The Crooked House | Page 4

and hoping that she was sufficiently hard-up. The entrance of Tranter and his huge companion created general surprise. Mrs. Astley-Rolfe held up her hands prettily.
"You?" she exclaimed, to Tranter. "You--of all people--condescending to visit our plane? The mystery is explained at once. The decorations are for you--the Pillar of the State!"
"Indeed they are not," he assured her. He stood aside. "Permit me to introduce my friend, Monsieur Dupont."
"This is delightful!" she smiled.
Monsieur Dupont bent over her hand.
"Madame," he declared, "I change completely my opinion of London."
"Where is Copplestone?" Tranter inquired, gazing with amazement round the festooned room.
A frown passed over Mrs. Astley-Rolfe's face.
"He has not yet appeared. He sent in a message asking us to wait for him here. He is up to some freak obviously."
"It is certainly a strange medley of color," Tranter admitted. "Fortunately, I am not particularly susceptible--but to an artistic temperament I can understand that the effect would be acute. What extraordinary event can such a blaze be intended to celebrate?"
"I don't know," she returned, a little shortly. "He has told us nothing."
Her eyes strayed anxiously to the door. The movements of her hands were nervous.
"I wish he would come," she muttered--and stood away from them.
Tranter drew his companion across the room.
"Well?" he asked, smiling. "How do you like this somewhat showy welcome?"
"My friend," said Monsieur Dupont slowly--"into what manner of house have you brought me?"
"Copplestone is a curious fellow," Tranter replied. "I warned you to be prepared for something unusual."
"It is a crooked house," said Monsieur Dupont. "It stands on a crooked road, and there are crooked paths all round it. And everything is crooked inside it."
"These decorations are crooked enough, at any rate," Tranter laughed.
"These decorations," said Monsieur Dupont, "are not only crooked--they are bad. Very bad."
He lowered his voice. There was a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
"Don't you see," he whispered, "that decorations can be good or bad, just as men and women can be good or bad? These decorations are bad. They are a mockery of all decorations--a travesty the most heartless of the motives for which good and pure people decorate. There is nothing honest or straightforward about them. They are a mean confusion of all the symbols of joy. They are put up for some cruel and detestable purpose----"
The door flew open with a snap, and a young man of dishevelled appearance burst into the room. His eyes were wild, and his face was working with the intensity of his passion.
"Christine," he panted. "Christine...."
He stopped, and gazed round in a dazed fashion, clenching and unclenching his hands.
Mrs. Astley-Rolfe sprang forward with a suppressed cry, and confronted him tensely.
"Well?" she cried sharply--"what about Christine?"
He did not seem to be aware of her. He was staring at the flags, the lights, the flowers, and the colored paper.
"It is true then," he muttered. "These things...."
The woman was as white as death. Her hands were locked together. She swayed.
"What is true?" she gasped.
The young man took no notice of her. Copplestone's elderly manservant appeared in the doorway, and approached him.
"Mr. Copplestone declines to see you, sir--and requests that you will leave his house. I have orders, otherwise, to send for the police."
The young man drew himself up. He was suddenly quite composed and dignified. The passion died out of his face, leaving an expression almost of contentment in its place.
"I wish it to be understood," he said, addressing himself to the room generally with perfect evenness, "that, rather than allow Christine Manderson to become engaged to George Copplestone, I will tear her to pieces with my own hands, and utterly destroy her." And he turned, and walked quietly out of the room.
In the silence that followed all eyes were fixed on the white, rigid woman. Her face was drawn and haggard. She seemed to have grown old and weak. Her whole frame appeared to have shrunk under an overwhelming blow. For some moments she stood motionless. Then, with a supreme effort of self-control, she turned, and faced them steadily.
"I think," she said calmly, "that if Miss Manderson is in the house she should be warned."
"Fellow was mad," said the theatrical manager.
"Tout-a-fait daft," agreed the Russian danseuse.
"It would have been safer," Tranter remarked, "if he had been given in charge."
There was something very like contempt in Mrs. Astley-Rolfe's glance.
"Do you know," she said quietly, "that that young man is a millionaire who lives on a pound a week, and spends the remaining nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds a week on saving lives and souls in places in London that people like us try to avoid even hearing about? If it is madness to devote your life and money to lifting some of the world's shadows--then he is very mad."
"Mosth creditable," said the Hebrew financier.
She turned her back on them, and stood apart.
Monsieur Dupont laid