The Four Faces | Page 3

and though his personality had appealed to me,
yet--
Well, there was something about him that puzzled me, something--I
cannot define what it was, for it was more like a feeling or sensation
which came over me while I was with him--a feeling that he was not
what he 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