Chapter Sixteen.A Dangerous Case.“It’s all over,” said Chester to himself. “That doctor’s correct, and I must not trifle or I shall be laid by with something wrong in the head. That drugging began it, and I’m not right. I won’t give up the quest, but I must get square first, and I can’t do so here. I’ll pack up and go on the Continent for a bit. Change may make me able to think consistently. Now my brain is in a whirl.”He tried to reason calmly, and at last, not feeling in the humour to see and explain to his sister, he wrote to her briefly, telling her that the anxiety and worry of the case to which he had been called that night had completely unhinged him, and he found that the only thing he could do to recover his tone was to get right away for a time. He was going, he said, to see a colleague that morning, who would come and take charge of the practice, and he would write again from abroad.This done, he fastened down the envelope and left the letter upon the table, after which he went to his room, threw a few necessaries into a portmanteau, brought it down, with Aunt Grace carefully watching from the top of the staircase, and sent the servant for a cab.Five minutes later he was on his way to his club to consult the time-tables and guide-book as to the route to take.He was not long in deciding upon Tyrol as the starting-place for a long mountain tramp. There was a train at night, and without returning home he would dine at the club and start from there.He followed out the earlier portion of his programme, even to dining at the club, but afterwards, upon entering the smoking-room and taking a cigar, he found the place half full, and, longing for solitude, he went out to stroll down the steps and into the Park for an hour, ending by taking one of the seats under an old elm in the Mall and sitting back thinking of all that had happened during the past few weeks.He was once more going over the scenes by the wounded man’s couch, and seeing again the every movement and look of his anxious sister, when he shrank back against the trunk of the great tree and let his chin sink upon his breast, for there were steps just to the right, and two gentlemen strolled by, one of them talking aloud angrily, and the following words smote like blows upon the listener’s ears—“Look here, if you want to quarrel, say so, Paddy. But you’re no saint, so don’t you begin preaching morality. I repeat I have taken a tremendous fancy to her; what then? As for Rob, curse him for a miserable prig! If it were not for the consequences I’m ready to wish that the shot had ended it, and I swear I’ll—”The last words died out into the night air, and, save for the preternaturally excited state of his brain, Chester would not have heard so much.He sat up, and saw the figures of the brothers, who had passed him, growing indistinct as they went beyond the next lamp; and then he rose and followed.“‘And I swear I’ll—’ what?” said Chester to himself. “Shoot me? Well, let him. There, it’s all over. I can’t go away; I must see this out to the very end.”Chester followed the pair with the full intention of demanding an explanation and having a scene with the elder brother, for his resentment seemed to be making the blood bubble up through his veins. They were walking through the Palace Yard, and directly after they crossed the road and went up St James’s Street, talking angrily; and he was just about to join them when he saw the younger turn angrily off into the road, as if about to separate, but in an instant the elder had him by the arm and after a faint resistance led him back on to the pavement, where Chester was awaiting them.“Mr Clareborough,” he said sharply, and both brothers turned upon him in surprise.“Yes; what is it?” cried the elder. “Oh, the man in the wrong box! Come along, boy.”He turned short off, and before Chester could recover from his surprise, the brothers had passed through the swinging doors of one of the clubhouses and disappeared in the great hall.Chester was about to follow, but checked himself upon the threshold as the question arose in his mind, What for?To demand an explanation of their conduct toward him.Well, he felt that he might demand it, but he knew that they would preserve the same attitude as before, and treat him with contempt—treat him as if he were some half-witted being who claimed acquaintance; and how could he get people to believe in his strange story—how could he advance his position with respect to Marion?He calmed down as quickly as he had grown excited and began to feel that to force a quarrel in the club to which these men belonged could have but one ending, that of the police being called in and his being ejected.“And what then?” he asked himself. “Possibly the whole business would be dragged into the police court, then into the daily papers, and if Marion were ready to continue her intimacy with the man who had saved her brother’s life, would she not be hurt and annoyed with him for forcing into publicity an affair which the conduct of all concerned showed them to be eager to keep hushed up?”Chester walked down St James’s Street again, with the intention of cooling his burning head in the quiet gloom of the Park; but he altered his mind and turned off to his left, along Pall Mall, re-entered his club and went up to the smoking-room, which proved to be a little more full than before, but this did not trouble him now. He sat down and took a cigar and began smoking, thinking, trying to argue out the reason for the strange behaviour of these Clareboroughs. He could understand that there had been a desperate quarrel, resulting in the use of the revolver, and he was ready to grant that the elder brother’s conduct toward Marion had been the moving cause for that. But he felt convinced that there was something more behind; else why all the secrecy?Here they were, a wealthy family, evidently moving in good society, and living in a magnificently-appointed mansion; but during all the days of his enforced stay, with the exception of the old housekeeper, he had not seen a single servant, and nothing to suggest that any were in the place. That they kept domestics was plain enough, for he had since seen the butler and footman. Then, too, there had been the coachman who drove the carriage that night, though he, as an out-door servant, might easily have been kept in ignorance of all that took place in the house. But where were the others, the staff which would be necessary for carrying on such an establishment?There was no answer to the question, even at the finishing of a second cigar, and he gave it up, and then smiled to himself as he rose.