Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (11 page)

The Ambassador
swiftly touched his companion on the arm. “Quick! You see that man standing
with his back to the railings? The youngish man with the thin aristocratic
face, wearing a Homburg. Do you know him?”

Herr Steinhauer
shook his head. “No, Excellency. Who is he?”

“He is a French
political exile and a soldier of fortune. De Richleau is his name. The Duc de
Richleau. I last saw him a little over a week ago at the ball at Dorchester
House. He was then in the company of the First Lord of the Admiralty and Sir
Pellinore Gwaine-Cust. They were talking together for nearly half an hour in a
secluded corner. From where I was sitting I saw the First Lord and Sir
Pellinore go in there, and all three of them come out; so it looked like a
pre-arranged rendezvous. Now we see the Duke in Sir Pellinore’s company again,
and behind the scenes that big bluff Englishman has a finger in every pie. You
know, of course, who the other two were?”

“Yes,
Excellency. Sir Henry Wilson, the British Director of Military Operations and
Sir Bindon Blackers of the Committee of Imperial Defence.”

“Correct. And it
is obvious that the four of them had had a prolonged lunch together. Why should
such important men give so much time to a dangerous adventurer like De
Richleau? You must do your best to find out. In any case, have some of your
people keep an eye on him. Was the sight you got of him just now good enough
for you to recognize him again?”

“Jawohl, Excellenz.
And I pride myself on never forgetting a face.”

De
Richleau
was loath to leave London. In the past
fortnight he had looked up several old friends and made a number of new ones.
The season was just opening; the wealth, beauty, rank and fashion of all
Britain was now congregating in the capital. Hardly a house in Mayfair,
Belgravia, Kensington or Bayswater remained shuttered. In some, as many as
forty servants had taken up their summer quarters, and in very few were there
less than half a dozen ready to ensure the smooth working of the luncheons,
dinners, dances and musical parties which their masters and mistresses would be
giving.

The streets and
squares were gay with window-boxes full of flowers, and from eleven o’clock
each morning until two or three the next they were a scene of constant
activity, as chauffeur-driven cars honked their way between carriages and
broughams polished to a mirror-like brightness, and drawn by beautifully
groomed horses.

It had been the
Duke’s intention to give himself up to the pleasures of this gay, idle world
for the ten weeks or so before its elegant denizens dispersed to seek new
distractions on the moors of Scotland, yachting at Cowes, on the vine-covered
terraces that overlook the Rhine, or in the casinos of Biarritz and Deauville.
He felt that he had well-earned such a holiday, but it was not to be; and with
considerable reluctance he had written excusing himself from a score of invitations
he had already accepted, on the plea that urgent business necessitated his
return to the Continent.

To his
additional annoyance a dinner party, to which he had been going on his last
night, was cancelled unexpectedly. He was already dressing for it, when a
telephone message came through that his hostess had suddenly been taken ill; so
he found himself at a loose end. As a rich and distinguished bachelor, he was
being made welcome everywhere, and had the poor lady been stricken earlier
there were a dozen houses at which he could have proposed himself to dine; but
it was now a little late to adopt such a measure, so, after a moment’s thought,
he rang down and asked the hall-porter to get him a stall at the Gaiety.

At eight-fifteen
he alighted from his taxi at the far end of the Strand, his glossy topper at a
slightly rakish angle; his white waistcoat, tails, and the star-shaped orchid
he wore in his button-hole, hidden by a long evening cloak with a high velvet
collar fastened by a gold clasp at the neck. In his left eye he wore a plain
glass monocle, without gallery or ribbon, and in one kid-gloved hand he carried
a fine malacca cane, at the top of which sparkled a topaz the size of a pigeon’s
egg, set in a circle of small diamonds.

