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Mrs. Fitz

J. C. Snaith




  Produced by Al Haines

  Dramatis Personae]

  [Frontispiece: Assassination of the King of Illyria]

  MRS. FITZ

  BY

  J. C. SNAITH

  HODDER & STOUGHTON'S

  SEVENPENNY LIBRARY

  HODDER AND STOUGHTON

  LONDON -- NEW YORK -- TORONTO

  1912

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  ACCORDING TO REUTER

  CHAPTER II

  TRIBULATIONS OF A M.F.H.

  CHAPTER III

  THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION

  CHAPTER IV

  THE MIDDLE COURSE

  CHAPTER V

  ABOUNDS IN SENSATION

  CHAPTER VI

  EXPERT OPINION

  CHAPTER VII

  COVERDALE'S REPORT

  CHAPTER VIII

  PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN

  CHAPTER IX

  ON THE EVE

  CHAPTER X

  ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

  CHAPTER XI

  THE ORDERS FOR THE DAY

  CHAPTER XII

  THE MAN OF DESTINY

  CHAPTER XIII

  FURTHER PASSAGES AT NO. 300 PORTLAND PLACE

  CHAPTER XIV

  A DEPLORABLE INCIDENT

  CHAPTER XV

  AN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE

  CHAPTER XVI

  HORSE AND HOUND

  CHAPTER XVII

  A GLARE IN THE SKY

  CHAPTER XVIII

  MRS. ARBUTHNOT BEGINS TO TAKE NOTICE

  CHAPTER XIX

  HER ROYAL HIGHNESS RECEIVES A LETTER

  CHAPTER XX

  A LITTLE DIPLOMACY

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE EXPECTED GUEST

  CHAPTER XXII

  A VISIT TO BRYANSTON SQUARE

  CHAPTER XXIII

  PROVIDES AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE THEORY THAT THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM

  CHAPTER XXIV

  HIS ILLYRIAN MAJESTY FERDINAND THE TWELFTH

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE

  CHAPTER XXVI

  A WALK IN THE GARDEN

  CHAPTER XXVII

  PROVIDES A LITTLE FEMININE DIVERSION

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  THE WRITING ON THE WALL

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE CAST OF THE DIE

  CHAPTER XXX

  REACTION

  CHAPTER XXXI

  NEWS FROM ILLYRIA

  CHAPTER XXXII

  MORE ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  IN THE BALANCE

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  THE CREATURES OF PERRAULT

  CHAPTER I

  ACCORDING TO REUTER

  "It is snowing," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

  "Worse luck!" growled I from behind my newspaper. "This unspeakableclimate! Why can't we sack the Clerk of the Weather?"

  "Because he is a permanent official," said Joseph Jocelyn De VereVane-Anstruther, who was coming into the room. "And those are thepeople who run the benighted country."

  Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther was in rather smart kit. It wasDecember the First, and the hounds--there is only one pack in theUnited Kingdom--were about to pay an annual visit to the country of aneighbour. With conscious magnificence my relation by marriage took abee-line to the sideboard. He paused a moment to debate to which oftwo imperative duties he should give the precedence: i.e. to make hisdaily report upon the personal appearance of his host, or to find outwhat there was to eat. The state of the elements enabled Mother Nature"to get a cinch" on an honourable aestheticism. Jodey began to forageslowly but resolutely among the dish covers.

  "Kedgeree! Twice in a fortnight. Look here, Mops, it won't do."

  Mrs. Arbuthnot was perusing that journal which for the modest sum ofone halfpenny purveys the glamour of history with only five per cent.of its responsibilities. She merely turned over a page. Her brother,having heaped enough kedgeree upon his plate to make a meal for theaverage person, peppered and salted it on a scale equally liberal andthen suggested coffee.

  "Tea is better for the digestion," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with hernatural air of simple authority.

  "I know," said Jodey, "that is why I prefer the other stuff."

  "Men are so reasonable!"

  "Do you mind 'andin' the sugar?"

  "Sugar will make you a welter and ruin your appearance."

