THE CHINESE ROOM
When he reached the street Thomson discovered that he had left his right-hand glove in Mrs. Carling’s flat. Not worth returning for it, he decided, thrusting his hand into his overcoat pocket. He would go round as he had suggested some evening and renew his acquaintance with Maria Culpepper—little Maria, whose very existence he had forgotten for so many years. The glove would provide an excuse.
Strange, indeed, to meet her again in their old age, like a ghost of the past. As he walked slowly along Buckingham Gate he deliberately and more or less successfully tried to recall recollections of those youthful days in Paris, and found it quite an interesting experiment—as interesting as turning out some old cupboard full of forgotten relics and rubbish.
“Yes, she was a pretty little creature,” he concluded. “Cheerful as a bird, and a nice hand at cribbage she could play too—very nice. P’r’aps she can still. I wonder where we’d have been now if we hadn’t drifted apart? It was her fault though; for, now I come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I did write, and she never answered. Well, well.”
Still musing, he made his way back to Grosvenor Gardens. It was nominally his “evening out,” an institution Sir Robert had recently insisted on reviving. Thomson himself wanted no evening out—wanted nothing but to continue to tend the stricken master whom he served with such silent, dogged, and dog-like devotion. It was still early, only just after eight o’clock, and he meant to spend the remainder of this his leisure evening in his own room, within call if he should be needed.
As he neared the great house, so silent and dark in these days, with the shadow of tragedy still heavy upon it, he saw a motor car before the door, and quickened his pace, fearing that Sir Robert might have had a relapse and that this was the doctor’s car. He was reassured as he recognized the car as Lord Warrington’s Rolls-Royce, but at the same instant experienced a minor shock; for a tall, slender man, wearing a furred overcoat, approaching from the opposite direction, paused, looked up at the house, and then knocked and rang. That man was Boris Melikoff.
Earl Warrington and Melikoff both visiting Sir Robert together! What was in the wind now, he asked himself perplexedly, as, unobserved, he went down the area steps and let himself in at the basement door. Much-privileged servant that he was, he had for years possessed his own latchkey, and came and went as he chose, accountable to none but his master.
By the back staircase he made his way to the first floor and entered his own room—a fair sized, comfortable apartment at the end of the suite occupied by his master, and with a door that led direct into Sir Robert’s bedroom.
Before the fire, in the one easy chair, reading an evening paper, was a nice-looking fresh-complexioned young man, Perkins, the male nurse, who, with Thomson himself, took charge of the invalid.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon, Mr. Thomson,” he said, rising deferentially. “Sir Robert’s had his dinner all right, and there’s a gentleman with him now.”
“Yes—Lord Warrington,” said Thomson, removing his overcoat and hanging it in a cupboard.
“Really, sir? I didn’t know, of course. I gather that he came unexpected. But Sir Robert’s expecting another gentleman directly. I was going to have my supper sent up here as you were out, but now——”
“That’s all right, Perkins, you go and have it downstairs, it’s livelier for you,” said Thomson, kindly enough. “And don’t hurry yourself. I shall be at hand now if anything’s wanted. Tell them to send mine up as usual about half-past nine.”
Seating himself, he picked up the paper, and Perkins promptly retreated. The servants’ quarters were indeed by far the most cheerful in that grim house!
Thomson waited for two or three minutes, then rose, and with his usual noiseless tread passed through into Sir Robert’s bedroom, illuminated only by a cheerful fire, and stood, listening intently.
No sound could be heard from the further room—the “Chinese Drawing-room,” which did not communicate directly with this—where Sir Robert and his visitor were; and Thomson moved to the door, opened it very slightly and stood, again listening.
Soon he heard far off the tinkle of an electric bell, and rightly guessed it a summons to Jenkins, the butler, whose soft footsteps and pursy breathing thereupon sounded ascending the staircase. Then a murmur of voices from the Chinese Room: Lord Warrington’s cheery tones, “Well, good-bye, old man! I’m glad indeed to see you so well on the way to recovery. I’ll look in again soon if I may”; and retreating footsteps on the thick carpet.
Swiftly, Thomson emerged from his retreat, crossed the spacious landing, and entered a door to the left, closing it silently behind him. This room was in darkness, except for the faint greenish, ghostly light from a street lamp that penetrated the jade-green silk curtains, and the air was oppressive with the fragrance of flowers, roses, violets, narcissi.
It was Lady Rawson’s boudoir, kept, by Sir Robert’s orders, exactly as it had been in her lifetime, the flowers frequently renewed, books and magazines placed there daily, as if ready for their mistress. A strange, uncanny atmosphere pervaded the luxurious room. The servants dreaded it, the housemaids whose duty it was to tend it worked in pairs, and scurried away the moment their task was finished. The only exception was Thomson himself, who usually arranged the flowers and periodicals before wheeling his master in for his daily visit, remaining beside him in imperturbable, unobtrusive attendance.
