The four of them went together to the bank, which was within a minute's walk. There, the necessary forms being quickly gone through, a sum of two thousand pounds was credited to Miss Patterson, power being given to Rodney Elmore to draw on her account for such sums as were needed for the proper conduct of the business, it being tacitly understood that he would draw only such sums as were needed for the business. That matter being settled, they separated; Mr. Andrews and Mr. Parmiter going their own ways, Miss Patterson and Mr. Elmore departing together in a cab to lunch. The cab had not gone very far before the young gentleman made a discovery.
"I've left my letter-case on the table in the bank?"
"Your letter-case? Did you? What a nuisance; I never noticed it. Are you sure it was on the table?"
"Quite; I remember distinctly; it was under a blotting-pad. What an idiot I am! I'm frightfully sorry, but I'm afraid I shall have to go back and get it."
"Of course, we will go back."
The cab returned to the bank. The lady remained inside; the gentleman passed through the great swing doors--through first one pair, then a second--it was impossible to see from the street what was taking place beyond. Once in the bank, the young gentleman said nothing about his letter-case--it had apparently passed from his memory altogether; but he presented at the counter a cheque for a thousand pounds, with his own signature attached. He took it in tens and fives, and a hundred pounds in gold. If the paying clerk thought it was rather an odd way of taking so large a sum, he made no comment. He came back through the swing doors with a letter-case held in his hand.
"I've got it," he explained.
He emphatically had, though she understood one thing and he meant another. When they had gone some little distance in the direction of lunch she observed:
"I wish I were not in mourning. I've half a mind to go back and change."
He observed her critically--he was holding one of her hands under cover of the apron.
"My dear Gladys, I can't admit that you do look your best in mourning."
"Do you think that I don't know that?"
"But you look charming, all the same."
"No, I don't; I look a perfect fright."
"I doubt if you could look a fright even if you tried; I'm certain you don't look one now. In fact, the more I look at you the harder I find it to keep from kissing you."
"I dare say! You'd better not."
"That's a truth of which I'm unpleasantly aware. Still, if you did look like anything distantly resembling a fright, I shouldn't have that feeling so strong upon me, should I?"
"You're not to talk like that in a hansom!"
"I'm merely explaining. I suggest that if you do feel like changing, you should lunch first, and change afterwards."
"You're coming back with me to Russell Square?"
"Rather!"
"I won't wear mourning--people may say and think what they choose--I declare I won't. Did you ever see anything like that letter?"
"It was by way of being a curiosity."
"But, Rodney, he said you were--he said you were all sorts of things! What did he mean?"
"Your father was one of those not uncommon men who always use much stronger language than the occasion requires--it was a habit of his. For instance, when, in spite of his very positive commands, I showed an inclination to continue your acquaintance, he as good as told me I was a murderer--he said that it was his positive conviction that for the sake of a five-pound note I'd murder you."
"Did he really?"
"He did. And I dare say that when you showed no desire to cut me dead, he said one or two nice things to you."
"Oh, he did--several. He made out that I was everything that was bad."
"There you are--that's the kind of man he was."
"But didn't he say something about a policeman--and giving you in charge?"
"I am sure that he would have given me in charge to twenty policemen if he could, and that nothing would have pleased him better than to have had me sent to penal servitude for life."
"What I can't make out is--why did he dislike you so?"
"My dear, I'm afraid the explanation is simple--too simple. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I've a notion--a very strong one--that he didn't like you. He regarded you as a nuisance; you know how he kept you in the background as long as he could; you interfered with the sort of life he liked to live; you were in his way."
"He certainly never at any period of his life or mine, showed himself over-anxious for my company."
"When you did become installed in town, he had formed his own plans for your future. What precisely was the arrangement between them I don't pretend to know; but I dare say I shall find out before long--it won't need much to induce Wilkes to give himself away; but I am persuaded that it was his intention that you should become Mrs. Stephen Wilkes."
"But what makes you think so? It seems to me so monstrous. Fancy me as Mrs. Stephen Wilkes!"
"Thank you, I'd rather not. It's only a case of intuition, I admit, but I'm convinced I'm right, and one day I may be able to give you chapter and verse. He was not over-fond of me to begin with, but when you appeared on the scene, and he saw that his best laid plans bade fair to gang agley, he suddenly began to develop a feeling towards me which ended as it has done. It's not a pretty one, but there's my explanation. But, sweetheart, that page is ended; let's turn it over and never look back at it; and all the rest of the volume--let's try our best to make it happy reading."
