A Runge in to the Unknown

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 284, 21 February 1928, Page 5

A Runge in to the Unknown

Author ot - A Wild Wager, “ Loved tor Herself - "The Errington I’earls Mystery.” " The Power of the Purse,” &c.. &c.

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Charles.D. .Leslie.

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS Chapters I. and ll.—Mrs. Tourmaline finds herself at the Ttitz. She is in great perplexity. She is anxious to secure a victory against her rival, Mrs. DicksonDickson, but cannot see how it is to be accomplished. She sees a very pretty girl, with golden hair and blue eyes, sitting at some distance from her. She goes over to her and begins to talk. She tells this girl that she is the duplicate of Lady Eva Doulton. The girl is Eva Wantage, an ex-governess. Mrs. Tourmaline informs her that the baroness, Lady Doulton, quarrelled with her husband more than a week ago, and has run away. Mrs. Tourmaline mightily desires the presence of Lady Doulton at some voting which is to take place that nigh't. She offers £SO to the exgoverness to personate Lady Doulton for the next 24 hours, and explains the objects of the society to which she and a few others belong. Lord Swayne is the president, and has the casting vote. Mrs. Tourmaline tells Eva Wantage all about the case as it presents itself to her, and persuades her by giving £lO on accqpnt. Eva tells Mrs. Tourmaline about her last situation, and consents to play the part of Lady Doulton. The good lady leaves, promising to send her maid, Bennett, to Eva. While waiting Eva sees a man, of whom she seems to be in deadly fear, approaching her. Fortunately she had left her seat and taken refuge behind some sheltering palms.

Chapters 111. and IV.—The superintendent comes forward and engages the attention of the man who had frightened Eva Wantage, and the latter returns to her table. Bennett turns up with Lady Dculton’s hat and cloak. She addresses Eva as “milady.” They drive to Mrs. Tourmaline’s house in Berkley Square. Eva Wantage is dressed and coached for the part. As there was a certain friendship between Lord Swayne and Lady Doulton, Mrs. Tourmaline decides that the present Eva must be kept away from him. Just as she is about to mention this to Eva a telephone ring comes. Mrs. Tourmaline answers this, and informs Eva that Lord Doulton has returned and is asking for news of his wife’s whereabouts. All goes well during the meeting at Mrs. Dickson-Dickson’s. Eva is not recognised, hnd votes with the rest. Mrs. Tourmaline’s side wins. Lord Swayne begins to talk to Eva, thinking her Lady Doulton. He asks her whether Jane Norman is the real woman or an imposter.

Chapters V. and Vl.—Eva Wantage parries Lord Swayne’s questions. They part, and Mr. Mailing joins her. She is afraid of him, and eventually calls Mrs. Tourmaline to her aid. While upstairs prior to departure, Eva comes across Mr. Arnold Berlyn, who had, months ago, made love to her while she

was a governess at his sester’s, Mrs. Aspland’s, house. He recognises her as Eva Wantage, and wants to know what’s the game. Eventually she tells him all about it, in confidence. She gives him her private address. Mr. Milling meets his hostess, Mrs. Dickson-Dickson, who has a bad headache, and tells her some news about Lady Doulton that astonishes her. They decide to bring Lord Doulton on the scene, and Mailing departs with a card of invitation in his pocket.

CHAPTER VII. —AT THE NEW SPORTS. There were few young men, though a number of young women, some exceedingly pretty, and all exceedingly well dressed. Presently she spied Mr. Berlyn; he sat beside a young lady whom she recognised for Laura Cowrie, a Hampstead girl his sister wanted him to marry. She had no fear of Miss Cowrie recognising her, they had scarcely met, and Lady Doulton’s frock and name in this case were almost as good a disguise as a mask. She could even have bluffed Aronld Berlyn successfully if her change of countenance had not given her away. Mr. Mailing, too, she noticed, standing near the door. The detestable Mr. Mailing! But even he was not to be feared any longer.

The diva ceased and there was loud applause. “Are we going now?” whispered Eva.

She wanted to get home without any contretemps; she was thinking of her reward.

“No —not yet. People will come up nd speak to us. But don’t be nervous, ’ll tell you who they are. The short nan approaching is Lord Ames. You mly know him slightly.” Mr. Mailing was indeed watching L«ady Doulton, he was too far off for ler to see the triumphant smirk on lis face. He lingered till the Scotch

comedian began to sing, the news he was singing drawing everybody into the concert-room, except Mr. Mailing, who strolled into the hall. And there he met his hostess.

Mrs. Dickson-Dickson looked tired, even haggard. Before her faithful satellite she was off guard, glancing at him half-bitterly, half-despairingly. He responded with a gesture.