Unerringly, stepping as lightly as a cat on the soft carpet, he made his way across to the opposite wall, where a dark patch showed against the whiteness, portières of jade-green velvet that masked folding doors leading into the Chinese Room. On the other side the doorway was concealed by magnificent curtains of black and gold embroidery in a dragon design, that had a very curious feature—one that Thomson had discovered by pure accident. The eyes of the dragons were pierced with large eyelet holes, invisible from even a short distance, but through which a perfect bird’s-eye view could be obtained of the room beyond.
The doors were closed but not latched, and it was the work of an instant cautiously to swing them open sufficiently to clear the two nearest peep-holes, just at a convenient level to Thomson’s eyes.
Sir Robert was lying on his wheeled couch before the fire, with his back towards the screened portal and the hidden watcher, who, however, could see his master’s face reflected in a great lacquered mirror on the opposite wall. A remarkable face, aged, drawn, but also refined by these long weeks of suffering and sorrow. Under the short, carefully trimmed white beard which had been allowed to grow during his illness his square jaw was firm and relentless, as his steel-grey eyes were keen as ever beneath their grey penthouse brows.
He turned his head slightly as the door opened and Jenkins announced
“Mr. Boris Melikoff.”
“It is very good of you to come, Mr. Melikoff,” Sir Robert said, with grave courtesy, extending his hand, over which the young man bowed respectfully. “I cannot rise to receive you. I am quite helpless as you see. Will you sit in that chair?”
Boris complied. The chair, as Thomson had already noted, was placed so that the lamplight would fall full on the face of the visitor, leaving that of his host in shadow, an invariable device of the old diplomatist at important interviews.
For a few seconds the old man and the young one looked at each other warily, like a couple of fencers preparing for a bout, then Rawson’s stern gaze softened.
“You are very like my dear wife,” he said quietly, “so like her that you might almost have been brother and sister rather than cousins.”
The Russian’s handsome, sensitive face relaxed responsively.
“Many people have said so, sir, who knew us both,” he replied.
“You wonder why I sent for you?”
“Yes, sir—naturally.”
“Naturally. And yet I myself scarcely know why I did so, except——”
He paused, and Boris waited. Not for long.
“Why didn’t you two trust me?”
Sir Robert’s deep voice quivered with poignant emotion, and, though he controlled his features, his eyes betrayed an agony of regret and reproach.
“I—I don’t know, sir,” stammered Boris. “I think—we—believed—feared that you were the enemy of our unhappy country; that—in your position——”
“I the enemy of Russia—of the real Russia? Paula could never have thought that.”
“She did indeed, sir,” said Boris earnestly. “Or perhaps it would be more truthful to say that she believed you set your duty to your Government above all personal sympathy.”
“She was right there,” Sir Robert rejoined sternly. “To a man in the position I once held duty must always come first, if he is to be worthy of that position. But if she had trusted me—as I never doubted she did till it was too late—if she had told me what was in her heart, in her mind, and that she was meeting—wishing to aid—her compatriots, her kinsfolk, how gladly, how greatly I could have helped her and them! But she told me nothing—not even of your existence. Yet surely she did not, she could not, have feared me?”
“Not personally, sir,” Boris answered slowly. “Paula was absolutely fearless; also she honoured and—yes, and loved you, though more as a daughter than——”
“Than as a wife. I know that. You are very honest, Mr. Melikoff! Well?”
“But I think—or rather I know—that she wanted to—to play her own hand herself in a way. To take all risks, and not to involve you——”
“Not involve me! Do you realize that by her action—her fatal action in taking those papers—she might have involved the whole of Europe in catastrophe?”
“I knew nothing of that, sir,” said Boris dejectedly.
“Quite so. I have satisfied myself on that point, through sources quite unknown to you; otherwise you would not be here now but in all probability would have been deported weeks ago, to meet whatever fate might be in store for you in your own country,” said Sir Robert grimly. “However, let that pass. Tell me this, Mr. Melikoff—I have a right to know: you loved each other, you two foolish and headstrong children?”
Boris met his searching gaze sadly but steadily.
“I loved her, Sir Robert; and I have loved her ever since we were little children together. But she never loved me. I do not think Paula ever loved any man—not in the sense most of us mean by the word.”
“Again I believe you, and not without evidence.” He drew towards him a carved sandalwood casket that stood on a small table beside him, opened it, and took out a thin packet of letters which Boris recognized as his own. “I have here a number of your letters to her. I have read them all. They are not ‘love letters,’ but I know from them that you loved her, without hope and without reward. Would you like to have them again? In some ways they are dangerous documents to be in any custody but your own.”
He passed the packet to Boris, who took it with a trembling hand.
“Sir Robert, you are too good—too generous! What can I say?”
“Say nothing. And if you will take my advice put them in the fire. It is the safest place for them.”
Simply as a child Boris obeyed on the instant, and in silence they watched the packet consumed to a little mass of black ashes.
