Part 2

He felt resentful toward his dead friend Josiah Cholderton. If there be a safe pastime, one warranted to lead a man into no trouble and to entangle him in no scandals, it would seem to lie in editing the Journal of a Member of Parliament, a Commercial Delegate, an Inventor of the Hygroxeric Method of Dressing Wool. Josiah Cholderton had--not quite for the first time--played him false. But never so badly as this before!

"Good gracious me!" he muttered. "The thing is nothing more nor less than an imputation on the legitimacy of the son and heir!"

That same afternoon he went over to the Imperium to vote at the election of members. It struck him as one of the small coincidences of life that among the candidates who faced the ballot was a Colonel Wilmot Edge, R.E.

"Any relation, I wonder?" mused Mr Neeld as he dropped in an affirmative ball. But it may be added, since not even the secrets of club ballots are to be held sacred, that he bestowed one of a different sort on a certain Mr William Iver, who was described as a "Contractor," and whose name was familiar and conspicuous on the hoardings that screened new buildings in London, and was consequently objectionable to Mr Neeld's fastidious mind.

"I don't often blackball," he remarked to Lord Southend as they were sitting down to whist, "but, really, don't you think the Imperium should maintain--er--a certain level?"

"Iver's a devilish rich fellow and not a bad fellow either," grunted my lord.

MR CHOLDERTON'S IMP

"Yes, madame, an elegant and spacious residence, Filton Park. The photo? Here it is, madame. And Notts is a very eligible county--socially speaking, remarkably eligible; I've sent several families to Notts. That photo, madame? Hatchley Manor, in Sussex. Yes, good position--a trifle low perhaps--I have heard complaints of--er--effluvium from the river--I'm anxious to give you perfect satisfaction, madame. It wouldn't pay me not to. I want you to come back, madame, another summer. I play for the break, if I may so put it--I beg your pardon! Yes, Birdcup is really a palatial residence--Hants, yes--a beautiful county. But between ourselves, madame, his lordship is a little hard to deal with. Dilapidations I refer to, yes--his lordship is exacting as to dilapidations. On the whole, I should prefer to recommend Winterhurst--near Maidstone--a pleasant town, Maidstone, and the clergy, I'm informed, extremely active and sympathetic."

"It's a very ugly house," remarked Madame Zabriska, throwing away the photograph of Winterhurst with a gesture of decided refusal.

Mr Sloyd stroked his sleek hair and smiled deprecatingly.

"With residences as with--er--ladies, beauty is only skin deep," said he. "A thoroughly modern residence, madame--hot and cold--south aspect." He stopped suddenly, perceiving that the queer dark little woman in the big chair was laughing at him. "I don't intend to convey," he resumed with dignity, "that the mansion is hot and cold, but the bath-rooms----"

"Oh, I know," she interrupted, her great black eyes still deriding him, while her thin face was screwed up into seriousness, as she regarded Mr Sloyd's blameless garments of springtime gray, his black-and-white tie, his hair so very sleek, his drooping mustache, and his pink cheeks. She had taken his measure as perfectly as the tailor himself, and was enjoying the counterfeit presentment of a real London dandy who came to her in the shape of a house-agent. "I don't want a big place," she explained in English, with a foreign touch about it. "There's only myself and my uncle, Major Duplay--he'll be in directly, I expect--and we've no more money than we want, Mr Sloyd."

Sloyd's eyes wandered round the large and handsome sitting-room in Berridge's Hotel, where he found his client established.

"Oh, it doesn't matter for a few days," she added, detecting his idea and smiling again.

This explanation of her position had the effect of making Sloyd's manner rather less florid and his language less flowery.

"Among second-class but eminently genteel residences," he began, "I could confidently recommend----"

"Where's this?" she interrupted, picking up another photograph, and regarding it with apparent liking. Looking at the foot, she read aloud, "Merrion Lodge, property of the Right Honorable Baroness Tristram of Blent." She looked up sharply at Sloyd.

"Ye-es, ye-es," said Sloyd, without much enthusiasm. "A very pretty neighborhood--a few miles from Blentmouth--rising place, Blentmouth. And it's a cheap house--small, you see, and old-fashioned."

"Not hot and cold?" she asked with apparent innocence.

Sloyd smiled uncomfortably. "I could ascertain all that for you, madame."

He waited for her to speak again, but she had turned thoughtful as she sat fingering the photograph. Presently she smiled again and said, "Yes, find out about Merrion Lodge for me, Mr Sloyd."

He began to gather up his pictures and papers.

"Is Baron Tristram alive?" she asked suddenly.

Sloyd recovered his air of superiority.

"Her ladyship is a peeress in her own right," he explained.

"She's not married then?"

"A widow, madame."

"And wasn't her husband Baron Tristram?"