“How absurd!” he muttered. “Everything else passed out of my head. I meant to cross to-night. Well, it is not too late, is it? Pish! Two hours. Oh, impossible! I cannot leave town. How could I go knowing that even now she may be praying for my help?”Chester passed out again into the cool night, and involuntarily turned in the direction of the Park, crossed it, and walked slowly toward Highcombe Street, where, he hardly knew why, he began to promenade the pavement on the opposite side of the road, stopping at last just inside a doorway when a cab came sharply along; and his nerves began to thrill as he saw it pulled up at the door of the mansion.Two gentlemen sprang out, and while one paid the driver, the other strolled up the steps, there was the rattle of the latch-key, the door was flung wide, and from where he stood Chester had a glimpse of the handsome hall, now looking sombre and strange with the lights half turned down.Directly after the door was closed, and the chimes of the Palace clock rang out four times, followed by two deep, booming strokes on the great cracked bell.“Two o’clock!” thought Chester, as he walked along past the house, fancying that there was a face at the open window of a room on the second floor, but he could not be sure, and as he turned back it was gone.“Go abroad!” he said to himself. “At such a time. It would be madness.”Then giving way to a sudden impulse, he hurried back to the front of the house, went up to the door and rang the bell sharply.“Fool!” he muttered. “Why did I not speak to them then? I will have an explanation. I have a right, and it is evident that I have the whip-hand of them, or they would not act their parts like this.”He knew that he was wildly excited and doing a foolish thing, but his actions were beyond his control now, and he was ready for Marion’s sake to take the maddest steps on her behalf, or he would not have stood at that moment where he did.“Too late,” he muttered, as there was no reply. “I’ve let my opportunity slip.”But all the same he dragged sharply at the bell again, and as his hand fell to his side the door was opened and he found himself face to face with the man he sought.“Yes, what is it?” cried James Clareborough, sharply. “What! you again? Here, what the devil—Who are you? What do you want?”“You,” said Chester, firmly, “you and your brother. I will have an explanation with you both. I will see—I will not be put off like this.”“Confound him!” muttered James Clareborough between his teeth.“Here, I say, old chap,” growled his brother, who now appeared, “have you been dining somewhere and over-doing it a bit? Hadn’t you better go home quietly? We don’t want to whistle for a policeman and have you locked up.”“You hold your tongue!” cried James Clareborough. “I’ll soon settle with this gentleman. Now then, my tipsy individual, you want a few words with me—an explanation?”“Yes and at once,” cried Chester, beside himself with rage at the very sight of the man whose conduct toward Marion absolutely maddened him.As he spoke he pressed forward to enter, but the brothers barred the way.“No, no,” said the elder, “none of that. We’re not going to have the house disturbed by your ravings. It’s only a few minutes to the Park—come on there and we’ll have it out, and done with it.”“No; we won’t,” growled the younger brother, fiercely, and, placing his hands suddenly upon Chester’s breast, he gave him a heavy thrust, drove him staggering back, and almost in the one effort snatched his brother aside and banged to the door.“What the devil do you mean by that?” cried James Clareborough, savagely, as he tried to reopen the door, but his brother placed his back to it and held him off.“To keep you cool, old man,” growled the younger. “Get him in the Park at this time, with no one near! What did you mean to do?”“Do what I’ll do now.”“Got something in your pocket, old chap?”“Yes, I have. Let me go out.”“And have a paragraph in the papers to-morrow morning about a discovery in the Park?”“Yes. Curse him! he’s getting dangerous. If he is not silenced, what’s to happen next? Let me go, boy. There, he’s ringing again. Let me go.”“Not if I can stop it, old man. We’ve got risks enough as it is.”“Curse you, Paddy, for a fool!” cried the other; and he seized his brother and tried to drag him away, while the great fellow reached down and drew a pistol from his brother’s pocket.“Got your sting, Jem,” he cried. “You don’t use that to-night.”“Wrong!” cried the other, snatching it away; and as the bell was rung violently again he made for the door.
“It’s all over,” said Chester to himself. “That doctor’s correct, and I must not trifle or I shall be laid by with something wrong in the head. That drugging began it, and I’m not right. I won’t give up the quest, but I must get square first, and I can’t do so here. I’ll pack up and go on the Continent for a bit. Change may make me able to think consistently. Now my brain is in a whirl.”
He tried to reason calmly, and at last, not feeling in the humour to see and explain to his sister, he wrote to her briefly, telling her that the anxiety and worry of the case to which he had been called that night had completely unhinged him, and he found that the only thing he could do to recover his tone was to get right away for a time. He was going, he said, to see a colleague that morning, who would come and take charge of the practice, and he would write again from abroad.
This done, he fastened down the envelope and left the letter upon the table, after which he went to his room, threw a few necessaries into a portmanteau, brought it down, with Aunt Grace carefully watching from the top of the staircase, and sent the servant for a cab.
Five minutes later he was on his way to his club to consult the time-tables and guide-book as to the route to take.
He was not long in deciding upon Tyrol as the starting-place for a long mountain tramp. There was a train at night, and without returning home he would dine at the club and start from there.
He followed out the earlier portion of his programme, even to dining at the club, but afterwards, upon entering the smoking-room and taking a cigar, he found the place half full, and, longing for solitude, he went out to stroll down the steps and into the Park for an hour, ending by taking one of the seats under an old elm in the Mall and sitting back thinking of all that had happened during the past few weeks.
He was once more going over the scenes by the wounded man’s couch, and seeing again the every movement and look of his anxious sister, when he shrank back against the trunk of the great tree and let his chin sink upon his breast, for there were steps just to the right, and two gentlemen strolled by, one of them talking aloud angrily, and the following words smote like blows upon the listener’s ears—
“Look here, if you want to quarrel, say so, Paddy. But you’re no saint, so don’t you begin preaching morality. I repeat I have taken a tremendous fancy to her; what then? As for Rob, curse him for a miserable prig! If it were not for the consequences I’m ready to wish that the shot had ended it, and I swear I’ll—”
The last words died out into the night air, and, save for the preternaturally excited state of his brain, Chester would not have heard so much.