They ate a fair lunch, considering, and enjoyed it, and afterwards returned together in a taximeter cab to Russell Square, feeling more tenderly disposed to each other, and at peace with all the world. When Miss Patterson had ate and drunk well she was apt to discover a turn for languorous sentiment which appealed to Mr. Elmore very forcibly indeed. Since, therefore, it was probably their intention to spend an amorous afternoon, the shock was all the greater when, on their arrival at No. 90, they were greeted in the hall by a tall upstanding, broad-shouldered, soldierly-looking man in whom Gladys recognised the officer of police who had brought her the news of her father's tragic fate.
"Inspector Harlow," she exclaimed. "What--what are you doing here?"
It was perhaps only natural that, drawing away from the policeman towards her lover, she should slip her hands through his arm as if she looked to him for protection from some suddenly threatening danger. Rodney pressed his arm closer to his side, as if to assure her she would find shelter there; though, as she uttered the visitor's name, he glanced towards him with a look which, as it were, with difficulty became an odd little smile. The visitor's manner, when he spoke, suggested mystery.
"Can I say half a dozen words with you, Miss Patterson, in private?"
She led the way to the first room to which they came, which chanced to be the dining-room, she entering first, then Rodney, the inspector last. When he was in he shut the door and stood up against it.
"I said, Miss Patterson, in private."
The inspector had an eye on Rodney.
"We are in private; you can say anything you wish to say before this gentleman. This is Mr. Elmore, to whom I am shortly to be married."
"Mr. Elmore?"
As the officer echoed the name the two men's glances met. In the inspector's eyes there was an expression of eager curiosity, as if he were taken by surprise; Rodney's quick perceptions told him that while his name, and probably more than his name, was known to the other, for some cause he was the last person he had expected to see; the man was studying him with an interest which he did not attempt to conceal. The young man, on his side, was regarding the inspector as if he found him amusing.
"Well, inspector, when you have quite finished staring at Mr. Elmore, perhaps you will tell me what it is you have to say."
The girl's candid allusion to the peculiarity which it seemed she had noticed in his manner had the effect of bringing the officer back to a consciousness of what he was doing.
"Was I staring? I beg Mr. Elmore's pardon--and yours, Miss Patterson. I was only thinking that, under the circumstances, it is a fortunate accident that Mr. Elmore should be present."
"You have omitted to state what are the circumstances to which you allude."
"I will proceed to supply that omission at once, Miss Patterson. You will probably think that they are strange ones; and, indeed, they are; but you will, of course, understand that I am only here in pursuance of my duty. I have come in consequence of a letter which I received this morning. I will read it to you."
He took an envelope from a fat pocket-book.
"It bears no address, and is not dated; but the envelope shows that it was posted last night at Beckenham.
"'To Inspector Harlow."'Sir,--Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide; he was murdered."'If you can make it convenient to be at Mr. Graham Patterson's late residence, No. 90, Russell Square, to-morrow, Wednesday, afternoon at 3.30, I will be there also, and will point out to you the murderer."'Your obedient servant,"'Philip Walter Augustus Parker.'"
"'To Inspector Harlow.
"'Sir,--Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide; he was murdered.
"'If you can make it convenient to be at Mr. Graham Patterson's late residence, No. 90, Russell Square, to-morrow, Wednesday, afternoon at 3.30, I will be there also, and will point out to you the murderer.
"'Your obedient servant,
"'Philip Walter Augustus Parker.'"
Silence followed when the inspector ceased to read. The officer was engaged in folding the letter and returning it to its envelope; Gladys looked as if she were too startled to give ready utterance to her feelings in words. Rodney was possibly trying to associate someone of whom he had heard with the name of Parker--and failing. His memory did not often play him tricks; he was pretty sure that no one of that name was known to him. The inspector was the first to speak.
"You will, of course, perceive, Miss Patterson, that the probabilities are that this letter is a hoax; the signature, Philip Walter Augustus Parker, in itself suggests a hoax. Then there is the absence of an address. And, of course, we have the verdict of the coroner's jury, and the evidence on which it was found. I am quite prepared to learn that I have come to Russell Square, and troubled you with my presence, for nothing. But at the same time, in my position, I did not feel justified in not coming, on the very off-chance of making the acquaintance of Philip Walter Augustus Parker. It is now on the stroke of half-past three; we will give him a few minutes' grace, after which--if, as I expect will be the case, there are still no signs of him--I'll take myself off, with apologies, Miss Patterson. But should he by any strange chance put in an appearance, I would ask you to have him at once shown in here."
Hardly had the inspector done speaking than there was the sound of an electric bell and a rat-tat-tat at the front door. The trio in the dining-room could scarcely have seemed more startled had they been suddenly confronted by a ghost. The inspector's voice sank to a whisper.
"If the name's Parker, would you mind asking the servant--in here?"
