The House of Whispers
By William Le Queux
Indeed, his life was sad and lonely. Within the last fifteen years, great wealth had come to him, but he could not enjoy it. Until eleven years ago, he had been a prominent figure in politics and society in London. He had sat in the House for one of the divisions of Hampshire and was a member of the Carlton. One year later, he found his name among the Birthday Honours with a K.C.M.G. For him, everybody predicted a bright future.
The press emphasized his speeches, and Cabinet Ministers and most of the well-known men of his party came to his house in Park Street. Indeed, it was an open secret in a particular circle that he had been promised a seat in the Cabinet shortly. Then, a tragedy occurred at the very moment of his popularity. He was on the platform of the Albert Hall addressing a great meeting at which the Prime Minister was the principal speaker.
His speech was a brilliant one, and the applause had been loud. Full of satisfaction, he drove home that night to Park Street, but the report spread that his brilliant political career had ended the following day. He had suddenly been stricken by blindness. In political circles and the clubs, the greatest consternation was caused, and some strange gossip became rife. It was whispered in certain quarters that natural causes did not produce the affliction. It was a mystery and one that had never been solved. The first oculists of Europe had peered into and tested his eyes, but all to no purpose.
The sight had gone forever. Therefore, full of bitter regrets at being thus compelled to renounce the stress and storm of political life which he loved so well, Sir Henry Heyburn had gone into strict retirement at Glencardine, his beautiful old Perthshire home, visiting London but very seldom.
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William Le Queux
William Tufnell Le Queux ( 2 July 1864 – 13 October 1927) was an Anglo-French journalist and writer.
Biography.
He was also a diplomat (honorary consul for San Marino), a traveller (in Europe, the Balkans, and North Africa), a flying buff who officiated at the first British air meeting at Doncaster in 1909, and a wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his station long before radio was generally available; his claims regarding his abilities and exploits, however, were usually exaggerated.
His best-known works are the anti-French and anti-Russian invasion fantasy The Great War in England in 1897 (1894) and the anti-German invasion fantasy The Invasion of 1910 (1906), which became bestsellers. Le Queux was born in London. His father was a French draper’s assistant, and his mother was English. He was educated in Europe and studied art under Ignazio (or Ignace) Spiridon in Paris. As a young man, he carried out a foot tour of Europe before supporting himself by writing for French newspapers.
In the late 1880s, he returned to London, where he edited the magazines Gossip and Piccadilly before joining the staff of The Globe as a parliamentary reporter in 1891. In 1893, he abandoned journalism to concentrate on writing and travelling. His partial French ancestry did not prevent him from depicting France and the French as the villains in works of the 1890s, though later he assigned this role to Germany.
William Le Queux
