Portman Square

Ah, here we are.

The first purchase for two pounds from Mr. Julian Emery, 52 Portman Square.

Write this address down, Alfred.

Yes, sir.

When would it suit you?

No time like the present.

Good! My place is just round in Portman Square.

Shall we? Yes, right.

Tommy went off at eleven from Victoria.

and my work was pretty well ruined for the day i felt oddly restless and the cause was not merely tommy's departure my thoughts kept turning to the pitt herons chiefly to ethel that adorable child unequally yoked to a perverse egoist but a good deal to the egoist himself i have never suffered much from whimsies but i suddenly began to feel a curious interest in the business an unwilling interest for i found it in my heart to regret my robust scepticism of the night before and it was more than interest i had a sort of presentiment that i was going to be mixed up in the affair more than i wanted i told myself angrily that the life of an industrious common-law barrister could have little to do with the wanderings of two maniacs in muscovy but try as i might i could not get rid of the obsession that night it followed me into my dreams and i saw myself with a knout coercing tommy and pitt heron in a russian fortress which faded away into the carlton hotel next afternoon i found my steps wending in the direction of portman square i lived at the time in down street and i told myself i would be none the worse of a walk in the park before dinner i had a fancy to see mrs pitt heron for though i had only met her twice since her marriage there had been a day when we were the closest of friends i found her alone a perplexed and saddened lady with imploring eyes those eyes questioned me as to how much i knew i told her presently that i had seen tommy and was aware of his errand i was moved to add that she might count on me if there were anything she wished done on this side of the channel she was very little changed there was still the old exquisite slimness the old shy courtesy but she told me nothing charles was full of business and becoming very forgetful she was sure the russian journey was all a stupid mistake he probably thought he had told her of his departure he would write she expected a letter by every post but her haggard eyes belied her optimism i could see that there had been odd happenings of late in the pitt heron household she either knew or feared something the latter i thought for her air was more of apprehension than of painful enlightenment I did not stay long, and as I walked home I had an awkward feeling that I had intruded.

Also, I was increasingly certain that there was trouble brewing, and that Tommy had more warrant for his journey than I had given him credit for.

I cast my mind back to gather recollections of Pit Heron, but all I could find was an impression of a brilliant, uncomfortable being who had been too fond of the byways of life from my sober tastes.

Whitsuntide that year came very late, and I was glad of the fortnight's rest, for Parliament and the law courts had given me a busy time.

I had recently acquired a car and a chauffeur called Stagg, and I looked forward to trying it in a tour in the West Country.

But before I left London, I went again to Portman Square.

i found ethel pitt heron in grave distress you must remember that tommy and i had always gone on the hypothesis that charles's departure had been in pursuance of some mad scheme of his own which might get him into trouble we thought that he had become mixed up with highly undesirable friends and was probably embarking in some venture which might not be criminal but was certain to be foolish i had long rejected the idea of blackmail and convinced myself that lumley and pavia were his colleagues the same general notion i fancy had been in his wife's mind but now she had found something which altered the case she had ransacked his papers in the hope of finding a clue to the affair which had taken him abroad but there was nothing but business letters notes of investments and such like he seemed to have burned most of his papers in the queer laboratory at the back of the house but stuffed into the pocket of a blotter on a bureau in the drawing-room where he scarcely ever wrote she had found a document it seemed to be the rough draft of a letter and it was addressed to her i give it as it was written the blank spaces were left blank in the manuscript you must have thought me mad or worse to treat you as i have done but there was a terrible reason which some day i hope to tell you all about i want you as soon as you get this to make ready to come out to me at you will travel by blank and arrive at blank i enclose a letter which i want you to hand in deepest confidence to knowles a solicitor he will make all arrangements about your journey and about sending me the supplies of money i want darling you must leave as secretly as i did and tell nobody anything not even that i am alive that least of all i would not frighten you for worlds but i am on the edge of a horrible danger which i hope with god's help and yours to escape that was all obviously the draft of a letter which he intended to post to her from some foreign place but can you conceive a missive more calculated to shatter a woman's nerves it filled me i am bound to say with heavy disquiet pitt heron was no coward and he was not the man to make too much of a risk yet it was clear that he had fled that day in may under the pressure of some mortal fear the affair in my eyes began to look very bad ethel wanted me to go to scotland yard but i dissuaded her i had the utmost esteem for scotland yard but i shrank from publicity at this stage there might be something in the case too delicate for the police to handle and i thought it better to wait i reflected a great deal about the pitt heron business the first day or two of my trip but the air and the swift motion helped me to forget it we had a fortnight of superb weather and sailed all day through a glistening green country under the hazy blue heavens of june soon i fell into the blissful state of physical and mental ease which such a life induces hard toil such as deer-stalking keeps the nerves on the alert and the mind active but swimming all day in a smooth car through a heavenly landscape mesmerises brain and body we ran up the thames valley explored the cotswolds and turned south through somerset till we reached the fringes of exmoor I stayed a day or two at a little inn high up in the moor, and spent the time tramping the endless ridges of hill, or scrambling in the arbutus thickets where the moor falls and steeps to the sea.

Shall I order the carriage for your ladyship? Will you listen to me and remember what I have said? Yes, my lady.

James ran downstairs, opened the door, bowed as Lady Dyke passed into Portman Square, and then confidentially informed Buttons that the missus was in a rare old wax about something.

She nearly jumped down my blooming throat when I asked her if she would have a carriage, he said.

Her ladyship's mood did not soften when she drifted from the fixed tenor of Wensley House, Portman Square, into the chaos of Oxford Street and fog at five-thirty on a November evening.

Though not a true London particular, the fog was chilly, exasperating, tedious.

People bumped against each other without apology.

Come, I will help you.

Let us reach your house.

Leslie Castle, March 20th.

We arrived here, my sweet friend, about a fortnight ago, and I already heartily repent that I ever left our charming house in Portman Square for such a dismal old weather-beaten castle as this.

You can form no idea sufficiently hideous of its dungeon-like form.

It is actually perched upon a rock to appearance so totally inaccessible that I expected to have been pulled up by a rope and sincerely repented having gratified my curiosity to behold my daughters at the expense of being obliged to enter their prison in so dangerous and ridiculous a manner.

It is very odd that two pretty women, though actually mother and daughter, cannot be in the same house without falling out about their faces.

Do be convinced that you are both perfectly handsome, and say no more of the matter.

I suppose this letter must be directed to Portman Square, where probably, great as is your affection for Leslie Castle, you will not be sorry to find yourself.

In spite of all that people may say about green fields and the country, I was always of opinion that London and its amusements must be very agreeable for a while, and should be very happy could my mother's income allow her to jockey us into its public places during winter.