A gesture supplied the words he had omitted in his sentence. He held the door open so that Gladys could speak to the maid who was coming along the hall. She did so, also in lowered tones.
"If that's a person of the name of Parker show him at once in here."
She withdrew; the inspector shut the door; there was a pause; no one spoke; each of the three stood and listened. They could hear the front door opened and steps coming along the hall. Then the dining-room door was opened by a maid, who announced:
"Mr. Parker."
There entered the little man who had followed the example set by Rodney of getting out of the train in Redhill Tunnel.
The moment he appeared Rodney knew that he had been expecting him; that somewhere at the back of his mind there had been a feeling that it was he who was coming. His impulse was to take him by the throat and crush the life out of him before he had a chance of saying a word; which was the impulse of a badly frightened man. But he seldom lost his presence of mind for long; and, on that occasion, he had it again almost as soon as it had gone; indeed, within the same second he was smiling at himself for having allowed himself to be disposed towards such crass folly.
So far as Rodney was able to judge the little man was clad just as he had been on Sunday evening--in the same shabby tweed suit, the old unbrushed boots, with the same suggestion about him that he might easily have been improved by a more intimate acquaintance with soap and water. He had his hat in one hand, and with the other he rubbed his scrubby chin. No one could have seemed more at his ease. Without offering any sort of greeting he immediately proceeded to address the inspector, while the maid was still closing the door, in that thin, unmusical, penetrating voice which Rodney had so much disliked.
"So you are there, Harlow, are you? I wondered if you'd have sense enough to come."
He rounded off his sentence with the snigger which had so jarred on the young man's sensitive nerves, and which affected Gladys so unpleasantly that, with what seemed to be a start of repulsion, she moved closer to her lover's side. The stranger noted the movement, and commented on it--again with the uncomfortable snigger.
"That's right; get as close as you can; he'll keep you safe; anyone will be safe who gets close enough to him. You're Miss Patterson; I could tell you anywhere by your likeness to your father. You're not the kind of girl I care about, any more than he was the kind of man. Who's the youngster? Now, there is someone worth looking at; why, he's as handsome as paint, and of quite unusual force of character for so young a man. Miss Patterson, the girl who gets him for a lover will have a lover of a kind of which she has no notion. He's a most remarkable young man."
With a view, perhaps, of checking the stranger's volubility, the inspector administered what was possibly meant for a rebuke.
"If you would confine yourself to the business which has brought you here, sir, it would be as well. Are you Mr. Parker?"
"I am; Philip Walter Augustus Parker--a lot of name for a man of my size."
"You sent me a letter last night from Beckenham?"
"I did."
"Stating that Mr. Graham Patterson did not commit suicide."
"Exactly."
"But was murdered?"
"He was."
"You went on to say that if I were here this afternoon you would point out to me the murderer."
"I will."
"Point him out."
"I am."
"I thought so."
"I knew you did. I saw on your intelligent visage that you knew what was coming. You have some experience of cranks who accuse themselves of crimes of which they are innocent; you take it for granted that I am one of them, which shows what a dunce you are. I am a lunatic. That's right, Harlow, smile again. I knew that would tickle you. A policeman's sense of humour is his own."
"It is necessary, Mr. Parker, that I should warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used against you."
"Quite right, Harlow; take it down; but as for using it against me, that's absurd. The law does not punish lunatics; whatever they may do it holds them guiltless. I'm an example of the inadequacy of the law to protect the public from what I may describe as the lunatic at large. It is not sufficiently recognised that there is an order of dementia which may at any time develop into homicidal mania, and that, therefore, a lunatic, unless he is kept in safe keeping, may kill, with impunity, whom he pleases--as I have done. I have killed Graham Patterson; yet no one may venture to kill me. My life is more sacred than that of a sane man in the eyes of the law."
The inspector looked at the girl significantly.
"I think, Miss Patterson, that I had better deal with Mr. Parker alone."
"And, Miss Patterson, I think not. What I am about to say will be found of interest not only by you, but also by--that extraordinary young man. Harlow, your duty is to take down what I am about to say in writing; don't exceed it. Shut the door. Miss Patterson will stay where she is."
The inspector looked at the lady, as if for instructions. As she gave no sign, beyond drawing a little closer to her lover, he shut the door, which he had opened a few inches. Mr. Parker beamed at him with a grotesque little air of triumph.
"There, Harlow--you see! Now attend to me. Suppose, before I go any further, we all sit down; my tale may take some minutes; I don't want anyone to get tired of standing. You won't? Very good--then stand. There are plenty of chairs, and very comfortable some of them seem; but, of course, I don't propose to force you to occupy them if you would rather not. Now--attention! To begin at the beginning."
Again he indulged in the uncomfortable sort of laughter which, more than anything else, revealed the disorder of the creature's mind.
