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

all seem to have heard the same thing,” the Cabinet Minister observed, with interest⁠—“a most appalling and unearthly cry. I have lately joined every society connected with spooks and find them a fascinating study.”

“If you want to investigate,” Dominey observed, as he helped himself to coffee, “you can bring out a revolver and prowl about with me one night. From the time when I was a kid, before I went to Eton, up till when I left here for Africa, we had a series of highly respectable and well-behaved ghosts, who were a credit to the family and of whom we were somewhat proud. This latest spook, however, is something quite outside the pale.”

“Has he a history?” Mr. Watson asked with interest.

“I am informed,” Dominey replied, “that he is the spirit of a schoolmaster who once lived here, and for whose departure from the world I am supposed to be responsible. Such a spook is neither a credit nor a comfort to the family.”

Their host spoke with such an absolute absence of emotion that everyone was conscious of a curious reluctance to abandon a subject full of such fascinating possibilities. Terniloff was the only one, however, who made a suggestion.

“We might have a battue in the wood,” he proposed.

“I am not sure,” Dominey told them, “that the character of the wood is not more interesting than the ghost who is supposed to dwell in it. You remember how terrified the beaters were yesterday at the bare suggestion of entering it? For generations it has been held unclean. It is certainly most unsafe. I went in over my knees on the outskirts of it this morning. Shall we say half-past ten in the gun room?”

Seaman followed his host out of the room.

“My friend,” he said, “you must not allow these local circumstances to occupy too large a share of your thoughts. It is true that these are the days of your relaxation. Still, there is the Princess for you to think of. After all, she has us in her power. The merest whisper in Downing Street, and behold, catastrophe!”

Dominey took his friend’s arm.

“Look here, Seaman,” he rejoined, “it’s easy enough to say there is the Princess to be considered, but will you kindly tell me what on earth more I can do to make her see the position? Necessity demands that I should be on the best of terms with Lady Dominey and I should not make myself in any way conspicuous with the Princess.”

“I am not sure,” Seaman reflected, “that the terms you are on with Lady Dominey matter very much to anyone. So far as regards the Princess, she is an impulsive and passionate person, but she is also grande dame and a diplomatist. I see no reason why you should not marry her secretly in London, in the name of Everard Dominey, and have the ceremony repeated under your rightful name later on.”

They had paused to help themselves to cigarettes, which were displayed with a cabinet of cigars on a round table in the hall. Dominey waited for a moment before he answered.

“Has the Princess confided to you that that is her wish?” he asked.

“Something of the sort,” Seaman acknowledged. “She wishes the suggestion, however, to come from you.”

“And your advice?”

Seaman blew out a little cloud of cigar smoke.

“My friend,” he confessed, “I am a little afraid of the Princess. I ask you no questions as to your own feelings with regard to her. I take it for granted that as a man of honour it will be your duty to offer her your hand in marriage, sooner or later. I see no harm in anticipating a few months, if by that means we can pacify her. Terniloff would arrange it at the Embassy. He is devoted to her, and it will strengthen your position with him.”

Dominey turned away towards the stairs.

“We will discuss this again before we leave,” he said gloomily.

Dominey was admitted at once by her maid into his wife’s sitting-room. Rosamund, in a charming morning robe of pale blue lined with grey fur, had just finished breakfast. She held out her hands to him with a delighted little cry of welcome.

“How nice of you to come, Everard!” she exclaimed. “I was hoping I should see you for a moment before you went off.”

He raised her fingers to his lips and sat down by her side. She seemed entirely delighted by his presence, and he felt instinctively that she was quite unaffected by the event of the night before.

“You slept well?” he enquired.

“Perfectly,” she answered.

He tackled the subject bravely, as he had made up his mind to on every opportunity.

“You do not lie awake thinking of our nocturnal visitor, then?”

“Not for one moment. You see,” she went on conversationally, “if you were really Everard, then I might be frightened, for some day or other I feel that if Everard comes here, the spirit of Roger Unthank will do him some sort of mischief.”

“Why?” he asked.

“You don’t know about these things, of course,” she went on, “but Roger Unthank was in love with me, although I had scarcely ever spoken to him, before I married Everard. I think I told you that much yesterday, didn’t I? After I was married, the poor man nearly went out of his mind. He gave up his work and used to haunt the park here. One evening Everard caught him and they fought, and Roger Unthank was never seen again. I think that anyone around here would tell you,” she went on, dropping her voice a little, “that Everard killed Roger and threw him into one of those swampy places near the Black Wood, where a body sinks and sinks and nothing is ever seen of it again.”

“I do not believe he did anything of the sort,” Dominey declared.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied doubtfully. “Everard had a terrible temper, and that night he came home covered with blood, looking⁠—awful! It was the night when I was taken ill.”

“Well no