Portrait of a Man with Red Hair: A Romantic Macabre

by Hugh Walpole

I

With an instinctive movement both Harkness and Dunbar closed in upon Hesther.

The three stood just in front of the heavy locked door facing the dim hall. On the bottom stair was Crispin Senior, and on the floor below him, one on either side, the two Japanese servants.

A glittering candelabrum, hanging high up, was fully lit, but it seemed to give a very feeble illumination, as though the fog had penetrated here also.

Crispin was wearing white silk pyjamas, brown leather slippers, and a dressing-gown of a rich bronze-coloured silk flowered with gold buds and leaves. His eyes were half-closed, as though the light, dim though it was, was too strong for him. His face wore a look of petulant rather childish melancholy. The two servants were statues indeed, no sign of life proceeding from them. There was, however, very little movement anywhere, the flags moving in the draught the chief.

Hesther's face was white, and her breath came in little sharp pants, but she held her body rigid. Harkness after that first cry was silent, but Dunbar stepped forward shouting:

"You damned hound—you let us go or you shall have this place about your ears!" The hall echoed the words which, to tell the truth, sounded very empty and theatrical. They were made to sound the more so by the quietness of Crispin's reply.

"There is no need," he said, "for all those words, Mr. Dunbar. It is your own fault that you interfered and must pay for your interference. I warned you weeks ago not to annoy me. Unfortunately you wouldn't take advice. You have annoyed me—sadly, and must suffer the consequences."

"If you touch a hair of her head——-" Dunbar burst out.

"As to my daughter-in-law," Crispin said, stepping down on to the floor, and suddenly smiling, "I can assure you that she is in the best possible hands. She knows that herself, I'm sure. What induced you, Hesther," he said, addressing her directly, "to climb out of your window like the heroine of a cinematograph and career about on the seashore with these two gentlemen is best known only to yourself. At least you saw the error of your ways and are in time, after all, to go abroad with us to-day."

He advanced a step towards them. "And you, Mr. Harkness, don't you think that you have rather violated the decencies of hospitality? I think you will admit that I showed you nothing but courtesy as host. I invited you to dinner, then to my house, showed you my few poor things, and how have you repaid me? Is this the famous American courtesy? And may I ask while we are on the question, what business this was of yours?"

"It was anybody's business," said Harkness firmly, "to rescue a helpless girl from such a house as this."

"Indeed?" asked Crispin, "And what is the matter with this house?"

Here Hesther broke in: "Look back two nights ago," she cried, "and ask yourself then what is the matter with this house and whether it is a place for a woman to remain in."

"For myself," said Crispin. "I think it is a very nice house, and I am quite sorry that we are leaving it to-day. That is, some of us—not all," he added, softly.

"If you are going to murder us," Dunbar cried, "get done with it. We don't fear you, you know, whatever colour your hair may be. But whether you murder us or no I can tell you one thing, that your own time has come—not many more hours of liberty for you."

"All the more reason to make the most of those I have got," said Crispin. "Murder you? No. But you have fallen in very opportunely for the testing of certain theories of mine. I look forward to a very interesting hour or two. It is now just four o'clock. We leave this house at eight—or, at least, some of us do. I can promise all of us a very interesting four hours with no time for sleep at all. I have no doubt you are all tired, wandering about in the fog for so long must be fatiguing, but I don't see any of you sleeping—not for an hour or two, at least."

Hesther said then: "Mr. Crispin, I believe that I am chiefly concerned in this. If I promise to go quietly with you abroad I hope that you will free these two gentlemen. I give you that promise and I shall keep it."

"No, no," Dunbar cried, springing forward. "You shan't go with him anywhere, Hesther, by heaven you shan't. Not while there's any breath in my body——"

"And when there isn't any breath in your body, Mr. Dunbar," said Crispin, "what then?"

"A very good line for an Adelphi melodrama, Mr. Crispin," said Harkness, "but it seems to me that we've stayed here talking long enough. I warn you that I am an American citizen, and I am not to be kept here against my will——"

"Aren't you indeed, Mr. Harkness?" said Crispin. "Well, that's a line of Adelphi drama, if you like. How many times in a secret service play has the hero declared that he's an American citizen? Which only goes to show, I suppose, how near real life is to the theatre—or rather how much more theatrical real life is than the theatre can ever hope to be. But you're all right, Mr. Harkness—I won't forget that you're an American citizen. You shall have special privileges. That I promise you."

Dunbar then did a foolish thing. He made a dash for the farther end of the hall. What he had in mind no one knows—in all probability to find a window, hurl himself through it and escape to give the alarm. But the alarm to whom? That was, as far as things had yet gone, the foolishness of their position. A policeman arriving at the house would find nothing out of order, only that there two gentlemen had broken in, barbarously, at a midnight hour to abscond with the married lady of the family.

