Red Masquerade | Page 2

(dried life-blood of love letters long
since dead!) and all its pigeon-holes and little drawers empty of
everything but dust and the seductive smell of secrets; or a
dressing-table whose bewildered mirror, to-day reflecting surroundings
cold and strange, had once been quick and warm to the beauty of eyes
brilliant with delight or blurred with tears; or perchance a bed....
And even aside from such stimuli to a lively and ingenious fancy, there
was always the chance that one might pick up some priceless treasure
at an auction sale, some rare work of art dim with desuetude and the
disrespect of ignorance: jewellery of quaintest old-time artistry; a
misprized bit of bronze; a book, it might be an overlooked copy of a
first edition inscribed by some immortal author to a forgotten love; or
even--if one were in rare luck--a picture, its pristine brilliance faded,
the signature of the artist illegible beneath the grime of years, evidence
of its origin perceptible only to the discerning eye--to such an eye, for
instance, as Michael Lanyard boasted. For paintings were his passion.
Already, indeed, at this early age, he was by way of being something of
a celebrity, in England and on the Continent, as a collector of the nicest
discrimination.
And then he found unfailing human interest in the attendance attracted
by auction sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced
idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding
a sort of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile,
endowed with intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the
mere intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded
and those frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule
for nothing more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag that
they had been outbid.
But it was in the ranks of the general public that one found most
amusement; seldom did a sale pass off undistinguished by at least one
incident uniquely revealing or provocative. And for such moments
Lanyard was always on the qui vive, but quietly, who knew that
nothing so quickly stifles spontaneity as self-consciousness. So, if he
studied his company closely, he was studious to do it covertly; as now,

when he seemed altogether engrossed in the catalogue, whereas his
gaze was freely roving.
Thus far to-day a mere handful of people other than dealers had drifted
in to wait for the sale to begin--something for which the weather was
largely to blame, for the day was dismal with a clammy drizzle settling
from a low and leaden sky--and with a solitary exception these few
were commonplace folk.
This one Lanyard had marked down midway across the room, in the
foremost row of chairs beneath the salesman's pulpit: by his attire a
person of fashion (though his taste might have been thought a trace
florid) who carried himself with an air difficult of definition but
distinctive enough in its way.
Whoever he was and what his quality, he was unmistakably somebody
of consequence in his own reckoning, and sufficiently well-to-do to
dress the part he chose to play in life. Certainly he had a conscientious
tailor and a busy valet, both saturate with British tradition. Yet the man
they served was no Englishman.
Aside from his clothing, everything about him had an exotic tang,
though what precisely his racial antecedents might have been was
rather a riddle; a habit so thoroughly European went oddly with the
hints of Asiatic strain which one thought to detect in his lineaments.
Nevertheless, it were difficult otherwise to account for the faintly
indicated slant of those little black eyes, the blurred modelling of the
nose, the high cheekbones, and the thin thatch of coarse black hair
which was plastered down with abundant brilliantine above that mask
of pallid features.
The grayish pallor of the man, indeed, was startling, so that Lanyard for
some time sought an adjective to suit it, and was content only when he
hit on the word evil. Indeed, evil seemed the inevitable and only word;
none other could possibly so well fit that strange personality.
His interest thus fixed, he awaited confidently what could hardly fail to
come, a moment of self-betrayal.
That fell more quickly than he had hoped. Of a sudden the decent quiet
of King Street, thus far accentuated rather than disturbed by the routine
grind of hansoms and four-wheelers, was enlivened by spirited hoofs
whose clatter stilled abruptly in front of the auction room.
Turning a speciously languid eye toward the weeping window, Lanyard

had a partial view of a handsomely appointed private equipage, a pair
of spanking bays, a liveried coachman on the box.
The carriage door slammed with a hollow clap; a footman furled an
umbrella and climbed to his place beside