He sat up, and saw the figures of the brothers, who had passed him, growing indistinct as they went beyond the next lamp; and then he rose and followed.
“‘And I swear I’ll—’ what?” said Chester to himself. “Shoot me? Well, let him. There, it’s all over. I can’t go away; I must see this out to the very end.”
Chester followed the pair with the full intention of demanding an explanation and having a scene with the elder brother, for his resentment seemed to be making the blood bubble up through his veins. They were walking through the Palace Yard, and directly after they crossed the road and went up St James’s Street, talking angrily; and he was just about to join them when he saw the younger turn angrily off into the road, as if about to separate, but in an instant the elder had him by the arm and after a faint resistance led him back on to the pavement, where Chester was awaiting them.
“Mr Clareborough,” he said sharply, and both brothers turned upon him in surprise.
“Yes; what is it?” cried the elder. “Oh, the man in the wrong box! Come along, boy.”
He turned short off, and before Chester could recover from his surprise, the brothers had passed through the swinging doors of one of the clubhouses and disappeared in the great hall.
Chester was about to follow, but checked himself upon the threshold as the question arose in his mind, What for?
To demand an explanation of their conduct toward him.
Well, he felt that he might demand it, but he knew that they would preserve the same attitude as before, and treat him with contempt—treat him as if he were some half-witted being who claimed acquaintance; and how could he get people to believe in his strange story—how could he advance his position with respect to Marion?
He calmed down as quickly as he had grown excited and began to feel that to force a quarrel in the club to which these men belonged could have but one ending, that of the police being called in and his being ejected.
“And what then?” he asked himself. “Possibly the whole business would be dragged into the police court, then into the daily papers, and if Marion were ready to continue her intimacy with the man who had saved her brother’s life, would she not be hurt and annoyed with him for forcing into publicity an affair which the conduct of all concerned showed them to be eager to keep hushed up?”
Chester walked down St James’s Street again, with the intention of cooling his burning head in the quiet gloom of the Park; but he altered his mind and turned off to his left, along Pall Mall, re-entered his club and went up to the smoking-room, which proved to be a little more full than before, but this did not trouble him now. He sat down and took a cigar and began smoking, thinking, trying to argue out the reason for the strange behaviour of these Clareboroughs. He could understand that there had been a desperate quarrel, resulting in the use of the revolver, and he was ready to grant that the elder brother’s conduct toward Marion had been the moving cause for that. But he felt convinced that there was something more behind; else why all the secrecy?
Here they were, a wealthy family, evidently moving in good society, and living in a magnificently-appointed mansion; but during all the days of his enforced stay, with the exception of the old housekeeper, he had not seen a single servant, and nothing to suggest that any were in the place. That they kept domestics was plain enough, for he had since seen the butler and footman. Then, too, there had been the coachman who drove the carriage that night, though he, as an out-door servant, might easily have been kept in ignorance of all that took place in the house. But where were the others, the staff which would be necessary for carrying on such an establishment?
There was no answer to the question, even at the finishing of a second cigar, and he gave it up, and then smiled to himself as he rose.
“How absurd!” he muttered. “Everything else passed out of my head. I meant to cross to-night. Well, it is not too late, is it? Pish! Two hours. Oh, impossible! I cannot leave town. How could I go knowing that even now she may be praying for my help?”
Chester passed out again into the cool night, and involuntarily turned in the direction of the Park, crossed it, and walked slowly toward Highcombe Street, where, he hardly knew why, he began to promenade the pavement on the opposite side of the road, stopping at last just inside a doorway when a cab came sharply along; and his nerves began to thrill as he saw it pulled up at the door of the mansion.
Two gentlemen sprang out, and while one paid the driver, the other strolled up the steps, there was the rattle of the latch-key, the door was flung wide, and from where he stood Chester had a glimpse of the handsome hall, now looking sombre and strange with the lights half turned down.
Directly after the door was closed, and the chimes of the Palace clock rang out four times, followed by two deep, booming strokes on the great cracked bell.
“Two o’clock!” thought Chester, as he walked along past the house, fancying that there was a face at the open window of a room on the second floor, but he could not be sure, and as he turned back it was gone.
“Go abroad!” he said to himself. “At such a time. It would be madness.”
Then giving way to a sudden impulse, he hurried back to the front of the house, went up to the door and rang the bell sharply.
“Fool!” he muttered. “Why did I not speak to them then? I will have an explanation. I have a right, and it is evident that I have the whip-hand of them, or they would not act their parts like this.”
He knew that he was wildly excited and doing a foolish thing, but his actions were beyond his control now, and he was ready for Marion’s sake to take the maddest steps on her behalf, or he would not have stood at that moment where he did.
“Too late,” he muttered, as there was no reply. “I’ve let my opportunity slip.”
But all the same he dragged sharply at the bell again, and as his hand fell to his side the door was opened and he found himself face to face with the man he sought.
“Yes, what is it?” cried James Clareborough, sharply. “What! you again? Here, what the devil—Who are you? What do you want?”
“You,” said Chester, firmly, “you and your brother. I will have an explanation with you both. I will see—I will not be put off like this.”
“Confound him!” muttered James Clareborough between his teeth.