The show was
After the Girl
, with pretty Isobel Elsom as leading lady, and the
catchy music of Paul Rubens. Its plot was of the slenderest, a mere framework
on which to hang sentimental duets, dialogues of rather childish humour and
rollicking choruses; but its setting, costumes and crowded, colourful, stage
were typical of the lavish expenditure of the period. The audience was
carefree, easy to please, and added much to the gaiety of the scene for, even
as far back as the front rows of the upper circle, everyone was in evening
dress, and feminine fashion still dictated low neck-lines and bright colours.

De Richleau was
a man who had a great appetite for life. He loved gay music and pretty faces as
much as fighting, and hated to waste a single day of his youth without savouring
some new experience. So, although his sight was excellent, he was soon using
his opera glasses to get a close-up view of the ladies of the chorus. He had
decided, almost subconsciously, that he would take one of them out to supper.
But which, was now the question.

The female
chorus was thirty strong, and chosen for their looks rather than their voices.
The management counted on their personal charms to fill a good portion of the
stalls each night with rich young men, who came several times every week to
admire the graces of individual girls to whom they vowed themselves devoted.

After a careful
survey the Duke settled on a slim but well-made blonde who was fifth from the
left in the front row. He knew that he might prove unlucky if she was already
engaged for the evening to some wealthy young spark whom she hoped to hook in
marriage. But, short of that, he thought his prospects fair. Experience in a
dozen capitals had shown him that the title on his card usually possessed the
magic to induce such fickle beauties to wriggle out of previous engagements,
rather than forgo the chance of counting a Duke among their admirers.

At the end of a
rousing song by the male chorus, he slipped from his seat, went out to the
foyer, and ascertained from an attendant that the lady’s name was Lottie de
Vaux. Then, still hatless, as the night was warm and fine, he left the theatre.
The Strand was a blaze of light, and although it was just on nine o’clock most
of the shops were still open. A little way along it he found a florist, where,
for a sovereign, he bought a double armful of tall pink roses. On a card he
gave the position of his stall, and asked the honour of Miss de Vaux’s company
at supper. The florist’s boy gladly accepted a shilling to convey the bouquet
to its destination without delay, and the Duke returned to the theatre.

In the interval
an attendant brought him a message that Miss de Vaux would be delighted to sup
with him, and would he please meet her at the stage door after the show. In
consequence, when the time came, he secured a hansom, and sat in it until he
saw the members of the company begin to emerge from the side entrance of the
theatre; then he alighted and joined the group of top-hatted young amorists who
had assembled there with a similar object to himself.

When Miss de
Vaux appeared, her mass of fluffed-out golden hair now half-hidden under a
coquettishly-draped lace scarf, he at once bowed over the plump little hand she
gave him, and kissed it.

“Oh, my!” she
exclaimed, with a giggle, and added as they walked towards the waiting cab: “Of
course, I knew from your card you were a foreigner, but I wasn’t expecting
anything quite so dashing. Acting like that with all those people looking on
was enough to make any girl blush. Though it’s a pretty custom all the same,
and I’m not saying I didn’t like it.”

“It was no more
than a proper tribute to your beauty;” the Duke smiled, “and from your name I
thought you might quite possibly be French yourself.”

“Me! Oh yes, but
only on my mother’s side,” declared Miss de Vaux hastily, illogically, and
untruthfully. Her real name was Emily Stiggins, and her family had originally
come from Yorkshire.

With her foot on
the step of the hansom she paused, the foreignness of her new acquaintance
occurring to her again, and asked a trifle suspiciously, “Where are you taking
me?”

“To Romanos,” replied
the Duke. “Unless there is anywhere else that you prefer.”

“Oh fine! I love
it there.” She flashed him a bright smile as she stepped in, her momentary
qualms now at rest. She had feared that, being a foreign nobleman, he might
have intended to take her to Claridges or the Ritz, and Emily Stiggins knew her
station. Such haunts of the aristocracy were not for chorus girls, until and
unless they had the luck to marry into it. On the other hand, it had been
equally possible that he had planned to give her supper in a private room at
Kettners. The self-styled Miss Lottie de Vaux was no prude and had more than
once risked her reputation to retain a wealthy admirer, but experience had soon
taught her that it never paid for a girl like herself to let a man suppose her
easy game to begin with.

