Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (12 page)

Sensing her uneasiness,
when the vodka arrived De Richleau made her join him in drinking it down
straight, Russian fashion. She coughed, spluttered, and the tears came into her
blue eyes; but he pulled a face of such pretended contrition that she could not
help laughing, and the warm spirit coursing through her veins soon dispelled
her self-consciousness, which was just what he had intended.

He had summed her up very
swiftly—as pretty off the stage as on it: about twenty-three: full of healthy
vigorous life: a pleasant voice which no longer betrayed her lower middle-class
origin, although her turns of phrase and mannerisms did so. Beneath her mass of
puffed-out fair hair her brain was conspicuous by its absence. She had, no
doubt, learned in a hard school how to look after herself; but to a man who had
money and experience she would surrender easily enough, and probably quite
willingly. She would, therefore, provide quite a pleasant evening for anyone
who did not require intellectual entertainment.

As the meal progressed he
led her on to talk about herself, and listened with sympathetic understanding
to the story of her struggles. Now and then she remembered to gild the lily by
inferring that she was well-connected and worked only because her family had
fallen on evil times. But in the main hers was the truthful account of a good-looking
girl who could sing and dance a little, and, rather than spend her best years
behind the counter of a shop, had defied poor but honest parents in order to
earn a precarious living on the stage.

She told him of bad times
in the provinces, when shows had packed up unexpectedly, leaving her to get
back to London the best way she could: of having to submit, up to a point, to
the unwelcome attentions of provincial managers and the wealthy patrons that
they often brought round to the green-room after the shows: of the tyrannous
ill-temper of leading ladies, and the jealous squabbles that took place among
the girls. But, in the main, she was gay and optimistic. For just over a year
she had been playing in London, and, although she never expected to rise above
the chorus, that gave a girl a living wage and opportunities. The management
insisted on its girls being well-dressed, so now and again she had to let
herself be kissed by some ‘old buffer’ as the price of a new frock. But being
at the Gaiety gave her a chance to meet ‘real gentlemen’, and maybe she would
marry one, or even into the peerage, as several of her friends had done.

She would not have
confessed as much had she had any illusions that the Duke bore the least
resemblance to the type of vapid youth who, still half tight, had led some of
her friends to the altar at St. George’s, Hanover Square. But, all the same,
with her fair head cocked a little on one side, she gave him her most
encouraging smile.

For a while they talked
of the London shows, leading actors and actresses, and the whispered scandals
connected with their names. Now that she was well under way, De Richleau let
her do most of the talking while he enjoyed his supper and gave only half an
ear to her inconsequent chatter. From time to time he paid her some small
compliment or gave her an admiring glance, as her presence contributed almost
as much to his sense of well-being as did the excellent champagne. He had
always felt that if he could not, while eating, discuss the subjects that
interested him, the next best thing was to have a beautiful woman to look at.
And Lottie at least fulfilled his requirements in that respect. Health and
vitality radiated from her well-made person: her blue eyes were large, her
golden hair apparently untinted, her features, if a little full, not yet even
faintly blurred by the least sign of advancing age.

For her part, Lottie was
enjoying herself immensely. Her pleasure was increased in no small measure by
the fact that three other girls from the Gaiety were also supping in the
restaurant. How she would be able to crow over them to-morrow, when they asked
her who her new friend was, and she could reply with a little lift of her chin,
“Oh, a Frenchman that I’ve known for some time. De Richleau is his name. He’s a
Duke, you know, and has huge estates in France. He’s a distant relation of my
mother’s, and wants us to visit him at his castle later on this summer.”

By the time they tackled
the hot, fluffy
soufflé,
with
its solid block of ice cream inside, she had definitely decided that, marriage
being out of the question, when he asked her for a private rendezvous she would
not pretend any silly scruples, but let herself go for once—even if it did mean
another row with ‘ma’ about coming home with the milk in the morning.

But De Richleau had other
views. He was much too blas
é
to
be disappointed, because he had often done this sort of thing before when
finding himself alone and bored in a great city. There had been occasions when
he had had the luck to pick a winner—some girl of character and temperament who
had gone on the stage because she was determined to become a star; or a gay
little guttersnipe who made no pretences, but had the wit, the warmth, and the
magnetism of a Nell Gwyn. Lottie de Vaux had nothing to offer but her lovely
healthy body. In the first fine careless rapture of his exuberant youth that
would have been enough, but now he required of a woman something more than good
looks to satisfy his epicurean tastes.

When coffee was served to
them by a negro in Turkish costume, in tiny porcelain bowls supported on stands
of silver filigree, the Duke turned the conversation to Command Performances,
then to the Royal Family, and took occasion to infer that the Prince of Wales’s
second title was Duke of York. She promptly declared that he was wrong, and
that it was Duke of Cornwall. He offered to bet her a fiver to a shilling that
he was right; but a reference to the smiling
maître d’hôtel
quickly proved him wrong. Having
pretended momentary annoyance at losing the wager, he smilingly produced a
crisp banknote from his wallet and handed it across. It was his tactful way of
ensuring that Miss de Vaux would be able to console herself by buying a new
frock for the fact that her evening had led to no proposal for a further
meeting.

A quarter of an hour
later he escorted her upstairs and out into the street, where a taxi he had
ordered was waiting. He had already obtained her address, and as soon as she
was inside gave it to the driver. Leaning forward, he took and kissed her hand
for the second time that night, then murmured blandly:

“I do hope you will
forgive me, but the night air is bad for my bronchitis, so I must deny myself
the pleasure of seeing you home. The driver is paid and tipped. I have greatly
enjoyed this evening, and I hope that we shall renew our acquaintance when I am
next in London.”