"On Sunday evening I bolted from my keeper, one Metcalf, in whose charge I have been for six or seven months, and of whom I was tired to extinction--an unclubable fellow who never talks unless he has something to say. I left Brighton station on the 9.10 train. Until the train started I was the sole occupant of a first-class carriage, at which I was not displeased. I had some idea of committing suicide myself. Life, I assure you, has little to offer me. I am just sane enough to know that I never shall be saner. There's a wall--a wall which I shall never climb, and which shuts me out--from I don't know what. If I were left alone--I so seldom am; they won't leave me alone!--here would be an excellent opportunity to consider the best way out of it. You may fancy, then, what my feelings were when, just as the train was starting, another passenger entered--bundled in by an extremely officious porter. He would never have caught the train if it hadn't been for the porter--in which case he would have been still alive--so that one may say, logically, the porter killed him. The fellow certainly ought to be punished."
He waved his hat with a gesture which was possibly intended to represent the execution of the porter in question.
"The man who had entered my compartment, Miss Patterson, was your father--in every respect a most objectionable person, combining in himself nearly everything that I most object to--bloated, overfed, nearly drunk, horrible to contemplate. He sat there perspiring, puffing, panting, gasping for breath; I half expected he would have a fit. But, instead of having a fit, before the train had gone very far he was asleep, fast asleep. Could any conduct have been more disgusting?--drunken sleep! With a man of my stamp at the other end of the carriage, could anything have been more insulting? And he snored--such snores! I declare to you he made more noise than the train did; if that extraordinary young man had been in the next compartment he'd have heard him. And his jaw dropped open--it was that gave me the idea. Who is it says that trifles light as air lead to I don't know what? It was that trifle which led to my killing your father, Miss Patterson."
Again the cackling giggle, which made the girl try to draw still nearer to her lover, as if the thing were possible.
"Some time before I had come into possession of quite a quantity of potassium cyanide; I won't say how--I had. The artfulness of lunatics is proverbial, and I'm as artful as any of them; on that point I refer you to Metcalf, as well as to others who have had me in their charge, both in asylums and out of them--they'll tell you! It was in the form of tabloids, looking just like sweeties, in a nice little silver box; enough to kill a street. I had meant to use it to kill myself, but at the sight of that dreadful man, with his bulging mouth, I thought--why not use it to kill him? Pop one into his mouth, and the trick was done! I moved inch by inch and foot by foot along the seat towards his end of the carriage; he still snored on, paying no attention of any sort to me; he was a horrid, vulgar man. At last I was right in front of him; I might have been ten miles away for all he knew. How he snored, and how his jaws did gape! I had the silver box in one hand and a tabloid between the finger and thumb of the other, and I leaned forward and popped it into his open mouth."
Mr. Parker illustrated his words by his gestures, with the air of one who was telling an amusing tale.
"Oh, what a change came over him! You should have seen it! He snored the tabloid right down his throat, and he gave a great gasp and was dead. He had not even waked; I am sure that he never knew I was on the seat in front of him, or that I was in the carriage at all. There was his huge carcase bolt upright in front of me, and I knew that he would never snore any more. It made me feel quite odd; it was all so sudden and so funny. I daresay it would have made that extraordinary young man feel odd, eh?"
He looked up at Rodney with a leer which made his mean, wrinkled face all at once seem bestial. But he never faltered in his story, which he told with a sniggering relish which lent it a quality of horror which no display of dramatic, conscience-stricken intensity could possibly have done.
"My idea had been to tell the porters all about it the first time the train stopped; it would have been funny to see the fuss they'd have made; I shouldn't have cared. But it so happened that the signal was against us, and the train stopped in the middle of Redhill tunnel."
The inspector allowed no hint to escape him of what he knew or did not know. He kept his eyes fastened on the little man, as if his wish were not so much to follow his actual words, but to see something which might be behind them.
"When it stopped I had another idea, quite as brilliant as the first. Why should I go through the nuisance of a trial for murder? With a little management, if this objectionable person were found in a carriage by himself, it might be taken for granted that he had committed suicide, which would be too funny. So I put the silver box open in his fingers, slipped out of the carriage into the tunnel--in the darkness no one saw me--waited for the train to go, then walked after it, out of the tunnel, up the banks, across the fields to Redhill Station; had a drink or two, which I was in want of; went on by the 10.40, until at Croydon I was joined by Metcalf, who had got there first. For the rest of the tale refer to him."
