The house of evil

“Hugh, old man, you’re growing as close as an oyster. This is twice this week you have dined out, leaving me solitary, and refused to tell me what you are up to. I wonder what it is you have got up your sleeve?”

Two young men were strolling down the lovely Promenade des Anglais at Nice. The elder, the Honourable Hugh Craig, was twenty-seven; Leonard Lydon, his companion, about six months younger.

They had been fast friends at Harrow, where Craig had risen to be the Head of the School, and afterwards at Balliol, and the friendship had continued after they left Oxford till the present time.

Craig, the youngest son of Viscount Clandon, was a member of an old aristocratic family which, for generations, had been closely connected with the government of the country. Several of the heads of it had sat in the Cabinets of their day and generation; other members had filled high civil and military posts in England and its Dependencies. Hugh himself was in the diplomatic service, and was enjoying a brief holiday with his friend on the lovely Côte d’Azur.

Leonard Lydon was of humbler stock than his aristocratic companion. His father, a wealthy Liverpool merchant, had risen from small beginnings. He had laid the foundations of his fortune very early in his career, so that he was able to give his numerous family the advantage of a liberal education. Each of his five sons was sent to a public school, and subsequently either to Cambridge or Oxford.

The Liverpool merchant had died a couple of years ago, leaving behind him a handsome fortune, half of which was left to his widow for life, the other half divided between the five sons and four daughters.

The two elder sons inherited the business, as well as their share of the private fortune. As there were nine persons to divide the half of the total amount, nobody received a very huge sum, but enough to bring in a comfortable income.

After taking his degree at Oxford, Leonard had become deeply interested in wireless research, and had studied until he became a full-blown radio engineer, a profession which he followed in the Admiralty during the later years of the War. After peace he joined an American Wireless Communication Company which had a branch in England. At the time this story opens, he had been appointed this Company’s chief engineer and designer. As he was in receipt of a handsome salary, his financial position was a very comfortable one.

His friend, Hugh Craig, was not so well off as himself. His family, though very ancient, was poor for its position. He was still in the lower grades of the diplomatic service, and his private income was a small one. But the Clandon influence would later on be sure to secure for him a snug post. He was, however, better off than a good many members of impoverished families, as he had been left a moderate legacy of a few thousands by a near relative.

When his friend rallied him upon his secretive mien, Hugh gave one of his disarming and diplomatic smiles.

“I expect you’ll learn all about it in good time, my dear fellow. You know I was always rather a reticent sort of chap, fond of making a mystery of small things.”

Lydon laughed. “That’s one of the truest things you have ever said, Hugh, and nobody who didn’t know you thoroughly, like myself, would ever guess it. On the surface, you give the impression of being one of the frankest men living. That appearance of yours will be one of the greatest assets to you in your career. How easily it will enable you to hoodwink people when you want to!”

Hugh Craig smiled in his turn. “From all I can learn this peculiar characteristic has run in the Clandon family for generations. I suppose that is why so many of us have taken so readily to statecraft and diplomacy.”

That evening, Leonard Lydon dined by himself at the Hôtel Royal, as he had done a couple of nights ago. During the progress of his solitary meal, he speculated a good deal upon the cause of his friend’s absence. Of an ordinary man, the man whose type he had met in scores, he would have said there was undoubtedly a woman at the bottom of it.

But Hugh Craig, good-looking, self-possessed and débonnaire, with that smiling, charming manner, was by no means an ordinary man. Even as a boy he had been a complex character, and the transition to manhood had deepened the complexity.

Intimately associated as they had been all these years, Lydon was forced to confess that he knew very little of the inner personality of his friend, the part which he hid so successfully from the world under that smiling, débonnaire mask.

Did he care greatly about women? Did he care at all about them? For the life of him, Leonard could not give a definite answer to that question. As was natural on the part of such young men, they had often lightly discussed the other sex together. But out of these conversations nothing of a hidden vein of romance had been revealed by Craig. His comments might have been those of a rather cynical philosopher of twice his age.

Only once had he made any remark bearing directly upon himself, which might be taken to represent his well-considered opinions on the subject, and on this occasion he had spoken with more gravity than was his wont when the conversation touched upon the themes of love and marriage.

“No man who intends to make a career for himself should ever commit the folly of falling in love,” he had said. “Because the chances are ten to one that he will fall in love with the wrong person. Marry for sound, sensible reasons perhaps. Even then I think I should postpone the step as long as possible, so far as I am individually concerned.”

Lydon, whose temperament was rather of the romantic kind, looked the surprise he felt.

