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

“I have heard a rumour,” she said slowly; “there has been a word spoken here and there about you. I’ve had my doubts sometimes. I have them again every time you speak. Are you really Everard Dominey?”

He swung around and faced her.

“Who else?”

“There’s one,” she went on, “has never believed it, and that’s her ladyship. I’ve heard strange talk from the people who’ve come under your masterful ways. You’re a harder man than the Everard Dominey I remember. What if you should be an impostor?”

“You have only to prove that, Mrs. Unthank,” Dominey replied, “and a portion, at any rate, of the Black Wood may remain standing. You will find it a little difficult, though.⁠—You must excuse my ringing the bell. I see no object in asking you to remain longer.”

She rose unwillingly to her feet. Her manner was sullen and unyielding.

“You are asking for the evil things,” she warned him.

“Be assured,” Dominey answered, “that if they come I shall know how to deal with them.”

Dominey found Rosamund and Doctor Harrison, who had walked over from the village, lingering on the terrace. He welcomed the latter warmly.

“You are a godsend, Doctor,” he declared. “I have been obliged to leave my port untasted for want of a companion. You will excuse us for a moment Rosamund?”

She nodded pleasantly, and the doctor followed his host into the dining-room and took his seat at the table where the dessert still remained.

“Old woman threatening mischief?” the latter asked, with a keen glance from under his shaggy grey eyebrows.

“I think she means it,” Dominey replied, as he filled his guest’s glass. “Personally,” he went on, after a moment’s pause, “the present situation is beginning to confirm an old suspicion of mine. I am a hard and fast materialist, you know, Doctor, in certain matters, and I have not the slightest faith in the vindictive mother, terrified to death lest the razing of a wood of unwholesome character should turn out into the cold world the spirit of her angel son.”

“What do you believe?” the doctor asked bluntly.

“I would rather not tell you at the present moment,” Dominey answered. “It would sound too fantastic.”

“Your note this afternoon spoke of urgency,” the doctor observed.

“The matter is urgent. I want you to do me a great favour⁠—to remain here all night.”

“You are expecting something to happen?”

“I wish, at any rate, to be prepared.”

“I’ll stay, with pleasure,” the doctor promised. “You can lend me some paraphernalia, I suppose? And give me a shakedown somewhere near Lady Dominey’s. By the by,” he began, and hesitated.

“I have followed your advice, or rather your orders,” Dominey interrupted, a little harshly. “It has not always been easy, especially in London, where Rosamund is away from these associations.⁠—I am hoping great things from what may happen tonight, or very soon.”

The doctor nodded sympathetically.

“I shouldn’t wonder if you weren’t on the right track,” he declared.

Rosamund came in through the window to them and seated herself by Dominey’s side.

“Why are you two whispering like conspirators?” she demanded.

“Because we are conspirators,” he replied lightly. “I have persuaded Doctor Harrison to stay the night. He would like a room in our wing. Will you let the maids know, dear?”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Of course! There are several rooms quite ready. Mrs. Midgeley thought that we might be bringing down some guests. I am quite sure that we can make Doctor Harrison comfortable.”

“No doubt about that, Lady Dominey,” the doctor declared. “Let me be as near to your apartment as possible.”

There was a shade of anxiety in her face.

“You think that tonight something will happen?” she asked.

“Tonight, or one night very soon,” Dominey assented. “It is just as well for you to be prepared. You will not be afraid, dear? You will have the doctor on one side of you and me on the other.”

“I am only afraid of one thing,” she answered a little enigmatically. “I have been so happy lately.”

Dominey, changed into ordinary morning clothes, with a thick cord tied round his body, a revolver in his pocket, and a loaded stick in his hand, spent the remainder of the night and part of the early morning concealed behind a great clump of rhododendrons, his eyes fixed upon the shadowy stretch of park which lay between the house and the Black Wood. The night was moonless but clear, and when his eyes were once accustomed to the pale but sombre twilight, the whole landscape and the moving objects upon it were dimly visible. The habits of his years of bush life seemed instinctively, in those few hours of waiting, to have reestablished themselves. Every sense was strained and active; every night sound⁠—of which the hooting of some owls, disturbed from their lurking place in the Black Wood, was predominant⁠—heard and accounted for. And then, just as he had glanced at his watch and found that it was close upon two o’clock, came the first real intimation that something was likely to happen. Moving across the park towards him he heard the sound of a faint patter, curious and irregular in rhythm, which came from behind a range of low hillocks. He raised himself on his hands and knees to watch. His eyes were fastened upon a certain spot⁠—a stretch of the open park between himself and the hillocks. The patter ceased and began again. Into the open there came a dark shape, the irregularity of its movements swiftly explained. It moved at first upon all fours, then on two legs, then on all fours again. It crept nearer and nearer, and Dominey, as he watched, laid aside his stick. It reached the terrace, paused beneath Rosamund’s window, now barely half a dozen yards from where he was crouching. Deliberately he waited, waited for what he knew must soon come. Then the deep silence of the breathless night was broken by that familiar, unearthly scream. Dominey waited till even its echoes had died away. Then he ran a few steps, bent double, and stretched out his