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Updated: June 21, 2025
He stopped, gazing literally open-mouthed at Hugesson Gastrell, while I, standing staring at the man, wondered if this were some curious dream from which I should presently awaken, for there could be no two questions about it the man before me was the Gastrell I had met in Geneva and conversed with on one or two occasions for quite a long time.
The voice had a most pleasant timbre; also the speaker was obviously a lady. She did not sound in the least alarmed, but there was a note of surprise in the tone. "Has Mr. Gastrell come home yet?" Osborne asked. "Not yet. Do you want to see him?" "Yes. He dined at Brooks's Club this evening with Lord Easterton.
Only a day or two before we had discussed the advisability of informing Easterton of what was taking place nightly in the house in Cumberland Place which he had leased to Hugesson Gastrell, but we had come to the conclusion that no good end would be served by telling him, for were any complaint to be made to Gastrell he would of course declare that the people who gambled in the house were personal friends of his whom he had every right to invite there to play.
"She is staying here," I said, "staying with Mrs. Stapleton." "With Mrs. who?" "Mrs. Stapleton." "You have mistaken the house. There's nobody of that name here." "Well, Mr. Gastrell, then," I said irritably. "Ask Mr. Gastrell if I can see him." "I tell you, sir, you've come to the wrong house," the maid said sharply. "Then who does live here?" I exclaimed, beginning to lose my temper.
"I beg your pardon," Wollaston stammered, "I had no idea I know you by name, of course, but I have not before, I believe, had the pleasure of meeting you. It was Hughie Gastrell, whom I expect you know, who told me he had seen you in Lady Fitzgraham's compartment on the way to Newhaven.
Some years passed before the transaction was completed, and then the poet planted an orchard which contained a famous mulberry tree, that flourished for more than a hundred and fifty years, and was cut down by the Rev. Francis Gastrell, whose name and memory are anathema to lovers of Shakespeare.
"Absolutely nothing," I answered, thinking of the locket as I looked straight into her eyes. Never before had I realized how cleverly I could lie. It was close on midnight when we all assembled in the hall preparatory to leaving those of us who were leaving. Hugesson Gastrell had left long before, in fact immediately after dinner, as he had, he said, an important appointment in London.
Only two points puzzled me. Neither Jasmine Gastrell nor Connie Stapleton, nor, indeed, anybody else, could by any possibility have known that Preston, Jack, and I contemplated calling at the house in Willow Road that evening. How came it, then, that everything had been so skilfully arranged with a view to disarming our suspicions when we did call?
Some moments after the train had started again, he lowered it, and I saw his face. At once he raised his eyebrows in recognition; then, extending his hand, greeted me most cordially. I was face to face again with Hugesson Gastrell!
That a human life should have been sacrificed was terrible to think of, and yet The reflection that, but for the sacrifice of Gastrell's life, I should myself have been lying dead, set my mind at ease; and after all, I said mentally, the death of a man like Gastrell must do more good than harm.
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