UT I am astounded," declared Mrs. Lewisham, "to hear that you have never been to one of M. de Trepniak's Sunday afternoons."
Douglas Carey merely nodded in confirmation of his earlier assurance.
They afforded a strange contrast, these two, seated side by side in Mrs. Lewisham's Rolls Royce. She was accounted one of the smartest women in town, and not to know Mrs. Jack Lewisham was tantamount to an admission of barbarism. She was vivid, with red colouring and a personality to match. She delivered her lightest observations with enormous significance. But, her sentence finished, the fire left her eyes; the word was spoken, the deed was done. She became instantly passive, as if resting, recovering strength for her next intense remark.
Carey, on the contrary, was most expressive when silent. He spoke in an almost even monotone and his gestures were more eloquent than his tongue. Now, he watched his companion, smiling whimsically at her enthusiasm. He had welcomed this opportunity of penetrating into the mystery house of Park Lane. But he was fully aware that it would never have been his, had not Fate—for he was of those who know Chance a myth—literally precipitated Trepniak upon himself and Mrs. Lewisham whilst they stood talking one morning at the corner of Bruton Street.
A skidding car had been the instrument of the gods, and Trepniak, who evidently wished Mrs. Lewisham to be present, could not well exclude Carey from the invitation. Accordingly, he had presented himself at the flat in Mount Street; and since, if Mrs. Lewisham had been calling upon someone next door she would have had the car in waiting, he now found himself seated beside her bound for Trepniak's house in Park Lane, just around the corner, upon a delightful afternoon when a walk was clearly indicated.
"My dear"—Mrs. Lewisham addressed everyone as "my dear," sometimes so far forgetting herself as to call hotel waiters and other people's butlers in this way—"My dear"—she laid her hand upon his knee—"three weeks ago—I think it was three weeks ago—he positively electrified everybody. He is a natural showman, you know, but most delightful. If he had not been a Russian nobleman, or an anarchist, or whatever he is, I am positive he would have been Mr.—what's the name of the man who cannot be locked up:
Carey, badly puzzled, shook his head. Then:
"Well," he replied, "I cannot be locked up, legally."
"Oh, my dear!" Mrs. Lewisham pushed him playfully—"How silly! I mean the man who used to break out of everywhere and be manacled, and defy everyone and everything, and break out of jail, and all that."
"You possibly mean Houdini?" Carey suggested.
"Of course!" cried Mrs. Lewisham. "How forgetful of me! Well, what was I saying? Oh, yes. Three weeks ago he amused us at his house by showing that a man can be in two places at once."
"Really?" said Carey. "It sounds intriguing."
"Oh, it was most intriguing, my dear. I can't describe what he did, but it was perfectly impossible. And here we are. There will be all sorts of interesting people, but you must make him show us something extraordinary. Sometimes he doesn't, unless he is pressed."
With mingled feelings Carey entered the house of Trepniak. The butler was rather disappointing, for his dress was severely correct. But he was a strange-looking man, stout, and with a dull yellow complexion. His hair was black and closely cropped, and he wore side-whiskers, also closely cropped, so that they appeared to have been painted upon his yellow face.
In regard to the house itself, Muir Torrington's words leapt to Carey's mind: "Imagine illustrations by Sidney Sime of some of the worst nightmares of Edgar Allan Poe." Such eccentricities could only be a pose. It was, as Torrington had said, "shop window." Nevertheless, it was so strangely different from anything he had seen, that Carey found himself nonplussed.
The pictures were palpably modern—ultra modern—but the furniture, whilst some of it appeared to be antique, belonged to no known period—to no recognized school. He had never seen such furniture. Indeed, there was nothing in the house of which one might have said, "Ah! a Greuze; this is Chippendale; this, a Persian carpet; here, a Chinese vase." Nothing in the place was definable, so that at first Carey found himself unable to analyze his impressions.
Strangeness was their keynote. Everything was bizarre, unusual, created an uncomfortable sense of unreality; so that he forced his mind to seek some solution; and, at last, the solution came.