Continuing, Mr. Parker seemed to address his remarks particularly to Rodney:
"You never would have thought that it could be so easy to kill a man, and have it brought in as suicide, would you? When I read the report of the inquest in the papers, I was amazed to find how easy it really was. Then it occurred to me that as, of course, he had been murdered--I knew that--why shouldn't I communicate with the police, after all? No harm would come to me; lunatics are protected by the law. It would be different if he had been murdered by--you; you would quite certainly be hung. I shall go to Broadmoor. I have rather a fancy for Broadmoor. I am told that they are all of them lunatics there; I should like to see. At any rate, they have all of them done something; no lunatic I've met ever did anything worth doing. They must be interesting people. But certain credentials are necessary for Broadmoor, and now I think I've earned them. If the part I've played in this little affair of Graham Patterson doesn't qualify me for Broadmoor, then I should very much like to know what would. Eh, young man, eh?"
Inspector Harlow having gone, with Mr. Parker as close companion, the lovers being again alone together, it was pretty plain that they were conscious that, since entering the house, the situation had materially changed. Rodney, try how he might, could not erase from his mind, so quickly as he wished, the impression that he had been assisting at some hideous nightmare. He had supposed, at the sight of the little man, that his accuser had come into the room. His nerves were strained in the expectation that every moment the charge would be made. Even as the instants passed, and he began to see the drift of the tale which the man was telling, inventing it as he went on, he had a feeling that he was only playing with him as a cat does with a mouse, and that, just when it seemed least likely, he would right-about-face and, perhaps with that diabolical snigger of his, place the onus of the guilt on him. Now that the fellow had actually gone, a self-accused prisoner in the inspector's charge, the feeling that he was still taking part in some fantastic drama seemed stronger than ever.
Gladys, on her side, when at last she broke the curious silence, which prevailed longer than either of them supposed after they had been left together, quickly showed that she was obsessed by a mood in which he did not know her, in which, as it were, she had slipped out of his reach.
"Rodney, do you think that what that man said is true?"
"He seemed to give chapter and verse for most of it."
"But if it's true--dad didn't take his own life!"
"If it's true."
"But don't you see what a difference that makes?"
"Of course it makes a difference; but in what sense do you mean?"
"In every sense--every sense! Do you think--that while he's being buried--I should be here--if I had known that he was murdered? He was my father."
"In any case he was that."
"Not in any case, not in any case! I may have got him all wrong! I may have misjudged! I may--I don't know what I mayn't have done. There's the letter!"
"What letter?"
"To Mr. Wilkes. You said, when he wrote it, he was mad, and that taking his own life proved it. I thought so. But, if he didn't take his own life, what then?" Rodney made an effort to regain his self-possession, and partially succeeded.
"My dear Gladys, the whole business is a bad one, whichever way you look at it. We are to be married on Monday."
"Monday? Married--to you?"
The knowledge of women on which he was apt to pride himself ought to have warned him that this was not the same girl as the one with whom he had come back from lunch in the cab. But at the moment he was not yet quite himself; his perception was at fault. He made a mistake.
"My dear Gladys, you are perfectly well aware that the arrangement, as it stands at present, is that we are to be married on Monday. I was merely about to suggest that, as it would seem that this whole unfortunate affair is likely to prove too much, we should be married to-morrow instead, and then we shall be able to get out of this unpleasant atmosphere at the earliest possible moment."
"Stop! stop!"
She shouted at rather than spoke to him.
"Perhaps I shall not be married to you at all."
He stared at her in genuine amazement.
"Gladys! What are you talking about? What do you mean?"
"I don't know what I mean; I almost hope I never may know."
"My dear child; that wretched man."
"Have you ever seen him before?"
"Seen whom?"
"You know quite well. That--wretched man."
"So far as I'm aware, never in my life. What makes you ask such a question?"
"Are you sure? Do you swear it?"
"How can a man swear to a thing like that? But I do swear that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I have never seen him before."
"Then how came it that he knew you so well?"
"Knew me so well? Gladys! What are you dreaming about? Why, he never even addressed me by name."
"No, I noticed that; but he addressed you all the same. Most of what he said was especially addressed to you, as if he knew that you would understand."
"What are you driving at?"
"What's more, he saw that I was afraid of you."
"Afraid? You? Why, you could hardly have snuggled closer."
"That was because I was afraid to let you know how afraid of you I was."
"Gladys! Has that creature turned your brain?"
"I--I don't know. Oh, if I could only say a few words to dad--if I only could!"
"What would they be?"
"I would--ask him--how--he died."
"You have two stories offered for your choice. Are you content with neither?"
"Rodney, if my father were standing here now, and his spirit may be, would you tell me, in his presence, that you don't know why he disliked you?"
"Are you going into that all over again? To what end?"
"What does that man know of you? What does he know?"
"How can I tell what a half-witted man knows of me, or thinks he knows? Certainly he knows nothing to my discredit."