“Here, I say, old chap,” growled his brother, who now appeared, “have you been dining somewhere and over-doing it a bit? Hadn’t you better go home quietly? We don’t want to whistle for a policeman and have you locked up.”
“You hold your tongue!” cried James Clareborough. “I’ll soon settle with this gentleman. Now then, my tipsy individual, you want a few words with me—an explanation?”
“Yes and at once,” cried Chester, beside himself with rage at the very sight of the man whose conduct toward Marion absolutely maddened him.
As he spoke he pressed forward to enter, but the brothers barred the way.
“No, no,” said the elder, “none of that. We’re not going to have the house disturbed by your ravings. It’s only a few minutes to the Park—come on there and we’ll have it out, and done with it.”
“No; we won’t,” growled the younger brother, fiercely, and, placing his hands suddenly upon Chester’s breast, he gave him a heavy thrust, drove him staggering back, and almost in the one effort snatched his brother aside and banged to the door.
“What the devil do you mean by that?” cried James Clareborough, savagely, as he tried to reopen the door, but his brother placed his back to it and held him off.
“To keep you cool, old man,” growled the younger. “Get him in the Park at this time, with no one near! What did you mean to do?”
“Do what I’ll do now.”
“Got something in your pocket, old chap?”
“Yes, I have. Let me go out.”
“And have a paragraph in the papers to-morrow morning about a discovery in the Park?”
“Yes. Curse him! he’s getting dangerous. If he is not silenced, what’s to happen next? Let me go, boy. There, he’s ringing again. Let me go.”
“Not if I can stop it, old man. We’ve got risks enough as it is.”
“Curse you, Paddy, for a fool!” cried the other; and he seized his brother and tried to drag him away, while the great fellow reached down and drew a pistol from his brother’s pocket.
“Got your sting, Jem,” he cried. “You don’t use that to-night.”
“Wrong!” cried the other, snatching it away; and as the bell was rung violently again he made for the door.
Chapter Seventeen.Assaulting the Castle.Chester stood on the doorstep for some minutes, thinking, in perfect ignorance of what was taking place inside, and twice over he rang the bell, in the determination to enter and confront these men.But reason stepped in.“No,” he thought, “I could do nothing. For Marion’s sake I must bring subtlety to bear, not brute force. And this is leaving England, to try and forget everything,” he added, with a mocking laugh. “No; I must stay and unravel it all.”He went home, had recourse to a drug again, and slept heavily till morning, and then, with his brain throbbing painfully from his anxious thoughts, he had left the house, determined to make another effort to obtain speech of Marion. That she was completely under the influence of her friends he felt sure, but if, he told himself, he could only obtain an interview, all might be well.To this end and full of a fresh project, he took a four-wheeled cab and had himself driven to the end of Highcombe Street, where he bade the driver draw up and wait.Here he threw himself back in one corner of the vehicle, opened a newspaper so as to screen his face and at the same time enable him to keep a strict watch upon the house.Fortune favoured him. At the end of an hour he saw the carriage drawn up, and soon after the brothers and their wives came out and were driven off; then the butler stood airing himself upon the step for a time, and finally went in and closed the door.Chester’s heart beat high with hope, and he waited for a few minutes, which seemed to be an hour. Then, telling the man to wait, he was going down the street, when a shout brought him back.“Beg pardon, sir; you didn’t take my number,” said the driver, with a grin.“No, why should I?” said Chester, wonderingly.“So as to be able to find me agin if you forgets to come back, sir.”“Oh, I see,” said Chester, smiling, and then placing a couple of coins in the man’s hand. “Don’t be afraid; I shall return.”The opportunity had come, and without hesitation Chester went straight to the door and rang.The butler answered the bell, after keeping him waiting some minutes, for it was not visiting time; and as soon as the man saw who it was he reddened a little and looked indignant.“Take my card up to Miss Clareborough,” said Chester, quietly.“Not at home, sir.”“Look here, my man, I particularly wish to see your young lady, so have the goodness to take up my card.”“Not at home, sir,” repeated the butler, pompously.“To ordinary visitors, perhaps,” said Chester, whose temper was rising at the man’s manner; “but she will see me.”“I told you twice over that our young lady wasn’t at home, sir,” said the butler, more offensive in speech and manner than ever.“Yes,” said Chester, still quietly, “and I know perfectly well that this is only the customary formal reply to ordinary callers. My business is important, and I tell you that Miss Clareborough will see me, so take my card up at once.”“Look here, sir,” said the man, insolently; “I have had my orders, and I know what to do. Once more: not at home.”“Am I to understand that you refuse to take up my card?”“Yes, sir; that’s it. They’ve seen your card, and master said he didn’t know you, and if you came again the family was not at home.”“I have nothing to do with your master or his brother, my good fellow. My business is with Miss Clareborough, and I insist on seeing her.”“Not at home,” said the man, shortly; and he drew back to close the door.But firmly convinced that the lady he desired to see was a prisoner, Chester in his excitement stepped forward, and, to the man’s astonishment, entered the hall.“Now,” he said angrily, “no more of this insolence, sir; take or send my card in to Miss Clareborough.”“I say, look here,” cried the the butler, whose face grew ruddy and then white, “haven’t I told you she isn’t at home?”“Yes, more than once, my good fellow, and I tell you now that she is, and that I will not stir from here until I have seen her.”“Then look here, sir,” cried the butler; “I shall send for the police.”“Do—at once,” retorted Chester.The butler’s jaw dropped in his astonishment, but he recovered himself, closed the door, and took a few steps further into the hall, Chester following.