The Lady in the Car

“Then your Highness is travelling for pleasure?” she inquired.

I smiled vaguely, for I did not satisfy her. She struck me as being a particularly inquisitive old busybody.

When next morning Mademoiselle Elise informed me that her aunt was suffering from a headache, I invited her to go for a stroll with me out of the town, to which she at once acceded.

Her smart conversation and natural neat waisted chic attracted me. She used “Ideale,” the very expensive Parisian perfume that to the cosmopolitan is somehow the hall-mark of up-to-date smartness. Her gown was well-cut, her gloves fresh and clean, and her hat a small toque of the very latest mode.

Idling beside her in the bright sunshine, with the broad river hundreds of feet below, and the high blue Balkans on every side about us, I spent a most delightful morning.

“We move down to Varna to-morrow, and then home by way of Constantinople,” she replied in French in answer to my question. “Aunt Mélanie has invited your Highness to our house in Toddington Terrace, she tells me. I do hope you will come. But send us a line first. In a month we shall be back again to the dreariness of the Terrace.”

“Dreariness? Then you are not fond of London?”

“No.” And her face fell, as though the metropolis contained for her some sad memory she would fain forget. Her life with that yellow-toothed, wizen-faced old aunt could not be fraught with very much pleasure, I reflected. “I much prefer travelling. Fortunately we are often abroad, for on all my aunt’s journeys I act as her companion.”

“You are, however, French – eh?”

“Yes – from Paris. But I know the Balkans well. We lived in Belgrade for a year – before the Servian coup d’état. I am very fond of the Servians.”

“And I also,” I declared, for I had been many times in Servia, and had many friends there.

They were a curious pair, and about them both was an indescribable air of mystery which I could not determine, but which caused me to decide to visit them at their London home, the address of which I had already noted.

At five o’clock that evening I took farewell of both Madams and her dainty little niece, and by midnight was in the Roumanian capital. My business – which by the way concerned the obtaining of a little matter of 20,000 francs from an unsuspecting French wine merchant – occupied me about a week and afterwards I went north to Klausenburg, in Hungary, and afterwards to Budapest, Graz, and other places.

Contrary to my expectations, my affairs occupied me much longer than I expected, and four months later I found myself still abroad, at the fine Hôtel Stefanie, among the beautiful woods of evergreen laurel at Abbazia, on the Gulf of Quarnero. My friend, the Rev. Thomas Clayton from Bayswater, was staying there, and as, on the evening of my arrival, we were seated together at dinner I saw, to my great surprise, Madame Demidoff enter with the pretty Elise, accompanied by a tall, fair-haired gentlemanly young man, rather foppishly dressed.

“Hulloa?” I exclaimed to my friend, “there’s somebody I know! That old woman is Madame Demidoff.”

“No, my dear Prince,” was my friend’s reply. “You are, I think, mistaken. That is the old Countess Gemsenberg, and the girl is her daughter Elise. She’s engaged to that fellow – an awful ass – young Hausner, the son of the big banker in Vienna, who died last year, leaving him thirty million kroners.”

“Do you really know this?” I asked, looking the Parson straight in the face.

“Know it? Why, everybody in this Hotel knows of their engagement. I’ve been here five weeks, and they were here before I arrived. They’re staying the season, and have the best suite of rooms in the place. The old Countess is, no doubt, very wealthy, and lives in Munich.”

Neither of the women had noticed me, and I remained silent.

What my friend had told me was certainly extraordinary. Why, I wondered had Madame represented herself as a woman of the middle-class, resident in a dull West End terrace? Why had Elise not admitted to me the truth? She had seemed so charmingly frank.

With an intention to remain unseen and observant I purposely avoided the pair that evening.

Next morning I saw Elise and young Hausner strolling together on the Strandweg, that broad path which forms the principal promenade, and runs along the rocky coast from Volosca to Icici. She was smartly dressed in cream serge, girdled narrow but distinctive, and wore a large black hat which suited her admirably, while he was in an easy suit of dark blue, a panama, and white shoes. They were talking very earnestly as they walked slowly on in the bright autumn sunshine with the blue Adriatic before them. He seemed to be telling her something very seriously, and she was listening without uttering a word – or, at least, she scarcely spoke while they were within my sight.

On returning to the hotel I stumbled upon Madame Demidoff, who, seated in the hall, was chatting with a tall, bald-headed, middle-aged man in dark brown tweed, who had every appearance of an Englishman. She had just given him a letter to read, and he was laughing heartily over it. Fortunately, however, she sat with her back to the door and, therefore, did not observe me. So I was enabled to make my exit without detection.