"Rodney--don't."
"Don't what?"
"You know! You do know! I can see in your eyes you know! Please go!"
"Sweetheart!"
"Don't--speak to me--like that--now. Go!"
"You surely are not in earnest. You cannot wish me to leave you before this extraordinary misunderstanding which has so inexplicably sprung up is cleared away. Tell me what is in your mind--frankly, all! I quite understand how this wretched man, Parker, may have turned your thoughts into unexpected currents and filled you with miserable doubts. I assure you he has upset me more than I care to tell you."
"I know that he upset you! I felt you were upset when I was so close to you. I can see it now."
If for the moment he was disconcerted--and the lady's manner was disconcerting--he slurred it over with creditable skill.
"Come, Gladys; let's try to get back to where we were--to perfect understanding. Tell me your doubts, no matter how insoluble they may seem to you. I promise you I'll solve them."
"I'm sure you will; I feel you could solve anything, but I am afraid of your solution."
Before he had an inkling of her intention she had passed rapidly across the floor and from the room.
"Gladys!" he exclaimed.
But it was too late; she had gone. He stood staring at the door through which she had vanished, irresolute. Should he follow her, possibly to her bedroom, and entreat her for a hearing? For once in his life he had been taken wholly unawares; he had not suspected that this Gladys was in the Gladys he had known. Often a man lives to a ripe old age, ignorant how many women are contained in the one woman he knows best. Then, as if unwittingly, his fingers strayed to the pocket in which were the proceeds of the cheque he had cashed while Gladys, without in the cab, had supposed him to have gone into the bank for his letter-case. Apparently the touch decided him; often a little thing brought him to an instant decision. Without making any further effort to gain the lady's ear, he buttoned his coat across his chest, took his hat and stick from off the table, and quietly left the house.
That evening Rodney Elmore was at a dinner given at a famous restaurant in honour of his engagement to Stella Austin, quite a different sort of meal from that at which he had assisted at the Misses Claughton's house in Kensington. If in his manner there was an unusual touch of nervousness, it was not unbecoming; the bride that was to be was not entirely herself. He met her as, with her father and mother, she entered the hall. She said to him, as he fell in by her side:
"I did hope, Rodney, that you would have come to fetch me."
"My dear, it's only by the skin of my teeth that I've got here myself! Do you think that I wouldn't have come if I could?"
She said nothing in reply, but as she passed towards the ladies' cloak-room there was a look on her face which almost suggested tears. Her mother's manner, as she greeted him, was not too genial:
"So you are here? Well, I suppose that's something!"
Mr. Austin, as he deposited his hat and coat with the attendant, seemed very much in the same key.
"We should have been here some minutes ago, only Stella would have it you were coming to fetch her; we should have been waiting for you still if she had had her way. How was it you didn't come? She's quite disappointed; rather a pity that the evening should have begun with a misunderstanding of that sort."
Rodney drew the gentleman aside.
"I take it, Mr. Austin, that you haven't heard the news?"
"To what news do you refer?"
"It is now stated that my uncle did not commit suicide, but was murdered."
"But I thought the coroner's jury had returned a verdict of suicide."
"That is so; but this afternoon a man named Parker gave himself up to the police, on his own confession, as having murdered my uncle. You will understand that I--I have had rather a trying day."
"On his confession? Is the man a lunatic?"
"That's just it; he is, yet it seems only too likely that--he did what he says he did."
"But how came he to make his confession in your presence? Do you know the man?"
"Not I; he's an entire stranger to me; but I'll tell you all about it later. I don't want you to say anything to the ladies or anyone; I only mention it to you because I want you to understand how it is that I am not in such--such good fettle as I might be for an occasion of this kind; and also because I want you, if needs be, to help me with Stella."
"My dear boy, of course I will. It is only natural that, at a time like this, a girl should think that there's nothing of much consequence except her own affairs; but I'll stand by you, never fear. I rather wish that the whole thing had been postponed, but Stella wouldn't hear of it. There's Tom not at all himself; he wanted Mary Carmichael to come, and Stella wanted her to come, in fact, we all wanted her to come, but she hasn't. I've been told nothing, but I can see there's some trouble there. Altogether the evening doesn't look as if it were going to be quite such a merry one as I had hoped it would have been; however, we must make the best of it. Cheer up, lad; put your troubles behind you for this night only."
That was a prescription which at any rate the prescriber's son did not seem at all disposed to follow, as Rodney quickly learnt when Tom appeared a little tardily. Tom's naturally good-humoured face wore an expression of unwonted gloom, and there was that in his air and general bearing which accorded ill with a time of feasting and making merry.