“Come, none of that,” cried the man. “You’ll stop there, and—”“What’s the meaning of this, Mr Roach?” said a familiar voice, and Chester eagerly pressed forward.“Ah, the housekeeper,” he cried quickly. “This man has refused again and again to bear my card to Miss Marion. Will you have the goodness to take it to her, and say that I beg she will see me for a few minutes at once?”The old lady’s white forehead puckered up beneath her grey hair, as she looked in a startled way at the speaker, and then turned to the butler, who was holding Chester’s card between his first and second fingers.“Who is this gentleman?” she said rather sternly, and for me moment Chester was so completely taken aback that the butler had time to speak.“Here’s his card, ma’am. He’s been before wanting to see Miss Clareborough. Master’s seen it, ma’am, and says he don’t know anything about the gentleman, and that if he had business he was to write.”The housekeeper turned to Chester, raising her eyebrows a little, and he had by this time recovered his balance.“Of course,” he said, “I can quite understand Mr James’s action after his treatment of me, madam.”“I beg your pardon, sir?”“Let me speak to you alone,” he continued. “I can say nothing before this man.”“Had you not better write to Mr Clareborough, sir, if you have business with the family?”“No, certainly not,” said Chester. “My business is with Miss Clareborough, and I insist upon seeing her.”“Excuse me, sir,” said the housekeeper, calmly; “as a gentleman, you must know that one of the ladies would decline to see a stranger on business unless she knew what that business was.”“A stranger—on business!” cried Chester, angrily. “My good woman, why do you talk like this to me?”“Really, sir, I do not understand you,” said the housekeeper, with dignity.“Let me see you alone,” said Chester, earnestly.“Certainly not, sir. Have the goodness to say what is your business here.”“You know it is impossible,” cried Chester. “See me alone—send this man away.”“Stay where you are, Mr Roach,” said the housekeeper, who might, from her calm, dignified manner, have been the mistress of the house. “Are you not making some mistake, sir? Mr Clareborough evidently does not know you.”“Nor you either?” said Chester, sarcastically.“I, sir? Certainly not,” replied the housekeeper.Chester stared at her angrily.“Do you dare to tell me this?” he cried.“Come, sir, none of that, please,” said the butler, interfering. “We can’t have you always coming here and asking to see people who don’t want to see you.”“Stand back, you insolent scoundrel!” cried Chester, turning upon the butler fiercely; and the man obeyed on the instant.“There is no occasion to make a scene, sir,” said the housekeeper, gently. “Pray be calm. You have, I see, made a mistake. Had you not better go home and write to Mr Clareborough? If your business is important, he will, no doubt, make an appointment to meet you.”“But you!” cried Chester, returning to the attack, “you deny that you know me?”“Certainly, sir, I do not know you,” replied the housekeeper.“Had you not better dismiss this man?”“No, no,” said the housekeeper, smiling; and there was a very sweet look on her handsome old face. “There is no occasion for that. Pray take my advice; go back home and write what you wish to say.”“After what has passed, madam, I can hold no communication with Mr Clareborough.”“Indeed! Well, sir, of course all you say is foreign to me, but I must tell you that it seems the only course open; so much can be done by letter.”“Then, as I understand,” said Chester, more quietly, “you refuse to give me a few words alone?”“Yes, sir; you can have nothing to say to me that Mr Roach, the butler, may not hear.”Chester looked at the woman fixedly, but she met his gaze in the calmest way—not a muscle moved, not a nerve quivered.“Very well,” he said at last, “I see you are determined to ignore the past entirely.”The housekeeper made a slight deprecatory movement toward him, and then signed the butler to open the door, which he did with alacrity, but Chester stood fast, looking past the housekeeper toward the end of the hall, where there was the opening into the great dining-room, the scene of the strange adventure when he first came to the house.“Very well,” he said at last, as he mastered a wild desire to rush upstairs and call Marion by name until she replied; and he spoke now in a subdued tone of voice which the butler could not hear, “of course you are in the plot, but I shall not let matters rest here. It would have been better if you had met me as a friend—as I believed you to be—of Miss Marion and Mr Robert, but I see that you are bound up with the others. And mind this: I was disposed to assist in hushing up that trouble, but as I am convinced that Miss Marion is receiving foul play, I shall leave no stone unturned to obtain speech with her, even going so far, if necessary, as to call in the aid of the police.”There was a calm, grave, pitying look upon the housekeeper’s countenance which literally staggered Chester, and he went out quickly and turned to the right, the butler closing the door with a bang.“He’s a regular lunatic, ma’am,” said the butler. “Got hold of the names from the Directory or the tradesfolk; but I’m very glad you were there.”“Poor gentleman,” said the housekeeper, gravely, “there seems to be some strange hallucination in his brain.”
Chester stood on the doorstep for some minutes, thinking, in perfect ignorance of what was taking place inside, and twice over he rang the bell, in the determination to enter and confront these men.
But reason stepped in.
“No,” he thought, “I could do nothing. For Marion’s sake I must bring subtlety to bear, not brute force. And this is leaving England, to try and forget everything,” he added, with a mocking laugh. “No; I must stay and unravel it all.”
He went home, had recourse to a drug again, and slept heavily till morning, and then, with his brain throbbing painfully from his anxious thoughts, he had left the house, determined to make another effort to obtain speech of Marion. That she was completely under the influence of her friends he felt sure, but if, he told himself, he could only obtain an interview, all might be well.
To this end and full of a fresh project, he took a four-wheeled cab and had himself driven to the end of Highcombe Street, where he bade the driver draw up and wait.
