The Crooked House | Page 3

to refuse to dine with him. Also, as the invitation is an unusually pressing one, we can rely on the introduction of some unexpected freaks for our entertainment."
"It is arranged," Monsieur Dupont declared, "I go with you to Richmond."
"Very well," Tranter agreed. "Call for me here at eight o'clock, and we will go. Help yourself to another drink."
Monsieur Dupont helped himself to another drink.
CHAPTER II
THE CROOKED HOUSE
It was no unusual thing for George Copplestone to spring surprises on his guests. He had a twisted sense of the dramatic, and twisted things were expected from him. On some occasions he perpetrated the wildest and most extravagant eccentricities, without the slightest regard for the moral or artistic sensibilities of those on whom he imposed them--on others he contented himself with less harrowing minor freaks--but the object of thoroughly upsetting and confounding the mental balances of his victims was invariably achieved. He delighted, and displayed remarkable ingenuity, in providing orgies of the abnormal. He reveled in producing an atmosphere of brain-storm, and in dealing sledge-hammer blows at the intellects of his better balanced acquaintances. Often he was in uncontrollable spirits--on fire with mental and physical exuberance--sometimes he was morose and silent, and apparently weak. Frequently he disappeared for considerable periods, and his house appeared to be closed. But none saw his coming or going.
Strange rumors circulated about him from time to time. Certain social circles, to which his wealth and position entitled him to the entr��e, were closed to him. Over and above his wild extravagancies, he was credited with vices that remained unnamed. It was said that things took place in his house that sealed the lips of men and women. When his name was mentioned in the clubs, some men shrugged their shoulders. When it was spoken in the drawing-rooms, some women remained silent. There had been an attempt to stab him, and twice he had been shot at. After the second attempt, a woman had been heard to say bitterly that he must bear a charmed life. He continued to pursue his strange ways with supreme indifference to the opinions of his fellow-creatures.
The house he lived in was the only sort of house he could have lived in. From the foundations to the topmost brick it was a mass of bewildering crookedness. Nothing was straight. Not a single passage led where it would have been expected to lead--not a staircase fulfilled normal anticipations. Scarcely two windows in the whole building were the same size--scarcely two rooms were the same shape--and not even two contortions corresponded. There must have been a mile of unnecessary corridors, dozens of incomprehensible corners and turnings, and at least a score of unwanted entrances and exits. If the aim and object of the architect, whoever he was, had been to reduce the unfortunate occupants of his handiwork to a condition of hopeless mental entanglement, he could not have created a more effective instrument for the purpose. George Copplestone found it a residence after his own heart, and delighted in the means it provided for gratifying his feverish inspirations.
The room into which John Tranter and Monsieur Victorien Dupont were ushered at eight-thirty on the following night presented an extraordinary spectacle of lavish and indiscriminate decoration, arriving at a general suggestion of something between a Royal visit and preparations for a wildly enthusiastic Christmas. Flags and festoons, flowers, real and imitation, fairy-candles and colored lamps, burning with strange heavy scents, quaint fantastic shapes of paper, startlingly illuminated--all massed into an indescribable disorder of light and color. Five amazed people were awaiting further developments.
Mrs. Astley-Rolfe was a charming widow of twenty-seven, who had successfully gambled on her late husband's probable lease of life, and was now in the throes of a wild attachment to George Copplestone, to which he had shown himself by no means averse. She was somewhat languid from an excess of luxury, unable to brook opposition even to a whim, and as yet undefeated in the attainment of her desires, which were not, perhaps, always to the credit of her sex. She had an insufficient income, and a weakness for inscribing her signature on stamped slips of paper, several of which, it was rumored, were in Copplestone's possession. Her house in Grosvenor Gardens was an artistic paradise, and was frequently visited by gentlemen from Jermyn Street, who seemed fond of assuring themselves that its treasures remained intact.
A West-End clergyman, of Evangelical appearance, who translated French farces under a nom-de-plume, was advocating, in confidence, the abolition of the Censor to a well-known theatrical manager, whose assets were all in the name of his wife. A bejeweled Russian danseuse, who spoke broken English with a Highland accent, extolled the attractions of theatrical investment to a Hebrew financier, who was feasting his eyes on the curves of her figure,