"You know, old chap, I oughtn't to be here, I really didn't. I shall queer the whole show. Unless I drink too much, and put my spirits up that way, I shall give everyone the hump; and when I start on that lay I'm apt to get my spirits up a bit too much, so I don't know that that will have a good effect either."
Rodney laughed as he put his hand on the speaker's shoulder.
"Why, Tom, what's wrong?"
"I don't know what's wrong, but something's wrong. I do know that. When the governor told me about this kick-up to-night, I wrote to Mary and told her all about it, and asked her to come up, and so on, and said I'd run down to Brighton this morning to bring her up, and told her the train I'd come by, and asked her to meet me at the station. She didn't meet me at the station--that was shock number one; and then when I got to the house, if you please, the servant didn't want to let me in--she wanted to make me believe that Mary was out. I wasn't taking that; I would go in, and I saw her old aunt--she's an old dear, she is. After a while, and she'd told no end of them, she owned up that Mary was in all the time she'd been telling them. She was up in her bedroom, and had given word that if I called she wouldn't see me. You might have bowled me over with an old cork."
"The lady wasn't well."
"Her health was all right; the old girl owned as much. She said Mary was perfectly well, but beyond that she wouldn't say anything; and she made out that she couldn't; and she wouldn't send a message up, or a note, or anything. She said that she knew her niece well enough to be sure that that would be no use. But when she saw that I was set, she said that if I chose I might go up and try my luck. So, if you please, up I went, and rapped at her bedroom door."
"Summoned her to surrender, quite in the good old style; and she did?"
"Not much she didn't. I spoke to her through the bedroom door, I called out to her, I as nearly as possible howled; I daresay I rapped as many as twenty times--I know I made my knuckles sore But she took not the slightest notice, not a sound came from the other side; she might have been stone deaf or dead. In fact, I wanted to tell her that I felt sure that something dreadful had happened, and that if she wouldn't speak I should have to break down the door to see what was wrong. But the old girl wouldn't have it. She said that she had had enough of that folly, and when I talked about camping out on the door-mat she marched me off downstairs, feeling all mops and brooms, and all over the place. Then it came out that when I was at the front door she had told the old girl that she wouldn't see me, and nothing would make her see me, and had rushed up to her bedroom and locked herself in. So I came back from Brighton all alone, and the wonder is I didn't start to drink and keep on at it; only I had a sort of feeling that if I began by being squiffy when I got here things wouldn't be so very much brighter; besides, there's always time to start that sort of thing if you are set on it."
"My dear old chap, you've done something to upset the lady's apple-cart; you'll have a letter telling you all about it in the morning."
"I hope so, but I doubt it; I might have known I was feeling too much bucked up. You know she never said exactly yes; she sort of let me take it for granted, and perhaps I took it a little too much for granted; I feel that perhaps that's how it is. But if she's off with me, I'm done--clean. She could make a man of me, even the kind of article the governor thinks a man; but no one else could. If she won't have me, I shall emigrate, that's what I shall do; I shall go to one of those cheery spots where you get knocked out by blackwater fever, or sleeping sickness, or something nice of that sort, three months after you've landed."
Notice being given that dinner was ready, Rodney led Stella into the private room in which it was to be served cheerfully enough, bestowing on her admiring glances and whispering what he meant to be sweet things into her pretty ear as they went.
"My hat! that's a duck of a frock you're arrayed in; you do look scrumptious."
"I'm glad you think so."
The maid's manner was a trifle prim; she plainly wished him to understand that she was still a little out with him. He smiled at her.
"I don't know what you're laughing at."
"Would you rather I cried?"
"I'm afraid poor Tom feels like crying. Isn't it strange Mary not coming, and sending no message, or anything--nothing to explain? Have you heard how she treated Tom?"
They had reached the dinner-table, and were settling themselves in their places.
"Stella, be so good as to understand, once for all, that there's only one subject to-night, and that's you. All other subjects are tabooed. Are you quite comfortable? Don't put your chair too far off; so that, if you feel like it, you can put your baby foot out towards mine and with your wee slipper crush my favourite corn."
"Rodney, I'm glad you are going to talk to me at last, though I don't suppose you have thought of me once all day."
"Shall I tell you what I've been looking for ever since I came?"
"I expect for somewhere to smoke."
"I've been looking for--say, a curtained nook, where I can have you alone for about five minutes, and have a few of those kisses of which I have been dreaming this livelong day."
"If you had come and fetched me you might have had one kiss--in the cab."
"I'll have one kiss when I take you back--one!"
"Oh, you are going to take me back?"
"I am; and I'm going to eat you on the way; then you'll understand what you escaped by my not fetching you."
"You're not to talk like that; people will hear you."
"Let 'em. Fancy if you'd arrived here with that lovely frock all crumpled--two in a cab! People would have wondered what you had been doing."