Here he threw himself back in one corner of the vehicle, opened a newspaper so as to screen his face and at the same time enable him to keep a strict watch upon the house.
Fortune favoured him. At the end of an hour he saw the carriage drawn up, and soon after the brothers and their wives came out and were driven off; then the butler stood airing himself upon the step for a time, and finally went in and closed the door.
Chester’s heart beat high with hope, and he waited for a few minutes, which seemed to be an hour. Then, telling the man to wait, he was going down the street, when a shout brought him back.
“Beg pardon, sir; you didn’t take my number,” said the driver, with a grin.
“No, why should I?” said Chester, wonderingly.
“So as to be able to find me agin if you forgets to come back, sir.”
“Oh, I see,” said Chester, smiling, and then placing a couple of coins in the man’s hand. “Don’t be afraid; I shall return.”
The opportunity had come, and without hesitation Chester went straight to the door and rang.
The butler answered the bell, after keeping him waiting some minutes, for it was not visiting time; and as soon as the man saw who it was he reddened a little and looked indignant.
“Take my card up to Miss Clareborough,” said Chester, quietly.
“Not at home, sir.”
“Look here, my man, I particularly wish to see your young lady, so have the goodness to take up my card.”
“Not at home, sir,” repeated the butler, pompously.
“To ordinary visitors, perhaps,” said Chester, whose temper was rising at the man’s manner; “but she will see me.”
“I told you twice over that our young lady wasn’t at home, sir,” said the butler, more offensive in speech and manner than ever.
“Yes,” said Chester, still quietly, “and I know perfectly well that this is only the customary formal reply to ordinary callers. My business is important, and I tell you that Miss Clareborough will see me, so take my card up at once.”
“Look here, sir,” said the man, insolently; “I have had my orders, and I know what to do. Once more: not at home.”
“Am I to understand that you refuse to take up my card?”
“Yes, sir; that’s it. They’ve seen your card, and master said he didn’t know you, and if you came again the family was not at home.”
“I have nothing to do with your master or his brother, my good fellow. My business is with Miss Clareborough, and I insist on seeing her.”
“Not at home,” said the man, shortly; and he drew back to close the door.
But firmly convinced that the lady he desired to see was a prisoner, Chester in his excitement stepped forward, and, to the man’s astonishment, entered the hall.
“Now,” he said angrily, “no more of this insolence, sir; take or send my card in to Miss Clareborough.”
“I say, look here,” cried the the butler, whose face grew ruddy and then white, “haven’t I told you she isn’t at home?”
“Yes, more than once, my good fellow, and I tell you now that she is, and that I will not stir from here until I have seen her.”
“Then look here, sir,” cried the butler; “I shall send for the police.”
“Do—at once,” retorted Chester.
The butler’s jaw dropped in his astonishment, but he recovered himself, closed the door, and took a few steps further into the hall, Chester following.
“Come, none of that,” cried the man. “You’ll stop there, and—”
“What’s the meaning of this, Mr Roach?” said a familiar voice, and Chester eagerly pressed forward.
“Ah, the housekeeper,” he cried quickly. “This man has refused again and again to bear my card to Miss Marion. Will you have the goodness to take it to her, and say that I beg she will see me for a few minutes at once?”
The old lady’s white forehead puckered up beneath her grey hair, as she looked in a startled way at the speaker, and then turned to the butler, who was holding Chester’s card between his first and second fingers.
“Who is this gentleman?” she said rather sternly, and for me moment Chester was so completely taken aback that the butler had time to speak.
“Here’s his card, ma’am. He’s been before wanting to see Miss Clareborough. Master’s seen it, ma’am, and says he don’t know anything about the gentleman, and that if he had business he was to write.”
The housekeeper turned to Chester, raising her eyebrows a little, and he had by this time recovered his balance.
“Of course,” he said, “I can quite understand Mr James’s action after his treatment of me, madam.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Let me speak to you alone,” he continued. “I can say nothing before this man.”
“Had you not better write to Mr Clareborough, sir, if you have business with the family?”
“No, certainly not,” said Chester. “My business is with Miss Clareborough, and I insist upon seeing her.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said the housekeeper, calmly; “as a gentleman, you must know that one of the ladies would decline to see a stranger on business unless she knew what that business was.”
“A stranger—on business!” cried Chester, angrily. “My good woman, why do you talk like this to me?”
“Really, sir, I do not understand you,” said the housekeeper, with dignity.
“Let me see you alone,” said Chester, earnestly.
“Certainly not, sir. Have the goodness to say what is your business here.”
“You know it is impossible,” cried Chester. “See me alone—send this man away.”
“Stay where you are, Mr Roach,” said the housekeeper, who might, from her calm, dignified manner, have been the mistress of the house. “Are you not making some mistake, sir? Mr Clareborough evidently does not know you.”
“Nor you either?” said Chester, sarcastically.
“I, sir? Certainly not,” replied the housekeeper.
Chester stared at her angrily.
“Do you dare to tell me this?” he cried.
“Come, sir, none of that, please,” said the butler, interfering. “We can’t have you always coming here and asking to see people who don’t want to see you.”
“Stand back, you insolent scoundrel!” cried Chester, turning upon the butler fiercely; and the man obeyed on the instant.
“There is no occasion to make a scene, sir,” said the housekeeper, gently. “Pray be calm. You have, I see, made a mistake. Had you not better go home and write to Mr Clareborough? If your business is important, he will, no doubt, make an appointment to meet you.”
