Mrs. Fitz Part 9

Fitz's exclamation and his tragic face banished the smile that lurked at the corners of Coverdale's lips.

I deemed it best that Fitz should re-tell the story of his tragedy, and this he did. In the course of his narrative the sweat ran down his face, his hands twitched painfully, and his bloodshot eyes grew so wild that neither Coverdale nor I cared to look at them.

Coverdale sat mute and grave at the conclusion of Fitz's remarkable story. He had swung round in his revolving chair to face us. His legs were crossed and the tips of his fingers were placed together, after the fas.h.i.+on that another celebrity in a branch of his calling is said to affect.

"It's a queer story of yours, Fitzwaren," he said at last. "But the world is full of 'em--what?"

"Help me," said Fitz, piteously. His voice was that of a drowning man.

"I think we shall be able to do that," said Coverdale. He spoke in the soothing tones of a skilful surgeon.

"The first thing to know," said the Chief Constable, "is the number of the car."

"G.Y. 70942 is the number."

Coverdale jotted it down pensively upon his blotting-pad.

"Have you a portrait of Mrs. Fitzwaren?" he asked.

"I have this," said Fitz.

In the most natural manner he flung open his overcoat, pulled away his evening tie, tore open his collar, and produced from under the rumpled s.h.i.+rt front a locket suspended by a fine gold chain round his neck. It contained a miniature of the Princess, executed in Paris. Both Coverdale and I examined it curiously, but as we did so I fear our minds had a single thought. It was that Fitz was a little mad.

"Will you entrust it to me?" said Coverdale.

Fitz's indecision was pathetic.

"It's the only one I've got," he mumbled. "I don't suppose I shall ever be able to get another. I ought to have had a replica while I had the chance."

"I undertake to return it within three days," said Coverdale, with a simple kindliness for which I honoured him.

Fitz handed the locket to him impulsively,

"Of course take it, by all means," he said, hurriedly. "I know you will take care of it. Fact is, you know, I'm a bit knocked over."

"Naturally, my dear fellow," said Coverdale. "So should we all be.

But I shall go up to town this afternoon and have a talk with them at Scotland Yard.

"I was afraid that would have to happen. I wanted it to be kept an absolute secret, you know."

"You can depend upon the Yard to be the soul of discretion. It is not the first time they have been entrusted with the internal affairs of a reigning family. If the Princess is still in this country and she is still alive, and there is no reason to think otherwise, I believe we shall not have to wait long for news of her."

Coverdale spoke in a tone of calm rea.s.surance, which at least was eloquent of his tact and his knowledge of men. Overwrought as Fitz was, it was not without its effect upon him.

"Ought not the ports to be watched?" he said.

"I hardly think it will be necessary. But if Scotland Yard thinks otherwise, they will be watched of course. Whatever happens, Fitzwaren, you can be quite sure that nothing will be left undone in our endeavour to find out what has really happened to the lady we shall agree to call Mrs. Fitzwaren. Further, you can depend upon it that absolute discretion will be used."

We left Coverdale, imbued with a sense of grat.i.tude for his cordial optimism, and I think we both felt that a peculiarly delicate business could not be in more competent hands. He was a man of sound judgment and infinite discretion. Throughout this singular interview he had emerged as a shrewd, tactful and eminently kind-hearted fellow.

As a result of this visit to the sessions hall at Middleham, poor Fitz allowed himself a little hope. He had been duly impressed by the man of affairs who had taken the case in hand. However, he was still by no means himself. He was still in a strangely excited and gloomy condition; and this was aggravated by his friendlessness and the feeling that the hand of every man was against him.

In the circ.u.mstances, I felt obliged to yield to his expressed wish that I should accompany him to the Grange. As the crow flies it is less than four miles from my house.

The home of the Fitzwarens is a rambling, gloomy and dilapidated place enough. An air pervades it of having run to seed. Every Fitzwaren who has inhabited it within living memory has been a gambler and a _roue_ in one form or another. The Fitzwarens are by long odds the oldest family in our part of the world, and by odds equally long their record is the most unfortunate. Coming of a long line of ill-regulated lives, the heavy bills drawn by his forbears upon posterity seemed to have become payable in the person of the unhappy Fitz. Doubtless it was not right that one who in Mrs. Catesby's phrase was a married man, a father of a family, and a county member, should const.i.tute himself as the apologist of such a man as Fitz. But, in spite of his errors, I had never found it in my heart to act towards him as so many of his neighbours did not hesitate to do. The fact that he had f.a.gged for me at school and the knowledge that there was a lovable, a pathetic and even a heroic side to one to whom fate had been relentlessly cruel, made it impossible for me to regard him as wholly outside the pale.

I can never forget our arrival at the Grange on this piercing winter afternoon. My car belonged to that earlier phase of motoring when the traveller was more exposed to the British climate than modern science considers necessary. The snow, at the beck of a terrible north-easter, beat in our faces pitilessly. And when we came half frozen into the house, we were met on its threshold by a mite of four. She was the image of her mother, with the same skin of l.u.s.trous olive, the same ma.s.s of raven hair, and the same challenging black eyes. In her hand was a mutilated doll. It was carried upside down and it had been decapitated.

"I want my mama," she said with an air of authority which was ludicrously like that of the circus rider from Vienna. "Have you brought my mama?"

"No, my pearl of price," said Fitz, swinging the mite up to his snow-covered face, "but she will be here soon. She has sent you this."

He kissed the small elf, who had all the disdain of a princess and the witchery of a fairy.

"Who is dis?" said she, pointing at me with her doll.

"Dis, my jewel of the east, is our kind friend Mr. Arbuthnot. If you are very nice to him he will stay to tea."

"Do you like my mama, Mistah 'Buthnot?" said the latest scion of Europe's oldest dynasty, with a directness which was disconcerting from a person of four.

"Very much indeed," said I, warmly.

"You can stay to tea, Mistah 'Buthnot. I like you vewy much."

The prompt cordiality of the verdict was certainly pleasant to a humble unit of a monarchical country. The creature extended her tiny paw with a gesture so superb that there was only one thing left for a courtier to do. That was to kiss it.

The owner of the paw seemed to be much gratified by this discreet action.

"I like you vewy much, Mistah 'Buthnot; I will tell you my name."

"Oh, do, please!"

"My name is Marie Sophie Louise Waren Fitzwaren."

"Phoebus, _what_ a name!"

"And dis, Mistah 'Buthnot, is my guv'ness, Miss Green. She is a tarn fool."

The lady thus designated had come unexpectedly upon the scene. An estimable and bespectacled gentlewoman of uncompromising mien, she gazed down upon her charge with the gravest austerity.

"Marie Louise, if I hear that phrase again you will go to bed."

As Miss Green spoke, however, she gazed at me over her spectacles in a humorously reflective fas.h.i.+on.

Marie Louise shrugged her small shoulders disdainfully, and in a tone that, to say the least, was peremptory, ordered the butler, who looked venerable enough to be her great-grandfather, to bring the tea. The _conge_ that the venerable servitor performed upon receiving this order rendered it clear that upon a day he had been a confidential retainer in the royal house of Illyria.

"I am afraid, Miss Green," said I, tentatively, "that your post is no sinecure."