“But surely you will marry some day, Hugh? Not too early perhaps, but when you have got a comfortable post?”

The answer came very deliberately. “It might be an absolute necessity of the position. But putting that on one side, I feel no great yearning for the married state. If I were the eldest son, it would be necessary for me to provide an heir; but the Clandons are so prolific, they are not likely to die out for want of representatives.”

On the whole, Lydon would have said, from these and other remarks dropped by the calm, smiling young diplomatist, that Hugh Craig was very little attracted by women, and the last man in the world to be capable of a grand passion.

But he was not at all sure. During the long term of their friendship, Hugh had so often surprised him by sudden revelations of a side of his character totally unsurmised, that he could not reckon upon him with any degree of certainty.

It was just on the cards that he had suddenly met a woman who had the power to stir his languid pulses. And Lydon had always suspected that, deep down under that placid exterior, there was something volcanic slumbering which would one day burst into flame. If Hugh ever did love, it was more than probable he would love with an unreasoning ardour.

If there was a woman, who was she? Where had they met? The two young men had been so much together during their stay at Nice, that opportunity did not seem to have offered itself very abundantly. And one thing was quite certain. If Hugh had a serious love affair, nobody would be told about it till the very last moment. Secretiveness about his personal concerns was the keynote of his character.

Having finished his dinner, Lydon went into the lounge. He had not been there long when the Stormont family came in. It consisted of Howard Stormont, a stout, rubicund, clean-shaven man of about fifty, who bore his years gaily; his niece, Gloria, a pretty, blue-eyed, fair-haired girl with a slender, graceful figure, and his widowed sister, Mrs. Maud Barnard, a woman who dressed in a rather extravagant style.

They had struck up a slight acquaintance with the two young men, chiefly with Lydon, who was a very cosmopolitan fellow. Craig had not taken greatly to the party, being a person of very fastidious taste. When he talked them over with his friend, he admitted that Gloria was a remarkably pretty girl, “would have been quite worth cultivating if she had possessed different relatives.” The rubicund Howard Stormont he declared to be an aggressive type of profiteer, and Mrs. Barnard he evidently considered to be an unrefined, over-dressed woman.

Lydon did not take this severe view of the uncle and aunt. Mrs. Barnard was a trifle flamboyant in dress perhaps, but she was also exceedingly amiable and good-natured. Stormont’s manners were possibly too hearty for perfect refinement, but he was a genial, cheery fellow, and full of a shrewd wit.

As for Gloria, Leonard though he had never come across a more charming girl. In the few chats they had enjoyed together when Craig happened to be absent, she had told him a good deal about herself. Her parents lived in China, where her father held a high position in one of the European banks. As the climate did not suit her, she had made her home with her uncle, the rubicund Howard Stormont and his widowed sister, at Effington in Surrey.

He also learned that, like many modern young women, she was an athletic girl, passionately fond of all outdoor games and sports. As he was no mean athlete himself, he admired her the more for this fact, which rather surprised him, as her appearance did not suggest any particular robustness, but rather the reverse.

Presently Mr. Stormont went away to write some letters, and soon after Mrs. Barnard followed him. The young people were left alone.

“What has become of your friend, Mr. Craig?” the girl asked him. “This is the second time this week he has left you to dine in solitary state. I feel quite sorry for you.”

She had a very sweet, musical voice. In fact Lydon thought everything about her was dainty and refined, far above the average.

The young man smiled. “Yes, Craig has been very mysterious the last few days. He goes off on his own, and he won’t tell me a word about it. He parries all hints with his usual diplomatic ability and sang-froid. You can’t ruffle him, you know.”

“I should say it would be quite impossible,” was Miss Stormont’s answer. “You are very great friends, are you not? I have often wondered why.”

“What is it that causes you to wonder?” asked Leonard.

Miss Stormont blushed a little at being called upon to explain her rather unguarded remark.

“You seem such exact opposites. You are perfectly open, impulsive, not to say impetuous. If asked for your opinion, you blurt it out at once, sometimes without very deep thought, if you will forgive me for saying so, as I have often known you to alter or modify it as you go along. Mr. Craig is so different. Behind that smiling urbanity is an intense reserve, a profound caution. Somehow, if you ask him a straightforward question, his answer is so fenced about with subtleties that you don’t feel satisfied.”

Lydon laughed heartily. The girl was very frank, even to the point of indiscretion. But she had certainly judged his friend pretty shrewdly. Even those who loved him and admired his very considerable gifts were forced to admit that there was a good deal of the Jesuit about this young descendant of diplomatic ancestors.