“But you!” cried Chester, returning to the attack, “you deny that you know me?”
“Certainly, sir, I do not know you,” replied the housekeeper.
“Had you not better dismiss this man?”
“No, no,” said the housekeeper, smiling; and there was a very sweet look on her handsome old face. “There is no occasion for that. Pray take my advice; go back home and write what you wish to say.”
“After what has passed, madam, I can hold no communication with Mr Clareborough.”
“Indeed! Well, sir, of course all you say is foreign to me, but I must tell you that it seems the only course open; so much can be done by letter.”
“Then, as I understand,” said Chester, more quietly, “you refuse to give me a few words alone?”
“Yes, sir; you can have nothing to say to me that Mr Roach, the butler, may not hear.”
Chester looked at the woman fixedly, but she met his gaze in the calmest way—not a muscle moved, not a nerve quivered.
“Very well,” he said at last, “I see you are determined to ignore the past entirely.”
The housekeeper made a slight deprecatory movement toward him, and then signed the butler to open the door, which he did with alacrity, but Chester stood fast, looking past the housekeeper toward the end of the hall, where there was the opening into the great dining-room, the scene of the strange adventure when he first came to the house.
“Very well,” he said at last, as he mastered a wild desire to rush upstairs and call Marion by name until she replied; and he spoke now in a subdued tone of voice which the butler could not hear, “of course you are in the plot, but I shall not let matters rest here. It would have been better if you had met me as a friend—as I believed you to be—of Miss Marion and Mr Robert, but I see that you are bound up with the others. And mind this: I was disposed to assist in hushing up that trouble, but as I am convinced that Miss Marion is receiving foul play, I shall leave no stone unturned to obtain speech with her, even going so far, if necessary, as to call in the aid of the police.”
There was a calm, grave, pitying look upon the housekeeper’s countenance which literally staggered Chester, and he went out quickly and turned to the right, the butler closing the door with a bang.
“He’s a regular lunatic, ma’am,” said the butler. “Got hold of the names from the Directory or the tradesfolk; but I’m very glad you were there.”
“Poor gentleman,” said the housekeeper, gravely, “there seems to be some strange hallucination in his brain.”
Chapter Eighteen.The Bookworm Tries to Bore.As it happened, Chester was musing as he went down the steps.“They treat me as if I were mad. Have I got some strange notion in my head? No woman could possibly meet one with such a—Ah! good-day!” he cried quickly, for, as he was passing the next door, the grey, dreamy-looking old occupant was in the act of inserting the latch-key.He turned slowly, pushed back his rather broad-brimmed hat, and blinked at the speaker through his spectacles.“I beg your pardon,” he said, rather wonderingly; “I—can’t see; yes, to be sure, I remember now;” and the old man’s face lit up. “I remember now. My young friend who was making inquiries. Will you step in, sir? I do not have many visitors.”He threw open the door and stood smiling holding it back, giving Chester a smile of invitation which made him enter—that, in combination with the sudden thought that he might perhaps learn something about the next-door neighbours.“Really,” he said frankly, “as a perfect stranger, this is somewhat of an intrusion.”“Not at all, my dear young friend, not at all. Glad to see you. I lead such an old-world, lost kind of life. I am very glad to have a caller. Come in, my dear young friend, come in. No, no; don’t set your hat down there; it will be covered with dust. Let me put it here. Now, then, come in.”He led the way into the room on their left, and took a couple of very old folios off a chair.“A dusty place—a very dusty place; but I dare not trust servants. They have no idea of the value of books, my dear sir. I found one had torn out some pages from a very rare specimen of Wynkyn de Worde to burn under some damp fire-wood. Can’t trust them—can’t trust them. I’ve just had a very serious disappointment. Been down to an auction.”“Indeed?” said Chester, looking at the old man curiously and wondering where he had seen a face something like his before.“Yes. One of the big sales. There was a priceless copy of one of Marie de Medici’s books in the list, and I fancy it was with a Grolier binding—just his style; but two other people wanted it. I bid up to four hundred and then stopped. A bit of a bibliomaniac, my dear sir, but not book-mad enough to go higher; couldn’t afford it, even for a unique, tall copy. Knocked down for se-ven hun-dred and forty-nine pounds, sir. A fact. Well, did you find your friends whom you were looking for?”“Yes—no,” said Chester.“Dear me; but is not that rather contradictory, my dear sir?” said the old man, smiling.“Perhaps so, but there is a little mystery about the matter, sir,” replied Chester. “By the way, though, can you tell me anything about your next-door neighbours?”“My next-door neighbours, my dear sir,” said the old man, smiling and rubbing his thin hands together softly; “well, not much, I am so unsociable a body; and here in London one can be so isolated. Let me see, he is something in the House of Commons—a clerk, or master-at-arms, or usher, or something.”“Mr Clareborough is?” cried Chester, sharply.“No—no! That is on the other side. Quite a large family party. Very gay people who have plenty of fashionable callers, and carriages, and parties. I fancy they go a great deal to operas and theatres. The confectioner’s people come sometimes, and musicians, and rout seats. Not in my way, my young friend—not in my way,” continued the old gentleman in his quiet, amiable manner, as he took down the great bulky London Directory. “Yes, yes, yes; here we are—Highcombe Street, Clareborough. There’s the name. Very wealthy, gay family, I believe. Clareborough. That’s it, and I think I’ve heard somehow—I don’t quite know how it was, unless one of the tradespeople told me—that they have a fine place somewhere in Kent—The Towers, I think they call it, and they are often down there, and this place is shut up. I like it to be, because it is so much more quiet for a man busy with his books.”