  A cardinal axiom of my friend Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, nee Ogbourne,late of Brownville, Mass., is "Horse-sense always tells." Among thedaughters of men I know none whose endowment of this felicitous qualitycan equal that of the amiable participator in my expenditure. It toldin this case.

  "Better give me tea."

  "Without sugar?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with great charm of manner.

  "A small lump," said Jodey as a concession to his force of character.

  The young fellow stirred his tea with so much diligence that the smalllump really seemed like a large one. And then, with a gravity that wassomewhat sinister, he fixed his gaze on my coat and leathers.

  "By a local artist of the name of Jobson," said I, humbly. "The secondshop on the right as you enter Middleham High Street."

  "They speak for themselves."

  "My father went there," said I. "My grandfather also. In mygrandfather's day I believe the name of the firm was Wiseman andGrundy."

  "It's not fair to 'ounds. If I was Brasset I should take 'em 'ome."

  "If you were Brasset," I countered, "that would hardly be necessary.They would find their way home by themselves."

  "Mops is to blame. She has been brought up properly."

  "It comes to this, my friend. We can't both wear the breeches. Herscost a pretty penny from those thieves in Regent Street."

  "Maddox Street," said a bland voice from the recesses of the _DailyCourier_.

  "Those bandits in Maddox Street," said I, with pathos. "But for all Iknow it might be those sharks in the Mile End Road. I am a babe inthese things."

  "No, my dear Odo," said the young fellow, making his point somewhatelaborately, "in those things you are a perisher. An absoluteperisher. I'm ashamed to be seen 'untin' the same fox with you. Ishould be ashamed to be found dead in the same ditch. I hate peoplewho are not serious about clothes. It's so shallow."

  My relation by marriage produced an extremely vivid yellow silkhandkerchief, and pensively flicked a speck of invisible dust off animmaculate buckskin.

  "My God, those tops!"

  "By a local draughtsman," said I, "of the name of Bussey. He iscareful in the measurements and takes a drawing of the foot."

  "'Orrible. You look like a Cossack at the Hippodrome."

  "The Madam patronises an establishment in Bond Street. One is given tounderstand that various royalties follow her example."

  "They make for the King of Illyria," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

  "That is interesting," said I, in response to a quizzical glance fromthe breakfast table. "The fact is, my amiable coadjutor in the thingsof this life has a decided weakness for royalty. She denies itvehemently and betrays it shamelessly on every possible occasion."

  "Very interestin' indeed," said her brother.

  In the next moment a cry of surprise floated out of the depths of thehalfpenny newspaper.

  "What a coincidence!" exclaimed Mrs. Arbuthnot. "There has been anattempt on the life of the King of Illyria. They have thrown a bombinto his palace and killed the brother of the Prime Minister."

  "In the interests of the shareholders of the _Daily Courier_," said I.

  "Be serious, Odo," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "To think of that dear oldking being in danger!"

  "Yes, the dear old king," said Jodey.

  "I think
you are horrid, both of you," said Mrs. Arbuthnot with thespirit that made her an admired member of the Crackanthorpe Hunt."Those horrid Illyrians! They don't deserve to have a king. Theyought to be like France and America and Switzerland."

  "They will soon be in that unhappy position," said I, turning to pagefour of the _Times_ newspaper. "According to Reuter, it appears tohave been a _bona fide_ attempt. Count Cyszysc----"

  "You sneeze twice," suggested Jodey.

  "Count Cyszysc was blown to pieces on the threshold of the ZweisgartenPalace, the whole of the south-west front of which was wrecked."

  "The wretches!" said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "They are only fit to have arepublic. Such a dear old man, the ideal of what a king ought to be.Don't you remember him in the state procession riding next to theKaiser?"

  "The old Johnny with the white hair," said Jodey, reaching for themarmalade.

  "He looked every inch a king," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, "and Illyria is nota very large place either."

  "In a small and obscure country," I ventured to observe, "you have tolook every inch a king, else nobody will believe that you are one. Ina country as important as ours it doesn't matter if a king looks like acommercial traveller."

  "By the way," said Jodey, who had a polite horror of anything thatcould be construed as _lese majeste_, "where is Illyria?"