"Rodney, if you will talk like that I shall crush your favourite corn."
"Crush it!"
"Please pass me the salt."
Whether, while he passed her the salt, she did crush it, there was nothing to show.
The feast passed off better than, at one time, it had promised to do. There were about twenty people present. Mr. Austin had whipped up, at a moment's notice, various relations, and also certain persons who were intimately connected with the firm of which he was head; he desired to introduce to them not only his future son-in-law, but also the probable partner in his business. Most of these people were very willing to be entertained, simple souls, easily pleased, and the dinner was a good one. Even Tom, who found himself next to a girl with mischievous eyes and a saucy tongue, was inclined to shed some of his melancholy before the menu was half-way through.
"I never did meet a girl who says such things as you do," he told her, with a frankness which was perhaps meant for laudation. "You are quite too altogether."
"You see," she said, with her eyes fixed demurely on her plate, "it doesn't matter what one does say to some people, does it?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Of course some people don't count, do they?"
"By that I suppose you mean that I'm a----"
She did not wait for him to finish.
"Oh, not at all."
She looked at him with innocence in her glance, which was too perfect to be real.
"How many times have you been ploughed?"
"Who's been telling you tales about me?"
"I was only thinking that it doesn't matter if one hasn't brains so long as one has looks, and you have got those, haven't you?"
Tom's face, as the minx said this, in a voice which was just loud enough to reach his ears, would have made a good photographic study. Beyond a doubt he was in a fair way to lose some of his sadness, at least for the time.
When the cloth had been removed the giver of the feast, getting on to his feet, made the usual half jovial, half sentimental references to the occasion which had brought them together; and, in wishing the young couple well, made special allusion to the fact that he was not only welcoming a son, but also a colleague. The toast he ended by proposing could not have been better received. Then, while the young maiden sat blushing, the young man stood up, and, in a brief yet deft little speech, told how happy they all had made him, how the hopes which he had cherished for years had at last been realised, how dear those hopes had been to him, how unworthy he was of all the good gifts which had descended on him. But of this they might be sure, that if he had health and strength--and at present he was very well and pretty strong, thanking them very much--he would do his very best in the years to come to prove that he could at least appreciate those things which Providence had bestowed on him. The young man sat down on quite a pathetic note, and the girl by his side pressed his hand and looked as if this were indeed one of those moments of which she had dreamed.
Then there were other speeches and all sorts of kind things were said, which, at such times, one takes it for granted should be said. The young man was made much of, and the maiden, if possible, even more. And when the feast was really ended, and all the good wishes had been wished again and again, and there came the time of parting, even Mr. Austin was obliged to confess to himself that everything could scarcely have gone off better. His wife was radiant, some of the shadows had gone from Tom's face; apparently the young lady with the mischievous eyes had in some subtle way, the secret of which she only possessed, acted the part of the sun in dispelling the clouds; Stella could not by any possibility have looked happier or Rodney prouder. Tom, it is believed, saw the young lady with the mischievous eyes home in one cab, and it is certain that Rodney was with Stella in another. What took place during that journey in the cab between the restaurant and Kensington it is not perhaps easy to determine precisely, but beyond a doubt Rodney had that one kiss which had been spoken of, and probably others; for when the house in Kensington was reached, and the young lady ran up the steps to the front door, she was in a state of the most delightful agitation. And in the house there was the final parting, which occupied a considerable time, for they had to say to each other the things which they had already said more than once, and which Rodney at least could say so well and to which the girl so loved to listen.
"I think that, after all, to-night has made up for to-day. Do you know, Rodney," and she looked up into his face with something shining in her pretty eyes, "that to-day I have had the most curious fancies? I was actually frightened; I don't know at what, but I do know that somehow it was because of you. Wasn't it silly?"
"I am not sure that it's ever silly for you to be frightened because of me; I'm in the most delicious terror all day, and sometimes all night, because of you; but you are a goose."
Then he held her perhaps a little closer, and whispered:
"It has been something of a night, hasn't it? For the first time in my life I feel as if I were a person of some importance. You couldn't have your betrothal feast again to-morrow, could you?"
She smiled.
"I doubt it; but we might have a silver betrothal feast as well as a silver wedding. Hasn't that sort of thing ever been done?"
He laughed at the conceit, and when the parting really did come she was looking forward as through a dim mist, towards that silver time at which he had hinted; and when she went upstairs she prayed that after five-and-twenty years of married life she might be as happy as she was then. And all night she slept sweetly, dreaming the happiest dreams of all that took place during the passage of the years, through which she walked with the husband whom she loved so dearly, ever heart in heart and hand in hand. That night was to her a halcyon time.