The Four Faces | Page 3

appeared to be, and that I saw, so to speak, only his outer surface.
"Hullo, Michael!"
The greeting cut my train of thought, and, screwing myself round in the big arm-chair, I looked up.
"Why, Jack!" I exclaimed, "I had no idea you were in England. I thought you were bagging rhinoceroses and things in Nigeria or somewhere."
"So I have been. Got back yesterday. Sorry I am back, to tell you the truth," and he glanced significantly towards the window. A fine, wetting drizzle was falling; dozens of umbrellas passed to and fro outside; the street lamps were lit, though it was barely three o'clock, and in the room that we were in the electric lights were switched on. The sky was the colour of street mud, through which the sun, a huge, blood-red disc, strove to pierce the depressing murk of London's winter atmosphere, thereby creating a lurid and dismal effect.
Jack Osborne is a man I rather like, in spite of the fact that his sole aim in life is to kill things. When he isn't shooting "hippos" and "rhinos" and bears and lions in out-of-the-way parts of the world, he is usually plastering pheasants in the home covers, or tramping the fields and moors where partridges and grouse abound.
"Had a good time?" I asked some moments later.
"Ripping," he answered, "quite ripping," and he went on to tell me the number of beasts he had slain, particulars about them and the way he had outwitted them. I managed to listen for ten minutes or so without yawning, and then suddenly he remarked:
"I met a man on board ship, on the way home, who said he knew you--feller named Gastrell. Said he met you in Geneva, and liked you like anything. Struck me as rather a rum sort--what? Couldn't quite make him out. Who is he and what is he? What's he do?"
"I know as little about him as you do," I answered. "I know him only slightly--we were staying at the same hotel in Geneva. I heard Lord Easterton, who was in here half an hour ago, saying he had let his house in Cumberland Place to a man named Gastrell--Hugesson Gastrell. I wonder if it is the man I met in Geneva and that you say you met on board ship. When did you land?"
"Yesterday, at Southampton. Came by the Masonic from Capetown."
"And where did Gastrell come from?"
"Capetown too. I didn't notice him until we were near the end of the voyage. He must have remained below a good deal, I think."
I paused, thinking.
"In that case," I said, "the Gastrell who has leased Easterton's house can't be the man you and I have met, because, from what Easterton said, he saw his man quite recently. Ah, here is Lord Easterton," I added, as the door opened and he re-entered. "You know him, don't you?"
"Quite well," Jack Osborne answered, "Don't you? Come, I'll introduce you, and then we'll clear this thing up."
It was not until Osborne and Lord Easterton had talked for some time about shooting in general, and about "hippo" and "rhino" and "'gator" killing in particular, and I had been forced to listen to a repetition of incidents to do with the sport that Jack Osborne had obtained in Nigeria and elsewhere, that Jack presently said:
"Berrington tells me, Easterton, he heard you say that you have let your house to a man named Gastrell, and we were wondering if he is the Gastrell we both know--a tall man of twenty-eight or so, with dark hair and very good-looking, queer kind of eyes--what?"
"Oh, so you know him?" Easterton exclaimed. "That's good. I want to find out who he is, where he comes from, in fact all about him. I have a reason for wanting to know."
"He came from Capetown with me--landed at Southampton yesterday," Osborne said quickly.
"Capetown? Arrived yesterday? Oh, then yours must be a different man. Tell me what he is like."
Osborne gave a detailed description.
"And at the side of his chin," he ended, "he's got a little scar, sort of scar you see on German students' faces, only quite small--doesn't disfigure him a bit."
"But this is extraordinary," Lord Easterton exclaimed. "You have described my man to the letter--even to the scar. Can they be twins? Even twins, though, wouldn't have the same scar, the result probably of some accident. You say your man landed only yesterday?"
"Yes, we came off the ship together."
"Then he was on board on--let me think--ten days or so ago?"
"Oh, yes."
"It's most singular, this apparent likeness between the two men."
"It is--if they really are alike. When shall you see your man again?" Osborne inquired.
"I have this moment had a letter from him," Easterton answered. "He asks me to lunch with him at the Café Royal to-morrow. Look here, I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll say I'm