Poor Emily Stiggins had
drunk her share of the champagne and had a double
cr
è
me
de menthe
on top of it, so her vision of the Duke as he closed
the door of the cab was slightly blurred and her reactions slow. By the time
the blissful smile had faded from her pretty face, to give way to an expression
of petulant annoyance, the taxi was bowling along the now almost empty Strand
on its way to Clapham. She never saw the Duke again, but it is pleasant to be
able to record that three years later she married an ironmonger in a good way
of business and made him an excellent wife.

As for De Richleau,
before the taxi was even out of sight she had passed from his mind as
completely as the quail he had eaten at supper. At the moment he had many more
important things to think of, and the principal of them was that he believed he
was being shadowed.

Just as he handed Lottie
into the cab, out of the corner of his eye, he had noticed a tall, thin,
shabby-looking man, wearing a pork-pie hat, who was standing half-concealed in
a shop entrance a few yards along the street from the restaurant. De Richleau
was prepared to swear that the same figure had been lurking near the stage-door
of the Gaiety when he picked up Lottie; and after he had walked a little way
towards Trafalgar Square, a casual glance over his shoulder verified his
impression. The man had left cover and was following him.

The thought that
instantly jumped to the Duke’s mind was that the charming Miss de Vaux might be
married, and the man a private detective who was endeavouring to secure
evidence for divorce against her. The good wine he had drunk, and Lottie’s
vivacious company, had put him in a merry mood: moreover he felt that he owed
her something over and above the fiver for the disappointment he had caused
her. So he promptly decided to give the unfortunate detective a lesson that
would make him chary about following her friends in future.

Ignoring the invitation
of a prowling growler, he continued on across Trafalgar Square, now walking a
little erratically, as though he had had too much to drink; his object being to
nullify the steady rhythmic ring of his footfalls on the pavement.

Turning up the Haymarket,
he entered Piccadilly Circus. There were still quite a number of ladies of the
town about, and several of them called invitations to him. Outside Appenrodts’
German restaurant he stopped, ostensibly to talk to two of them, but actually
because it gave him an opportunity to turn round quite naturally and see if he
was still being trailed. He was. The man in the pork-pie hat had also halted,
and was buying an early edition of the morning paper from a newspaper boy on
the corner.

Waving aside the
inducements offered by the two girls with a merry “Good-night!” the Duke
crossed the Circus to Swan and Edgar’s corner and, with several pauses, during
which he acted ineffectual attempts to light a cigarette, continued on his way
westward. As he passed Bond Street, seeing his apparent condition, another girl
was bold enough to come up beside him, take his arm, and plead in a husky
voice:

“Come home with me,
dearie. You’ll get what for from your wife if you go home to her like this. I’ve
got a nice place—honest I have: and it’s not far from here. Come back with me
and I’ll make you a nice cap a’ tea. That’ll sober you up.”

The Duke thanked her
politely, but persistently declined her offers and managed to shake her off by
the time he turned down Berkeley Street. Normally, he would have gone across
Berkeley Square, and up Mount Street to the curve of Carlos Place, on which the
Coburg Hotel was situated. Instead, he crossed the road when he reached Hay
Hill and stumbled down the steps into Lansdown Passage.

The passage was some feet
lower than the street; wide enough for only two people to walk abreast, and
enclosed by high walls on both sides. The north wall was the boundary of the
private garden that ran right up to the Duke of Devonshire’s mansion in
Piccadilly; the south wall bounded the slightly smaller garden of the Marquis
of Lansdown’s mansion overlooking Berkeley Square. At its far end the passage
opened on to the dead-end of Curzon Street, and could be used as a short cut
only by pedestrians either going in, or coming from, that direction. In
consequence it was secure from observation, both from the windows of nearby
houses and passing traffic. A bracket lamp cast a pool of light in its centre,
but its two ends were in deep shadows cast by the high walls, and at this hour
it was deserted.

On emerging into the
cul-de-sac at the lower end of Curzon Street, De Richleau took a step to the
right and flattened himself against the wall. After leaning his malacca cane up
against the projection of a pillar, so as to have both his hands free, he
remained absolutely motionless. He was reasonably confident that his shadow
would not become suspicious at the cessation of his footsteps, owing to his
erratic course and frequent halts in Piccadilly. His thin mouth now closed like
a trap, he waited to spring the ambush he had so skilfully prepared.

Footfalls were now
echoing hollowly from the long passage. It seemed quite a time before they grew
nearer. Then all at once they were close at hand. The thin man came hurrying
out of the narrow entrance, like a rabbit from a burrow; and, his eyes peering
straight ahead up the ill-lighted street, he would have passed the Duke without
realizing his presence.

Like a bolt from the
blue, De Richleau’s left hand shot out and caught him by the throat. As he
clutched at it he was swung round and forced against the wall. Next second, the
Duke had driven his right fist with all his force into the fellow’s stomach.

With a horrid choking
sound, the man’s head jerked forward; his knees lifted and his heels began to
beat an uneven tattoo on the pavement. He would have slumped to the ground and
lain retching there, had not the Duke’s grip on his throat been strong enough
to keep him propped against the wall.

After giving him a moment
to recover, De Richleau eased the pressure on his windpipe, and snarled, “Try
any tricks and I will tear you limb from limb. You were following me, weren’t
you? Why?”

“Nein!”
gasped the wretched man, spittle running down his chin.
“Nein!
I
follow no ones.”