  "My dear fellow," said I, "don't you know where Illyria is?"

  "I'll bet you a pony that you don't either," said Jodey, striving, asyoung fellows will, to cover his ignorance by a display of effrontery.

  "Haven't you been to Blaenau? Don't you know the Sveltkes?--hoch!hoch!"

  "No; do you?" said the young fellow, brazenly.

  "They are the oldest reigning family in Europe," said Mrs. Arbuthnot,severely.

  "How do you know that, Mops?" said the sceptical youth.

  "It says so in the German 'Who's Who,'" said the Madam, sternly, "Ilooked them up on purpose."

  "My dear fellow," said I, "if you knew a little less about polo, and alittle less about hunting the fox, and a little more about geographyand foreign languages and the things that make for efficiency, youwould be _au courant_ with the kingdom of Illyria and its reigningfamily. Tell the young fellow where that romantic country is, oldlady."

  "First you go to Paris," said the Madam, with admirable lucidity. "Andthen, I'm not sure, but I think you come to Vienna, and then I believeyou cut across and you come to Illyria. And then you come to Blaenau,the capital, where the king lives, which is five hundred miles from St.Petersburg as the crow flies, because I've marked it on the map."

  "Well, if you've really marked it on the map," said I, "it is onlyreasonable to assume that the kingdom of Illyria is in a state ofbeing."

  "You are too absurd," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "The place is well knownand its king is famous."

  "I wonder if there is decent shootin' in Illyria," said Joseph JocelynDe Vere, with that air of tacit condescension which gained himadvancement throughout the English-speaking world. "One might try itfor a week to show one has no feelin' against it."

  "Where there is a king there is always decent shooting," I ventured toobserve.

  Mrs. Arbuthnot returned to her newspaper.

  "They want to form a republic in Illyria," she announced, "but the oldking is determined to thwart them."

  "A bit of a sportsman, evidently," said her brother. "But never mindIllyria. Give me some more coffee. We've got to be at the Cross Roadsby eleven."

  "No mortal use, I am afraid," said I. "The glass has gone right back.And look through the window."

  "Good old British climate! And on that side they've got one of thebest bits o' country in the shires, and Morton's covers are alwayschoke-full of foxes."

  In spite of his pessimism, however, my relation by marriage continuedto deal faithfully with the modest repast that had been offered him.Also he was fain to inquire of the mistress of the house whether_enough_ sandwiches had been cut and whether _both_ flasks had beenfilled; and from the nominal head of our modest establishment he soughtto learn what arrangements had been made for the second horsemen.

  "They will not be wanted to-day, I fear."

  "Pooh, a few flakes o' snow!"

  It was precisely at this moment that the toot of a motor horn washeard. A sixty-horse-power six-cylindered affair of the latest designwas seen to steal through the shrubbery _en route_ to the front door.

  "Why, wasn't that Brasset?"

  "His car certainly."

  "What does the blighter want?"

  "He has brought us the information that Morton has telephoned throughto say that there is a foot of snow on the wolds and that hounds hadbetter stay at the kennels."

  "Pooh," said Jodey, "he wouldn't have troubled to come himself. You'vegot a telephone, ain't you?"

  "Doubtless he also wishes to confer with Mrs. Arbuthnot upon the stateof things in Illyria. He is a very serious fellow with politicalambitions."

  Further I might have added--which, however, I did not--that the Masterof the Crackanthorpe was somewhat assiduous in his attitude ofrespectful attention towards my seductive co-participator in this valeof tears, who on her side was rather apt to pride herself upon anold-fashioned respect for the peerage. The prospect of a visit fromthe noble Master caused her to discard the affairs of the Illyrianmonarchy in favour of a subject even more pregnant with interest.

  "If it is Reggie Brasset," said she, renouncing the _Daily Courier_,"he has come about Mrs. Fitz."

  "Get out!" said the scornful Jodey. "You people down here have gotMrs. Fitz on the brain."

  Out of the mouths of babes! It was perfectly true that, in our ownlittle corner of the world, people _had_ got Mrs. Fitz on the brain.