“I have but one letter of hers, sir,” said Boris presently. “The last she ever wrote me, and therefore most precious. It is very brief. Would you—care to read it?”
He unfolded the letter—it was but a half-sheet—with a lingering, reverent touch, and held it towards Sir Robert.
“No, no, keep it, lad. It is yours and sacred,” the old man said after a moment’s hesitation. “As I have said, I believe you and trust you. That was the only one she wrote?”
“Oh, no, sir! There were several others. Mere formal notes like this, in Russian or sometimes in French. I ought to have destroyed them at once—she told me to; and they are lost, or they have been stolen from me.”
“Stolen!”
“I fear so, sir, though when or how I cannot say. I was ill, very ill, for a time after Paula’s—death. They were in an escritoire in my bedroom, and after I recovered I found they were gone.”
“Do you suspect anyone?”
Boris shook his head.
“Impossible to suspect the good friend with whom I live, or any of my visitors. I have wondered sometimes whether, in my delirium, I might not myself have destroyed them, on some subconscious impulse, remembering that she had told me to burn them. They could not possibly be of any value, or of any danger, to anyone. Except to myself, they were quite meaningless, and with nothing but the hand-writing itself to show by whom they were written.”
“Strange,” mused Sir Robert. “You are sure they were as harmless, as meaningless, as you say?”
“Quite sure. And may I say this, Sir Robert? I am certain that when Paula took those papers from your safe—as I fear there is no doubt she did—that it was the very first time she had done or attempted to do such a thing: that she yielded to a sudden and overwhelming temptation.”
“I wish I could believe that,” said Sir Robert with stern sadness.
“You may believe it, sir, for it is the truth. She would have told me of any such attempt, and I give you my word—believe it or not as you choose—that I should have attempted to dissuade her. I am a fighter—or I was one, when I could fight and could see my enemy—but I am no intriguer, nor was she really. She bewildered me often by her romantic schemes—they were so wild, so vague—but I humoured her in them, because I loved her, because it brought her nearer to me. It—oh, how can I put it?—it was like child’s play, though she herself was so much in earnest.”
“Child’s play!” echoed Sir Robert bitterly. “Child’s play that cost her life, and that will cost the life of the one whom, next to her, I cared for most in this world! I tell you, Melikoff——”
He broke off, and Boris looked at him in surprise and apprehension. But Sir Robert was not looking at him; he was staring into the big, lacquered mirror, and his face had become absolutely expressionless.
“One moment,” he said quietly, and touched a button of an electric bell-stand on the table beside him, without removing his gaze from the mirror.
“Can I do anything?” Boris began, and paused as Sir Robert lifted his hand warningly. He appeared to be listening intently.
In about a couple of minutes Thomson entered the room.
“Oh, it’s you, Thomson,” said Sir Robert quietly. “I thought you were out?”
“I returned some time ago, sir.”
“Where is Perkins?”
“Downstairs at supper, Sir Robert.”
“Oh! Will you put on the lights in Lady Rawson’s boudoir? Go through this way, please,” Sir Robert added as Thomson moved towards the door by which he had entered.
“Very good, sir,” he answered, and imperturbably drew back the dragon curtains, pushed back the partly opened doors, switched on the lights in the inner room, and returned for further orders.
“I should like you to see that room, Mr. Melikoff,” said Sir Robert. “It is my dear wife’s boudoir. Will you come with me? Wheel me in, Thomson.”
As Thomson obeyed, his master’s keen glance swept over the beautiful room.
“The outer door is open. Close and lock it and give me the key,” he commanded, and, when Thomson had complied, added, “thank you. That will do for the present. I will ring when I need you again.”
Thomson retreated through the Chinese Room, went to the bedroom and mechanically tended the fire, then to his own room, where he sat down and waited.
It was half an hour or more before he was again summoned, and then he found Sir Robert alone. The dragon curtains were still pulled apart, but the folding doors of the boudoir were closed and locked.
Master and man looked steadily at each other for a good half-minute, then Sir Robert said:
“For how long have you been in the habit of spying on me, Thomson?”
“I have never done such a thing before, sir.”
“Humph! I wonder if that is true? It is something at least that you do not attempt to deny that you were spying on me to-night. Why did you do it?”
“Need you ask that, Sir Robert? It was by chance that I discovered that Russian gentleman was coming to see you. I thought it a very dangerous thing for you to see him alone.”
“When I pay you to ‘think’ I’ll tell you so,” Sir Robert replied icily. “I am still able to think for myself, Thomson.”
A quiver of emotion passed over Thomson’s usually passive face.
“I’m sorry, Sir Robert; it was an error of judgment on my part. It shall not occur again. I—I have served you faithfully these many years.”
“I never said you hadn’t. But remember in future, please, that excess of zeal is sometimes more dangerous than a deficiency of that otherwise excellent commodity. And now you had better call Perkins to help you put me to bed.”
“Very good, sir,” said Thomson.