As she settled
herself in the cab, she wondered whether the Duke was as rich as he looked, and
how long she would be able to keep him dangling before she had to let him take
her somewhere less public than Romanos. She decided that he looked the sort who
would soon come out with a straight offer, and give her little chance to
shilly-shally. She had had plenty of practice in handling men, but she already doubted
her ability to make this one dance to her usual tune.

It was now just
on midnight, but the pavements of the Strand were still crowded. The pubs were
closing, and from them issued small knots of people, quite a number of whom
were a little tipsy. Whisky was only three shillings a bottle, gin half a
crown, and beer a
penny
a pint. Here and there groups of three and four, walking
arm-in-arm. were singing lustily the catch tunes of the day, as they set off on
their way home after a jolly evening of talk and laughter. From Benoists?, Gows
and Gattis, other more subdued groups emerged—mainly family parties who had
come up to the West End for an evening out, and now, as they waited for the
horse-drawn or new motor buses to take them back to the suburbs, were a little
breathless from the big Dover soles and juicy steaks they had consumed, with
hors d’œuvres
and ices thrown in, all for a modest five
shillings. But it would be hours yet before the great thoroughfare emptied, as
the theatre crowds were pressing in to occupy the vacant tables of the fish
shops and restaurants, where mountains of chips were still being fried,
thousands of oysters being opened, hams and sides of smoked salmon being sliced
unceasingly and torrents of stout, iced lager, and champagne flowing.

At Romanos, as
soon as they had been relieved of their wraps, the Duke escorted the glamorous
Lottie de Vaux down the stairs. The
d’hôtel
recognized her at once and
proceeded to bow them to a table; but De Richleau held up a slim hand and said
quietly: “I desire a table in one of the alcoves.”

The man
hesitated only a second. All the alcoves were already booked, but it was his
profession to know a good customer when he saw one and, with a lower bow than
he had accorded Lottie, he led them to the side of the room where, on a long
raised dais, a row of Moorish arches with partitions between them enabled
favoured guests to dine in semi-privacy.

De Richleau
fully justified the
maître
d’h
ô
tel’s
appreciation of him. “You must be tired, so I propose to suggest a supper for
you,” he told his companion. “But if there is anything you prefer when I have
done, you have only to name it and it shall be served, even if they have to
send out to get it for you.”

He then
proceeded to order caviare, lobster cardinal, quail in aspic and
omelette surprise,
with a magnum of Cliquot 1904 and two glasses
of vodka to drink while the champagne was being iced.

Lottie’s blue
eyes shone. There had been no matinee that day, and her strong young body felt
no fatigue from the high-kicking to which she was well accustomed. But it was
nice to meet a fellow who was so considerate: she was never quite at home
pronouncing the names on
the
menu, either. She would really have preferred steak and onions, but onions were
taboo anyhow when out with a toff, and this one was certainly doing her proud.
Her only comment was, “If we drink a whole magnum between us we shall both be
tiddly.”

The Duke shook his head. “Surely
you have heard the saying: ‘The only trouble with a magnum is that it’s too
much for one and not enough for two’? And, anyhow, champagne should never be
sipped: it should be drunk like lemonade if one is to get the full flavour of
it.”

She smiled at him archly.
“I believe you’re trying to lead me astray. But you won’t find that so easy. My
friends tell me I’ve a jolly good head for wine, and things.”

“You’ve got a jolly
pretty one; and much the best figure in your show.”

“D’you really think so?”
Lottie preened herself at the compliment, but she was a little nervous. This
quietly self-confident man with the compelling grey eves was very different
from both the gay young sparks and the middle-aged would-be seducers who made
up her usual following. She had picked up a lot since she had been at the
Gaiety, but anxiety not to spoil this promising evening by some social gaffe
now made her avert her eyes from his and fidget with her long kid gloves.