents to relieve its monotony--notably the incident of the
giant cobra.

True, there was the mystery of the locked door. But then, had it really
been locked? I had not myself tried to open it, and now as I thought
about it, it seemed to me quite possible that Jack Osborne might, in the
excitement of the moment, have failed to turn the handle sufficiently,
and so have believed that the door was locked when it was not. Again we
had Gastrell's assurance that he had found himself locked in one day. As
for his declaration to Easterton that he was not the Gastrell whom
Osborne had met on the _Masonic_, it was clear now that he had some
secret reason for wishing to pass in London as a bachelor, and as
Osborne had told Easterton that the Gastrell on the _Masonic_ had told
him that he had met me in Geneva, naturally Gastrell had been driven--in
order to conceal his identity--to maintain that he had never before met
me either.

Our host insisted upon our taking another of his very excellent cigars
before we left,--it was close upon one o'clock when we rose to go. He
rang up a taxi for us, helped us on with our coats, accompanied us to
the door, and shook hands with each of us most cordially.

"What do you make of it, Michael?" Osborne asked, when we had remained
silent in the swift-travelling taxi for five minutes or more, and were
approaching Marlboro' Road Station."

"Nothing," I answered bluntly. "I don't know what to make of it."

"Suspect anything?"

"Yes--and no."

"That's just how I feel, and yet--"

"Well?"

"I mistrust him. I don't know why, but I do. I mistrust them both.
There's something queer happening in that house. I am certain there is."

"You can't be certain, as you don't know."

"My suspicions are so strong that they amount to convictions."

"So I think, too. And those dirty tumblers on the tray, and the hot
arm-chair I sat down in--Jack, I believe there were a lot of people in
that house, hidden away somewhere, all the time we were there. I believe
Gastrell admitted his identity only because he was obliged to. Our
calling like that, so unexpectedly, and being admitted by his wife--if
she is his wife--disconcerted him and took him unawares. I can't think
why she admitted us--especially I can't think why she kept us so long in
the dark in the hall before she switched on the light. By Jove! What a
stunning woman!"

"She is--but crafty. I thought that when I met her on board ship. And
those eyes of hers. Phew! They seem to read right into one's soul, and
discover one's secret thoughts." He stopped for an instant, then added,
meditatively, "I wonder what makes Gastrell keep that horrible cobra
as a pet."

I yawned, and we relapsed into silence. Then gradually my thoughts
drifted--drifted away from London, far from crowds and hustle, the
rumble of motor 'buses and the hootings and squawkings of ears, to a
peaceful, rural solitude.

I was in Berkshire. Down in the picturesque valley into which I gazed
from the summit of a wooded slope stood a Manor house, ivy-grown, old,
very beautiful Facing it an enormous plateau, hewn out of the Down, had
been converted to various uses--there were gardens, shrubberies, tennis
lawns. Lower came terrace after terrace of smoothly mown grass, each
with its little path and borders of shrubs, interspersed with the finest
Wellingtonias in the county, tapering gracefully to heaven,
copper-beeches and grand oaks.

The house itself was very long and low, its frontage white, mellowed
with age, and broken up by old-fashioned, latticed windows which gleamed
blue and grey in the translucent, frosted air. The roof of the Manor
boasted a mass of beautiful red-brown gables, many half hidden from
sight by the wealth of ivy; last summer also by a veritable tangle of
Virginia creeper and crimson rambler, now sleeping their winter sleep.

My thoughts wandered on. They travelled with extraordinary rapidity, as
thought does, picture after picture rising into the vision of my
imagination like the scenes in a kaleidoscopic cinema.

Now I was seated in the old Manor. I could see the room distinctly. It
was a small boudoir or ante-room opening into the large drawing-room--a
cosy, homely place, its low, latticed windows, divided into four,
opening outwards on to garden and terraces, its broad, inviting
window-seat comfortably cushioned. Nearly all the furniture was quite
old, dark oak, elaborately carved--writing-table, high-backed chairs, an
old French "armoury" in the corner; but near the hearth there were two
or three deep, modern armchairs of peculiarly restful character, covered
with exquisite flowered chintzes.

