Behind the Bronze Door

ÒIsnÕt what terrible?Ñand where is what going end?Ó

ÒWhy! HavenÕt you read to-nightÕs paper?Ó

ÒNo.Ó

ÒHere it is; read that!Ó and handing her husband the Evening Herald Mrs. Hartsilver indicated with her finger a paragraph in the ÒstoppressÓ headed: ÒAnother Society Tragedy,Ó and stated that a well-known baronet had been found shot in his bedroom in circumstances of great mystery.

Certainly the series of tragedies which had taken place during the past eight months in what is called ÒSociety,Ó had been most puzzling.

First, Lord Hope-Cooper, the fifth peer, held in high esteem by all his friends and acquaintances, owner of Cowrie Park in Perthshire, Leveden Hall in Warwickshire, and one of the finest houses in Grosvenor Square, had drowned himself in the beautiful lake at Cowrie, apparently for no reason and without leaving even a note of farewell for Lady Hope-Cooper, with whom he was known to be on the best of termsÑthey had been married eight years.

Then Viscount Molesley, a rich bachelor of three-and-twenty, an owner of thoroughbreds and well-known about town and in sporting circles, had been found shot in his bedroom one morning, an automatic pistol on the floor beside him, and in the grate the ashes of some burnt papers; apparently he had shot himself after receiving his morning letters.

Following close upon these tragedies had come the sudden death of the Honorable Vera Froissart, Lord FroissartÕs younger daughter, in mysterious circumstances. She had been found dead in the drawing-room in her fatherÕs house in Queen AnneÕs Gate, and at the inquest the jury had returned a verdict of Òdeath due apparently to shock.Ó Then the death of a rather notorious ex-Society woman, Madame Leonora Vandervelt, who had been divorced by three husbandsÑshe had thrown herself out of a fourth-floor window at a fashionable West End hotel. Then the death by poisoning of an extremely prosperous stockbroker of middle-age, owner of two financial journals. And after that four or five more tragedies of the same nature, the victim in nearly every case being a man or woman of high social standing and large income.

ÒExactly the way Molesley made away with himself,Ó Henry Hartsilver observed dryly as he laid down the paper after reading the report of the discovery of Sir Stephen LethbridgeÕs body in his bedroom at Abbey Hall in Cumberland.