Half an hour later I pointed out the Englishman to the Parson, asking who he was.

“I don’t know,” was his reply. “I’ve never seen him before; a fresh arrival, I suppose.”

That day I lunched and dined in my private sitting-room, in order to avoid the pair, and continue my observations. That night I caught sight of Elise, whose exquisite gown of pale pink chiffon was creating a sensation among the well-dressed women, for the news of her engagement to the young millionaire banker made her the most-talked-of and admired girl in the great crowded hotel.

At eleven that night, when I believed that the ladies had gone to bed, I ventured downstairs to the fumoir. As I went along the corridor, I noticed Madame’s English friend, with his overcoat over his evening clothes, leaving the hotel for a stroll, while almost at the same moment Madame herself emerged from one of the rooms, and, without doubt, recognised me, I saw her start quickly, hesitate for a second, and then turn away in pretence that she had not noticed me.

Her attitude was distinctly curious, and therefore I made no attempt to claim acquaintance.

The mystery of the situation was, however, considerably increased when, next morning, I was surprised to learn that the Countess Gemsenberg had received bad news from Munich, that her husband had been injured in a lift accident, and that she and her daughter had left Mattuglie – the station for Abbazia, three miles distant – by the 8:48 train, young Hausner leaving by the same train.

From the servants I discovered that Madame and her daughter had spent half the night packing, and had not announced their departure until six that morning. No telegram had been received by either of the trio, which seemed to me a curiously interesting point.

Was it possible that Madame had fled upon recognising me? If so, for what reason?

The mystery surrounding the pair attracted me, and during the further fortnight I remained at the Stefanie, I made inquiries concerning them. It appeared that a few days after their arrival the Countess herself had told two German ladies of her daughter’s engagement to young Hausner, and that the latter would arrive in a few days. This news at once spread over the big hotel, and when the young man arrived he at once became the most popular person in Abbazia.

The Countess’s enemies, however, declared that one night in the hotel-garden she and Hausner had a violent quarrel, but its nature was unknown, because they spoke in English. Mademoiselle was also present, and instead of supporting her lover, took her mother’s side and openly abused him.

And yet next morning the pair were walking arm-in-arm beside the sea, as though no difference of opinion had occurred.

As for the Englishman in brown, I ascertained that he did not live there, but at the Quarnero, down by the sea. Those who heard him talk declared that the Countess addressed him as Mr Wilkinson, and that he was undoubtedly English.

Many facts I ascertained were distinctly strange. The more so when, on making inquiry through a man whom the Parson knew living at the Quarnero, I found that this Mr Wilkinson had left Abbazia at the same hour as his three friends.

I could see no reason why my presence at the Stefanie should create such sudden terror within the mind of the old lady with the yellow teeth. The more I reflected upon the whole affair, the more mysterious were the phases it assumed.

I recollected that the old lady, whoever she might be, lived at Number 10 Toddington Terrace, Regent’s Park, and I resolved to call and see her in pretence that I had not recognised her in Abbazia, and was unaware of her presence there.

Autumn gave place to winter, and I was still wandering about the Continent on matters more or less lucrative. To Venice Naples and down to Constantinople I went, returning at last in the dark days of late January to the rain and mud of London; different, indeed, to the sunshine and brightness of the beautiful Bosphorus.

One afternoon, while seated here in Dover Street, lazily looking forth upon the traffic, I suddenly made up my mind to call upon the old lady, and with that purpose took a taxi-cab.

As we pulled up before Number 10, I at once recognised the truth, for the green Venetian blinds were all down.

In answer to my ring, a narrow-faced, consumptive-looking woman, evidently the caretaker, opened the door.

“No, sir. Madame Demidoff and Elise left home again for the Continent a fortnight ago, and they won’t be back till the beginning of April.” She spoke of Elise familiarly without the prefix “Miss.” That was curious.

“Do you know where they are?”

“I send their letters to the Excelsior Hotel, at Palermo.”

“Thank you. By the way,” I added, “do you happen to know who is the landlord of these houses?”

“Mr Epgrave, sir. He lives just there – that new-painted house at the corner;” and she pointed to the residence in question.

And with that information I re-entered the cab and drove back to the club.

So Madame was enjoying the war in Sicilian sunshine! Lucky old woman. I had only been back in London a week, and was already longing for warmth and brightness again.

That night, seated alone, trying to form some plan for the immediate future, I found myself suggesting a flying visit to Palermo. The Villa Igiea was a favourite hotel of mine, and I could there enjoy the winter warmth, and at the same time keep an eye upon the modest old lady of Toddington Terrace, who appeared to blossom forth into a wealthy countess whenever occasion required.