This vision deepened. I started. The door of the quiet room had suddenly
opened, and, humming a gay little French air, a young girl had
entered--fresh, exquisite, like a breath of early Springtime itself in
the midst of Winter. With her deep eyes, so soft and brown, her skin of
a healthy olive pallor, the cheeks just flushed with crimson, and her
nimbus of light brown hair through which the golden threads strayed so
charmingly, she made a perfect picture standing there in her long gown
of sapphire-blue velvet.

The soft contours of her young face were outlined against a tall screen
embroidered gorgeously with silken peacocks, before which she stopped to
lay down upon a small table the sheaf of red and brown and golden
chrysanthemums which she carried in her arms.

My pulses throbbed as they always did in her presence, or when, indeed,
she so much as crossed my daydreams, as at this moment. For this girl
was Dulcie Challoner--the woman who was fast becoming the one woman in
the world to me, and thus had I seen her enter that very room when last
I had spent a week-end at Holt Manor, four miles from the little village
of Holt Stacey--and that happened to have been only three weeks from the
present moment.

The taxi stopped abruptly, shattering my dreams. We had reached the
club. Some letters were awaiting me. My spirits rose as I recognized the
handwriting on one of them.

Dulcie wrote to say that her father hoped, if I were not "already
booked," I would spend Christmas with them.

I was "already booked." I had accepted an invitation a month before to
dine on Christmas Day with an hysterical aunt from whom I had
expectations. Well, the expectations must take their chance. Then and
there I sat down and wrote a long letter to Dulcie saying what joy the
contents of her letter had given me, and a brief line to my aunt
explaining that "unavoidable circumstances had arisen" which
necessitated my cancelling my promise to come to her, much as I
regretted doing so.

Snow was falling slowly and persistently, as it had done all the
afternoon, when, about ten days later, I arrived at the little station
of Holt Stacey, the nearest to Holt Manor. The motor brougham awaited
my rather late train, and I was quickly installed among the fur rugs in
its cosy interior and being whirled along the silent whiteness of the
narrow lanes between the station and my destination. The weather was
very cold, and I saw through the windows of the car that every branch
and twig had its thick covering of pure white snow, while the thatched
roofs of the tiny cottages we passed were heavily laden. By four o'clock
in the afternoon most of the cottage windows were lit up, and the glow
of the oil lamps shining through tiny panes on to the gleaming carpet of
snow without, produced a most picturesque effect.

Now we were purring up the hilly drive; then rounding the sweep to the
hall door. The man did not have to ring. Before he could get off the box
I heard heavy footsteps leaping down the stairs three at a time and
flying across the hall. The door was flung open, and a wild war-whoop
from Dick announced my arrival to whoever cared to know of it.

"Good old sport!" shouted Dick, snatching the travelling-rug from my
arm, after telling the footman behind him to "take Mr. Berrington's
things to the green room in the west wing," and almost pushing me into
the hall. "Good old sport! You're awfully late. We've all done tea."

I told him we had been quite half an hour after the scheduled time in
starting from Paddington, and that the crowds had been enormous.

"Just what I told Dulcie," he exclaimed. "You don't want to see her, I
suppose? What a beastly long time it seems since you were here! Three
weeks, isn't it, since I was home, ill?"

In vain I endeavoured to quiet Dick's ringing voice as a girlish, lithe
figure appeared between the curtains which divided the stairs from the
hall, a figure clad in soft rosy silk with a little lacy tea-jacket over
it, and with golden-brown hair waving naturally about a broad, white
forehead, with starry brown eyes full of welcome. Taking my hand in hers
quietly for an instant, Dulcie asked me what sort of journey I had had,
and presently led me across the hall to the drawing-room.

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