Part 4 (1/2)
La voila, la joli' tranche: Tranchi, trancho, tranchons le Boche; La voila, la joli' tranche aux Boches, La voila, la joli' tranche!
As she came off, a boy handed her a note which she tore open and, glancing at it, placed her hand upon her chest as though to stay the wild beating of her heart.
”Say yes,” was her brief reply to the lad, who a moment later disappeared.
She walked to her dressing-room and, flinging herself into the chair, sat staring at herself in the gla.s.s, much to the wonder of the grey-haired woman who dressed her.
”I'm not at all well,” she said to the woman at last. ”Go and tell Mr Farquhar that I can't go on again to-night. Miss Lambert must take my place in the last scene.”
”Are you really ill, miss?” asked the woman eagerly.
”Yes. I've felt unwell all day, and the heat to-night has upset me. If I went on again I should faint on the stage. Go and tell Mr Farquhar at once.”
The woman obeyed, whereupon Stella Steele commenced to divest herself rapidly of the rich and daring gown. Her one desire was to get away from the theatre as soon as possible.
Mr Farquhar, the stage-manager, came to the door to express regret at her illness, and within a few minutes Miss Lambert, the understudy, was dressing to go on and fulfil her place in the final scene.
Her car took her home to the pretty flat in Stamfordham Mansions, just off Kensington High Street, where she lived alone with Mariette her French maid, and there, in her dainty little drawing-room, she sat silent, almost statuesque, for fully five minutes.
”Is it possible?” she gasped. ”Is it really possible that such a dastardly plot is being carried out!” she murmured in agitation.
Her little white hands clenched themselves, and her pretty mouth grew hard. She was sweet and charming, without any stage affectations. Yet, when she set herself to combat the evil designs of her enemy-father she was not a person to be trifled with--as these records of her adventures will certainly show.
”I wonder if Seymour can have been misled?” she went on, rising from her chair as she spoke aloud to herself. ”And yet,” she added, ”he is always so level-headed!”
Mariette--a slim, dark-eyed girl--entered with a gla.s.s tube of solidified eau-de-Cologne which she rubbed upon her mistress's brow, and then Ella pa.s.sed into her own room and quickly dismissed the girl for the night.
As soon as Mariette had gone she flung off her dress and took another from her wardrobe, a rough brown tweed golfing-suit, and put on a close-fitting cloth hat to match. Then, getting into a thick blanket-coat, she pulled on her gloves and, taking up a small leather blouse-case, went out, closing the door noiselessly after her.
At nine o'clock on the following evening Ella Drost descended in the lift from the second floor of the Victoria Hotel, in Sheffield, and, wearing her blanket-coat, went to the station platform and bought a ticket to Chesterfield--the town with the crooked spire.
Half-an-hour later she walked out into the station yard where she found her lover, the good-looking Flight-Commander, awaiting her in a big grey car. He no longer wore uniform, but was in blue serge with a thick brown overcoat.
”By Jove, Ella!” he exclaimed in welcome, as he grasped her hand. ”I'm jolly glad you've come up here! There's a lot going on. You were perfectly correct when you first hinted at it. I've been watching patiently for the past month. Hop in; we've no time to lose.”
Next second, Ella was in the seat beside her lover, and the powerful car moved off down the Arkwright Road, a high-road running due eastward, till they joined another well-kept highway which, in the pale light, showed wide and open with its many lines of telegraphs--the road to Clowne.
On through the falling darkness they travelled through Elmton and up the hill to Bolsover, where they suddenly turned off to the left and, pa.s.sing down some dark, narrow lanes, with which Kennedy was evidently familiar, they at last pulled up at the corner of a thick wood.
”Now,” he said, speaking almost for the first time, and in a low voice, ”we'll have to be very careful indeed.”
He had shut off his engine and switched off his lamps.
”We ought to make quite certain to-night that we are not mistaken,” she said.
”That is my intention,” was her lover's reply, and then she flung off her coat and crossed the stile, entering the wood after him. He had a pocket flash-lamp, and ever and anon threw its rays directly upon the ground so that they could see the path. The latter was an intricate one, for twice they came to cross-paths, and in both cases Kennedy selected one without hesitation.
At last, however, they began to move down the hill more cautiously, conversing in low whispers, and showing no light until they at last found themselves in the grounds attached to a large, low-built country house, lying in the valley.
”Ortmann is living here as Mr Horton,” Kennedy whispered. ”They told me in the village that he took the house furnished about three months ago, from a Major Jackson, who is at the front.”