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Updated: June 21, 2025
It was Le Geyts first luncheon-party since his second marriage. Big-bearded, genial, he beamed round on us jubilant. He was proud of his wife and proud of his recent Q.C.-ship. The new Mrs. Le Geyt sat at the head of the table, handsome, capable, self-possessed; a vivid, vigorous woman and a model hostess. Though still quite young, she was large and commanding. Everybody was impressed by her.
Then this was not suicide! By the time he had pulled on his vest and drawers, I came out suddenly from my ambush and faced him. A fresh shock awaited me. I could hardly believe my eyes. It was NOT Le Geyt no, nor anything like him! Nevertheless, the man rose with a little cry and advanced, half crouching, towards me.
The silver glowed; the linen was marked with H. C. Le G. in a most artistic monogram. I noticed that the table decorations were extremely pretty. Somebody complimented our hostess upon them. Mrs. Le Geyt nodded and smiled "I arranged them. Dear Hugo, in his blundering way the big darling forgot to get me the orchids I had ordered.
In an agony of terror, in an access of despair, when all else fails, he strikes a bee-line for the hills he loves; rationally or irrationally, he seems to think he can hide there. Hugo Le Geyt, with his frank boyish nature, his great Devonian frame, is sure to have done so. I know his mood. He has made for the West Country!" "You are, right, Hilda," Mrs. Mallet exclaimed, with conviction.
Le Geyt would not speak of Clara; and when I asked him his intentions, he shook his head moodily. "I shall act for the best," he said "what of best is left to guard the dear children. It was a terrible price to pay for their redemption; but it was the only one possible, and, in a moment of wrath, I paid it. Now, I have to pay, in turn, myself. I do not shirk it."
Le Geyt, in a pretty cloth dress, neatly tailor-made, rose to meet us, beaming the vapid smile of the perfect hostess that impartial smile which falls, like the rain from Heaven, on good and bad indifferently. "SO charmed to see you again, Dr. Cumberledge!" she bubbled out, with a cheerful air she was always cheerful, mechanically cheerful, from a sense of duty.
"Only," I went on, assuming a confidential tone, "you really MUST tell me why you said that just now about Hugo Le Geyt. Recollect, your Delphian utterances have gravely astonished and disquieted me. Hugo is one of my oldest and dearest friends; and I want to know why you have formed this sudden bad opinion of him."
"Voted the Silver Medal of the Institution, and a copy of its vote of thanks on parchment, to Miss Alice R. Le Geyt, in admiration of her prompt and courageous conduct in rowing a small boat into the surf at the risk of her life, and rescuing two little boys who had fallen into the sea from the outer pier at Lyme Regis, Dorset, on the 4th August."
"Well his mother's father was General Faskally, you know," she replied, after a pause, in her strange, oblique manner. "Mr. Le Geyt is General Faskally's eldest grandson." "Exactly," I broke in, with a man's desire for solid fact in place of vague intuition. "But I fail to see quite what that has to do with it." "The General was killed in India during the Mutiny."
Zaid the Lord 'ould dezide. But ur 'ouldn't be warned, ur 'ouldn't; an' voolhardy volk, as the zayin' is, must go their own voolhardy waay to perdition!" It was the last I saw of Le Geyt alive. Next morning the lifeless body of "the man who was wanted for the Campden Hill mystery" was cast up by the waves on the shore of Lundy. The Lord had decided. Hugo had not miscalculated.
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