The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim (books to read now txt) 📕

to the end of our fight is uncertain,” Dominey continued. “My impression is that I left my assailant unconscious upon the ground.”

“Then it is his ghost, I imagine, who haunts the Black Wood?”

Dominey shook himself as one who would get rid of an unwholesome thought.

“The wood itself, Prince,” he explained, as they walked along, “is a noisome place. There are quagmires even in the middle of it, where a man may sink in and be never heard of again. Every sort of vermin abounds there, every unclean insect and bird are to be found in the thickets. I suppose the character of the place has encouraged the local superstition in which every one of those men firmly believes.”

“They absolutely believe the place to be haunted, then?”

“The superstition goes further,” Dominey continued. “Our locals say that somewhere in the heart of the wood, where I believe that no human being for many years has dared to penetrate, there is living in the spiritual sense some sort of a demon who comes out only at night and howls underneath my windows.”

“Has anyone ever seen it?”

“One or two of the villagers; to the best of my belief, no one else,” Dominey replied.

Terniloff seemed on the point of asking more questions, but the Duke touched him on the arm and drew him to one side, as though to call his attention to the sea fogs which were rolling up from the marshes.

“Prince,” he whispered, “the details of that story are inextricably mixed up with the insanity of Lady Dominey. I am sure you understand.”

The Prince, a diplomatist to his fingertips, appeared shocked, although a furtive smile still lingered upon his lips.

“I regret my faux pas most deeply,” he murmured. “Sir Everard,” he went on, “you promised to tell me of some of your days with a shotgun in South Africa. Isn’t there a bird there which corresponds with your partridges?”

Dominey smiled.

“If you can kill the partridges which Middleton is going to send over in the next ten minutes,” he said, “you could shoot anything of the sort that comes along in East Africa, with a catapult. If you will stand just a few paces there to the left, Henry, Terniloff by the gate, Stillwell up by the left-hand corner, Mangan next, Eddy next, and I shall be just beyond towards the oak clump. Will you walk with me, Caroline?”

His cousin took his arm as they walked off and pressed it.

“Everard, I congratulate you,” she said. “You have conquered your nerve absolutely. You did a simple and a fine thing to tell the whole story. Why, you were almost matter-of-fact. I could even have imagined you were telling it about someone else.”

Her host smiled enigmatically.

“Curious that it should have struck you like that,” he remarked. “Do you know, when I was telling it I had the same feeling.⁠—Do you mind crouching down a little now? I am going to blow the whistle.”

XVI

Even in the great dining-room of Dominey Hall, the mahogany table which was its great glory was stretched that evening to its extreme capacity. Besides the house party, which included the Right Honourable Gerald Watson, a recently appointed Cabinet Minister, there were several guests from the neighbourhood⁠—the Lord Lieutenant of the County and other notabilities. Caroline, with the Lord Lieutenant on one side of her and Terniloff on the other played the part of hostess adequately but without enthusiasm. Her eyes seldom left for long the other end of the table, where Stephanie, at Dominey’s left hand, with her crown of exquisitely coiffured red-gold hair, her marvellous jewellery, her languorous grace of manner, seemed more like one of the beauties of an ancient Venetian Court than a modern Hungarian Princess gowned in the Rue de la Paix. Conversation remained chiefly local and concerned the day’s sport and kindred topics. It was not until towards the close of the meal that the Duke succeeded in launching his favourite bubble.

“I trust, Everard,” he said, raising his voice a little as he turned towards his host, “that you make a point of inculcating the principles of National Service into your tenantry here.”

Dominey’s reply was a little dubious.

“I am afraid they do not take to the idea very kindly in this part of the world,” he confessed. “Purely agricultural districts are always a little difficult.”

“It is your duty as a landowner,” the Duke insisted, “to alter their point of view. There is not the slightest doubt,” he added, looking belligerently over the top of his pince-nez at Seaman, who was seated at the opposite side of the table, “that before long we shall find ourselves⁠—and in a shocking state of unpreparedness, mind you⁠—at war with Germany.”

Lady Maddeley, the wife of the Lord Lieutenant, who sat at his side, seemed a little startled. She was probably one of the only people present who was not aware of the Duke’s foible.

“Do you really think so?” she asked. “The Germans seem such civilised people, so peaceful and domestic in their home life, and that sort of thing.”

The Duke groaned. He glanced down the table to be sure that Prince Terniloff was out of hearing.

“My dear Lady Maddeley,” he declared, “Germany is not governed like England. When the war comes, the people will have had nothing to do with it. A great many of them will be just as surprised as you will be, but they will fight all the same.”

Seaman, who had kept silence during the last few moments with great difficulty, now took up the Duke’s challenge.

“Permit me to assure you, madam,” he said, bowing across the table, “that the war with Germany of which the Duke is so afraid will never come. I speak with some amount of knowledge because I am a German by birth, although naturalised in this country. I have as many and as dear friends in Berlin as in London, and with the exception of my recent absence in Africa, where I had the pleasure to meet our host,