Dunbar's effort was foolish in any case; its issue was that, in a moment of time, without noise or a word spoken, the two Japanese servants had him held, one hand on either arm. He looked stupid enough, there in the middle of the hall, his eyes dim with tears of rage, his body straining ineffectively against that apparently light and casual hold.

But it was strange to perceive how that movement of Dunbar's had altered all the situation. Before that the three were at least the semblance of visitors demanding of their host that they should be allowed to go; now they were prisoners and knew it. Although Hesther and Harkness were still untouched they were as conscious as was Dunbar of a sudden helplessness—and of a new fear.

Harkness watched Crispin who had walked forward and now stood only a pace or two from Dunbar. Harkness saw that his excitement was almost uncontrollable. His legs, set widely apart, were quivering, his nostrils panting, his eyes quite closed so that he seemed a blind man scenting out his enemy.

"You miserable fellow," he said—and his voice was scarcely more than a whisper. "You fool—to think that you could interfere. I told you . . . I warned you . . . and now am I not justified? Yes—a thousand times. Within the next hour you shall know what pain is, and I shall watch you realise it."

Then his body trembled with a sort of passionate rhythm as though he were swaying to the run of some murmured tune. With his eyes closed and the shivering it was like the performance of some devotional rite. At least Dunbar showed no fear.

"You can do what you damn well please," he shouted. "I'm not afraid of you, mad though you are."

"Mad? Mad?" said Crispin, suddenly opening his eyes. "That depends. Yes, that depends. Is a man mad who acts at last when given a perfectly just and honourable opportunity for a pleasure from which he has restrained himself because the opportunity hitherto was not honourable? And madness? A matter of taste, my friends, decides that. I like olives—you do not. Are you therefore mad? Surely not. Be broad-minded, my friend. You have much to learn and but little time in which to learn it."

Harkness perceived that the man was savouring every moment of this situation. His anticipations of what was to come were so ardent that the present scene was coloured deep with them. He looked from one to another, tasting them, and his plans for them on his tongue. His madness—for never before had his eyes, his hands, his whole attitude of body more highly proclaimed him mad—had in it all the preoccupation with some secret life that leads to such a climax. For months, for years, grains of insanity, like coins in a miser's hoard, had been heaping up to make this grand total. And now that the moment was come he was afraid to touch the hoard lest it should melt under his fingers.

He approached Harkness.

"Mr. Harkness," he said quite gently, "believe me I am sorry to see this. You took me in last evening, you did indeed. I felt that you had a real interest in the beautiful things of art, and we had that in common. All the time you were nothing but a dirty spy—a mean and dirty spy. What right had you to interfere in the private life of a private gentleman who, twenty-four hours ago, was quite unknown to you, simply on the word of a crazy braggart boy? Have you so little to do that you must be poking your fingers into every one else's business? I liked you, Mr. Harkness. As I told you quite honestly last evening I don't know where I have met a stranger to whom I took more warmly. But you have disappointed me. You have only yourself to thank for this—only yourself to thank."

Harkness replied firmly. "Mr. Crispin, I had every right to act as I have done, and I only wish to God that it had been successful. It is true that when I came down to Cornwall yesterday I had no knowledge of you or your affairs, but, in the Treliss hotel, quite inadvertently, I overheard a conversation that showed me quite plainly that it was some one's place to interfere. What I have seen of you since that time, if you will forgive the personality, has only strengthened my conviction that interference—immediate and drastic—was most urgently necessary.

"Thanks to the fog we have failed. For Dunbar and myself we are for the moment in your power. Do what you like with us, but at least have some pity on this child here who has done you no wrong."

"Very fine, very fine," said Crispin. "Mr. Harkness, you have a style—an excellent style—and I congratulate you on having lost almost completely your American accent—a relief for all of us. But come, come, this has lasted long enough. I would point out to you two gentlemen that, as one of you has already discovered, any sort of resistance is quite useless. We will go upstairs. One of my servants first—you two gentlemen next, my other servant following, then my daughter-in-law and myself. Please, gentlemen."

He said something in a foreign tongue. One Japanese started upstairs, Harkness and Dunbar followed. There was nothing else at that moment to be done. Only at the top of the stairs Dunbar turned and cried: "Buck up, Hesther. It will be all right." And she cried back in a voice marvellously clear and brave: "I'm not frightened, David; don't worry."

Harkness had a momentary impulse to turn, dash down the stairs again and run for the window as Dunbar had done; but as though he knew his thought the Japanese behind him laid his hand on his arm; the thin fingers pressed like steel. At the upper floor Dunbar was led one way, himself another. One Japanese, his hand still on his arm, opened a door and bowed. Harkness entered. The door closed. He found himself in total obscurity.