Читать книгу The Glenlitten Murder - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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The silence of the room, the state bedchamber of the chatelaine of Glenlitten, seemed indeed to be a part of its exceeding charm, unportentous of the gathering storm. Yet there was about it, an hour or so later, a suggestion of recent haste: a tangle of exquisite silks and lingerie lay in disorder upon a deep armchair, with one daintily shaped silk stocking hanging over the arm. Upon the dressing table were scattered a variety of jewels—a diamond necklace whose gems sparkled brilliantly even in the dim rose-tinted illumination of the shaded light which stood by the bedside, a medley of rings with great lustrous stones, lying here and there as though they had been torn from the fingers with the same passionate haste as the little filmy wilderness of zephyrlike clothing from the body. The single bed, with its gilt posts and Cupids, lay cool and empty, the pink sheets turned down, the lace-edged pillow invitingly soft and luxurious. Even the Watteau shepherdesses upon the silk-panelled walls seemed to have paused in their gambollings to wonder at the silence. The curtains from one of the latticed windows had been drawn back, and outside in the park the trees stood stiff and stark in the moonlight, as yet too faint and fitful to do more than give their outline. From somewhere far away came the distant mutterings of a passing storm. An angry peacock shrieked from the terrace; an owl in one of the belted spinneys indulged now and then in his melancholy call. The faint rhythm of dance music stole up the great stairs from the hall below, with occasionally the shuffling of moving feet, a trill of laughter, the clapping of hands, and from down the long stretch of corridor came the sounds of muffled movements as the maids and valets passed in and out of the rooms they were preparing for the night. All this background of outside sounds seemed somehow to intensify the breathless stillness of this empty chamber. There was something delicately Oriental about its deserted charm, as though the fairy princess of some fairy monarch had passed through in haste to her lord's apartments. Another rumble of distant thunder, now almost negligible, a livelier tune from below, a queer little padding sound in the gardens. Then the sanctified silence of the room itself was broken. Very slowly the inner door near the window was pushed open. Félice stole softly in, and with the same noiselessness closed the door behind her. She was clad in a peignoir of pale silk trimmed with fur, and for the mistress of a great house, the bearer of a great name, she seemed very small, even pathetic: her luminous eyes were dilated, as though in the throes of some terrible fear, yet still, like lamps of fire. Inside the room she paused and stood shivering with fright, looking tremulously around. Its silence, however, and the sound of the music from downstairs brought her a shade of reassurance. She moved uncertainly towards the bedside, turned down the sheets a little lower, and, without removing her peignoir, slipped between them. The music, with its message of reassurance, grew louder. She closed her eyes after one more half-terrified glance around. Her breathing became more regular. Her small white hand stole out and touched the switch of the lamp by her bedside. She seemed to breathe in the darkness joyfully.

Perhaps she dozed—she was never sure. Suddenly, however, she opened her eyes with a strange sensation of terror. A breath of air had stolen into the room, a hand, barely visible, moved the fastening, and the window stood wide open. The hand lingered upon the shelf. She stared at it fascinated. Her own fingers, which had crept out towards the switch, paused as though paralysed. She heard the sound of her name called breathlessly from behind the inner door which led to her bathroom.

"Lady Glenlitten!"

She was powerless to reply. There seemed to be some vague movement of that cumbrous form which obscured the night, and suddenly through the window she looked into a pair of eyes. She heard the chink of jewels. Some one was bending over her dressing table. The door of her sitting room was swung open. The white shirt front of a man gleamed in the darkness. She made one more effort. This time her fingers reached the switch, but they pressed it in vain. A sudden darkness seemed to have fallen upon the whole world. The reflection of the lights from other parts of the house was suddenly dimmed.

Against the background of exclamations from the corridors and halls below came other and more terrible sounds close at hand—a flash of yellow fire across the room, a sharp report, a groan, and the sound of a heavy fall. That was all the little Marchioness knew of what took place in those few seconds, for when they found her she was lying across the bed unconscious.

Throughout the great house, after the first shock of surprise at this sudden blanket of darkness, there was a certain amount of half-amused commotion. Servants came hurrying from their quarters with lamps and candles of every description. Upstairs there were the mingled sounds of scuffling, laughter, and subdued chaff, and in course of time little tongues of light appeared upon the landings and in most of the rooms. The library where Andrew Glenlitten had been playing bridge, with his sister, Major Fraser and Grindells, was perhaps the best served for illumination, owing to its considerable collection of inherited Georgian candlesticks, but Glenlitten excused himself temporarily from continuing the game. He summoned Sir Richard, who was reading the Times before the fire.

"Come and take my place, Dick," he begged. "I must go and see if Félice is scared to death."

Sir Richard folded up the Times, rose to his feet, and strolled across the room. Glenlitten, pausing to exchange a few remarks with the younger crowd who had recommenced dancing, mounted the great stairs, carrying a candle in his hand. On the first corridor he met a perturbed lady's maid.

"Have you been in to see her ladyship, Annette?" he enquired.

The woman answered him in rapid French.

"Milord, I cannot enter. The door is locked."

"Ridiculous!" he answered brusquely. "It has never been locked since we have been here."

He passed swiftly on into his own apartments and turned the handle of the connecting door between his dressing room and his wife's bedroom. To his surprise, he found that the maid was right; it was certainly locked. He knocked on the panels, softly at first, and then louder. There was no reply. "Félice!" he called out. "Félice!"

"Milady!" Annette cried, shaking the handle of the other door.

Still no reply. Glenlitten, by this time genuinely alarmed, hastened down the corridor, made his way along a short passage, and tried the handle of another door. To his relief it opened. He passed into a large and very beautiful bathroom, now in darkness, but still faintly impregnated with the odours and perfumes of feminine use—the odours of bath salts, flower-distilled waters, and scented soaps. He hurried through the adjoining sitting room, and, scarcely pausing to knock at the inner door, turned the handle with a prayer in his heart. Holding the candle high above his head, he entered his wife's apartment. A step across the threshold, and the heavy candlestick nearly slipped from his shaking fingers. He stopped with a little gasp—a strong man sick with shock. Lying only a few feet away, with an ominous patch of red staining his white shirt, lay the man whom since the threatened storm every one had been missing—the Comte de Besset, the famous French polo player, golfer and reputed millionaire. And across the bed, as white and still as death itself, Félice!