“I’m feeling nearly dead,” she told him. “Find me a comfortable chair and a cup of coffee.” Giving her his arm he piloted her to a lounge in the ante-room, which they had to themselves, and strongly urged something more potent as a pick-me-up, but the lady preferred her own choice.

“We shall have to poison some of Madge’s crowd.” she said with bitter humour, sipping her coffee. “That will be quite unnecessary,” he told her, “you think you’ve lost. Suppose I told you we’ve won?” “Won —when Madge carried her candidates. And now she’s got two more votes. She’s got the club in her pocket. What are you smiling at?” “I’ll tell you directly. First I want to ask you a question about Lady Doulton.”

“What about her?” “Her manner to-night—didn’t it strike you as strange?”

“I’ve hardly noticed her. She seems the same as usual, except that she’s signalised her quarrel with her husband by improving her complexion. Doulton loathes women who paint.” “Let’s get him here to look at her. He’s in town. He can be found at the New Sports, I expect.” “Do you think she’s been up to something, that there's another man in the case?” “I don’t think, I know, that the sight of Lord Doulton will give her a terrific scare.” “Why?” “May I fetch him?” “No —certainly not; the Doultons* matrimonial squabbles don’t interest me in the least. Nothing interests me at this moment. I’ve a raging headache.” “I’m sorry. But I think I can interest you. The girl Mrs. Tourmaline has brought with her to-night is not Lady Doulton. but a counterfeit, a cheat, an imposter she has had the audacity to impose on us all as Eva Doulton.”

Lord Doulton was, as Mailing had surmised, at the New Sports, ensconced in a corner of the smoke room, a cigar in his mouth, a half empty glass before him, and the “Field” in his hands. He was alone, very much alone, having repulsed the advances of certain curious acquaintances. Friends he had who would have declined to be repulsed, but none of them happened to be in the club-room that night, and he was enjoying the luxury of solitude. He was in that species of bad temper when man insists on being alone, o.r rather left alone, a temper he had nursed ever since his wife had left him. He had gone down to Wiltshire to fish and forget his troubles, only to find to his disgust, that the sport as a cure was worthless. So he had returned to town, vaguely hoping lor news of Eva there, only to find that there was none. To marry for love and quarrel with

your wife within a year of matrimony is not, it is true, very remarkable, but it was a new experience for Francis Doulton. For the first time in his life he was the central figure in a tragedy, for it is nothing less to find the wife you’ve married suddenly criticising you, and developing opinions and petulances that disturb domestic felicity—the husband’s domestic felicity that is to say. And finally leaving you! That there was another side to the question he was subconsciously aware, but Eva had been very unreasonable, and he felt a deeply injured (and secretly worried about her wellbeing) man.

In appearance Lady Doulton’s husband was typical of his class. Lean and fine and thoroughbred he looked an aristocrat, but there was not much intelligence in his thin, haughty face. His cleverness indeed was confined to his polo> playing, a game which requires brains as well as nerves, but from this sport, owing to a strained right wrist, he was now debarred, and he found fishing a poor substitute. He was an honest, unimaginative, wellmeaning young man, whom the luck “of being born in the right bedroom,” as the Yorkshirewoman puts it in “Milestones,” had endowed with a rank and fortune which would never have been his had his father been an undistinguished commoner. A waiter approached, proffering a visiting card.

“Gentleman wants to see you, my lord.”

“Claud Mailing,” read Lord Doulton “don’t know him, what’s he like, Parker?”

“He’s in h’evening dress, my lord,” cautiously replied the servant. Francis flung the card into the fire. “Ask him his business,” he ordered, and resumed his study of “The Field."

Parker returned, this time bearing on the salver a sealed club envelope. Inside Mr. Mailing had placed another of his visiting cards, and pencilled across it, “Concerning Lady Doulton.” The husband jumped up so suddenly that the glass and the table before him were upset. He flung the card into the fire, frowning the while. There is in every Westerner a touch of the Oriental concerning wives. At certain times and seasons and to certain people wives are not mentioned. The subject is "taboo.” Francis tonight strongly objected to a man he did not know writing “concerning Lady Doulton” across a visiting card. Curse him, what had he to do with Lady Doulton? And obviously the only way to find out was to see the stranger. “Where is he?” he demanded. “In the lobby, your lordship.”

With quick strides Francis left the smoke-room, and found Mr. Mailing critically examining the Rowlandson prints that decorated the lobby.

“Will you come this way, Mr. Mailing?” he said, when the stranger had acknowledged his identity, and led him into the room adjoining, used fo.r the reception of visitors.

“What have you to communicate concerning my wife?” he demanded.

“That she is in town,” Mr. Mailing said.

In town? Lady Doulton?’ (To be Continued.)