He found
that his master had tied a cord securely to one of the short bed-posts,
and, after making a running noose and slipping it round his neck, the
unfortunate man must have resolutely fallen forward, to die by slow
strangulation. He was dressed in the light suit in which the valet had
seen him go out, and the doctor who was summoned pronounced that life
had been extinct for more than four hours. All papers, letters, and so
forth seemed in perfect order, and nothing was discovered which pointed
in the most remote way to any scandal either great or small. Here the
evidence ended; nothing more could be discovered. Several persons had
been present at the dinner-party at which Lord Argentine had assisted,
and to all these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet,
indeed, said he thought his master appeared a little excited when he
came home, but confessed that the alteration in his manner was very
slight, hardly noticeable, indeed. It seemed hopeless to seek for any
clue, and the suggestion that Lord Argentine had been suddenly attacked
by acute suicidal mania was generally accepted. It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three more
gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of good
position and ample means, perished miserably in the almost precisely
the same manner. Lord Swanleigh was found one morning in his
dressing-room, hanging from a peg affixed to the wall, and Mr.
Collier-Stuart and Mr. Herries had chosen to die as Lord Argentine. There was no explanation in either case; a few bald facts; a living man
in the evening, and a body with a black swollen face in the morning. The police had been forced to confess themselves powerless to arrest or
to explain the sordid murders of Whitechapel; but before the horrible
suicides of Piccadilly and Mayfair they were dumbfoundered, for not
even the mere ferocity which did duty as an explanation of the crimes
of the East End, could be of service in the West. Each of these men who
had resolved to die a tortured shameful death was rich, prosperous, and
to all appearances in love with the world, and not the acutest research
should ferret out any shadow of a lurking motive in either case. There
was a horror in the air, and men looked at one another’s faces when
they met, each wondering whether the other was to be the victim of the
fifth nameless tragedy. Journalists sought in vain for their scrapbooks
for materials whereof to concoct reminiscent articles; and the morning
paper was unfolded in many a house with a feeling of awe; no man knew
when or where the next blow would light. A short while after the last of these terrible events, Austin came to
see Mr. Villiers. He was curious to know whether Villiers had succeeded
in discovering any fresh traces of Mrs. Herbert, either through Clarke
or by other sources, and he asked the question soon after he had sat
down. “No,” said Villiers, “I wrote to Clarke, but he remains obdurate, and I
have tried other channels, but without any result. I can’t find out
what became of Helen Vaughan after she left Paul Street, but I think
she must have gone abroad. But to tell the truth, Austin, I haven’t
paid much attention to the matter for the last few weeks; I knew poor
Herries intimately, and his terrible death has been a great shock to
me, a great shock.”

“I can well believe it,” answered Austin gravely, “you know Argentine
was a friend of mine. If I remember rightly, we were speaking of him
that day you came to my rooms.”

“Yes; it was in connection with that house in Ashley Street, Mrs.
Beaumont’s house. You said something about Argentine’s dining there.”

“Quite so. Of course you know it was there Argentine dined the night
before—before his death.”

“No, I had not heard that.”

“Oh, yes; the name was kept out of the papers to spare Mrs. Beaumont. Argentine was a great favourite of hers, and it is said she was in a
terrible state for sometime after.”

A curious look came over Villiers’ face; he seemed undecided whether to
speak or not. Austin began again. “I never experienced such a feeling of horror as when I read the
account of Argentine’s death. I didn’t understand it at the time, and I
don’t now. I knew him well, and it completely passes my understanding
for what possible cause he—or any of the others for the matter of
that—could have resolved in cold blood to die in such an awful manner. You know how men babble away each other’s characters in London, you may
be sure any buried scandal or hidden skeleton would have been brought
to light in such a case as this; but nothing of the sort has taken
place. As for the theory of mania, that is very well, of course, for
the coroner’s jury, but everybody knows that it’s all nonsense. Suicidal mania is not small-pox.”

Austin relapsed into gloomy silence. Villiers sat silent, also,
watching his friend. The expression of indecision still fleeted across
his face; he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the
considerations he was resolving left him still silent. Austin tried to
shake off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed as the
labyrinth of Daedalus, and began to talk in an indifferent voice of the
more pleasant incidents and adventures of the season. “That Mrs. Beaumont,” he said, “of whom we were speaking, is a great
success; she has taken London almost by storm. I met her the other
night at Fulham’s; she is really a remarkable woman.”

“You have met Mrs. Beaumont?”

“Yes; she had quite a court around her. She would be called very
handsome, I suppose, and yet there is something about her face which I
didn’t like. The features are exquisite, but the expression is strange. And all the time I was looking at her, and afterwards, when I was going
home, I had a curious feeling that very expression was in some way or
another familiar to me.”

“You must have seen her in the Row.”

“No, I am sure I never set eyes on the woman before; it is that which
makes it puzzling. And to the best of my belief I have never seen
anyone like her; what I felt was a kind of dim far-off memory, vague
but persistent. The only sensation I can compare it to, is that odd
feeling one sometimes has in a dream, when fantastic cities and
wondrous lands and phantom personages appear familiar and accustomed.”

Villiers nodded and glanced aimlessly round the room, possibly in
search of something on which to turn the conversation. His eyes fell on
an old chest somewhat like that in which the artist’s strange legacy
lay hid beneath a Gothic scutcheon. “Have you written to the doctor about poor Meyrick?” he asked. “Yes; I wrote asking for full particulars as to his illness and death. I don’t expect to have an answer for another three weeks or a month. I
thought I might as well inquire whether Meyrick knew an Englishwoman
named Herbert, and if so, whether the doctor could give me any
information about her.