“Have you—have you noticed anything peculiar about the family?” said Chester in a hesitating way.The old man beamed upon him through his glasses, then took them off deliberately, and wiped each carefully with an old silk handkerchief, gazing at his questioner with his face wrinkled up as if he were puzzled.“Anything peculiar?” he said at last. “Well, no, I think not, unless it is that they seem to spend a great deal of money in ephemeral pleasures. Yes, I remember now thinking that they must waste a great deal, and that with so much at their command they might accumulate a grand collection of books.”“Anything more?” said Chester.“N-no, my dear sir. I think, now you mention it, that I have taken more notice of my neighbour on the other side. Yes, I am sure I have. I remember thinking how bad it must be for his health.”“Indeed?” said Chester, inquiringly, but with the intention of leading the old man back into talking about his other neighbours.“Oh yes. You see, I often hear him coming home extremely late in the night. Twelve, one, and two o’clock, sometimes even by broad daylight. Not that I was watching him, but I often lie awake for hours, musing about some particular book that I have not obtained. I’m afraid I shall not sleep to-night for thinking of that book I missed at the sale to-day. But I put it to you, my dear sir; it was too much to give, was it not?”“Certainly,” said Chester, smiling, as he seized the opportunity to turn back the conversation to the other side; “but I suppose, according to your showing, the sum named would have been a trifle to your other neighbours.”“Hah! Yes, I suppose it would—yes, I suppose it would. But are you a collector?”“I? Oh no,” said Chester, smiling, “only a very ignorant body.”“No, no, no, no,” said the old man, smiling pleasantly. “I know better than that. One gets to know what a person is more or less by his conversation, my dear sir, and I could vouch for it that you are a student.”“Well, I must own to that, more or less, as to medicine and surgery.”“I thought so, I thought so,” said the old man, bending down to clasp his hands about one knee and sit as if thinking deeply over something, while Chester gladly availed himself of the silence to give free rein to his own thoughts.For an idea had suddenly occurred to him which lit up his troubled brain like a flash of light.He was in the next house—the old man leading his solitary life seemed pleased to have found someone ready to converse with him. Why should he not try and cultivate the old fellow’s acquaintance, and take advantage of the opportunities it would afford him of watching his neighbours?He had hardly thought this when the old man looked up, smiling at him in a child-like, pleasant way.“How strange—how very strange it all is, my dear sir. Now, you will hardly credit me when I tell you that for some time past I have been suffering from little symptoms which at their frequent and more frequent recurrence suggest to me that I ought to consult a medical man.”“Indeed?” said Chester.“Yes, my dear sir, indeed; but you see, I am a very old man now, and I fear that I have grown weak and vacillating; I may add cowardly too. I have shrunk from going to a doctor for fear that he should tell me that I must give up my studies—that I am failing and coming very near to the end of my span.”“Oh, surely not,” said Chester. “You look a very healthy subject, sir.”“I—I don’t know, my dear sir, but I have been afraid to go; and here, all at once, in the most casual way, I suddenly make the acquaintance of a medical man, and find him seated opposite to me, talking in a friendly way which quite invites my confidence. It is strange, is it not?”“Very strange, indeed,” said Chester, gazing hard in the pleasant, bland old countenance before him. “But really, my dear sir, I do not think you require medical advice.”The old man returned the fixed gaze and then said appealingly—“I hope, my dear sir, you are speaking sincerely.”“Of course,” replied Chester.“Not as doctors sometimes do, to encourage their patients?”“Certainly not,” cried Chester. “There is every sign of a vigorous, green old age about you.”“That is very pleasant to hear, my dear sir,” said the old man, “very pleasant. I don’t think I am one ready to repine, or one who would seek to live for selfish considerations—love of pleasure or the like—but I have so much to do. I want years yet to complete my collection, and I may have to go over to Leyden, Leipsic, Nuremberg, Florence, and several of the other Continental towns which were the birthplaces of many of these old tomes which you see upon my shelves.”“I see no reason why you should not live for years yet, sir,” said Chester, encouragingly.“But my head—my brain. I find I grow forgetful, my dear sir. I put away books and forget their places. All little symptoms, are they not, of failing powers?”“To be perfectly candid, certainly they are,” said Chester; “but in a healthy old age these failings come very, very gradually, and nature suggests so many ways of palliating them. For instance, a clever young secretary with a methodical turn of mind would relieve you of a trouble like this. Really I do not think that you have any occasion to trouble yourself about such a symptom as that, any more than you have about the failing powers of sight which compelled you to take to glasses.”“My dear young friend!” cried the old man, leaning forward to catch at his visitor’s hand, “I cannot find words to express my gratitude. You do not know what a relief your words have been to me. It is wonderful, and upon such a casual acquaintanceship. But I sincerely hope that you will let me see more of you—er—that is, if I am not troublesome to you; such a wearisome old bookworm as I fear I must be. But the mouse helped the lion, you know, and who knows but what I may be able to help you with some information about your friends next door—let me see, I think you said it was the people next door whom you had been trying to find.”“I did not say so,” said Chester, quietly.“I beg your pardon; but you do wish to know something about them.”“Well, frankly, yes, I do,” said Chester.“Hah! And who knows but what I may be able to help you? I may remember something that does not occur to me now—a trifle or two perhaps, but which may be of importance from your point of view. Come and see me sometimes. Let me show you my library. I think you might be interested in some of my books.”“I have no doubt but that I should be.”“To be sure, yes. I have an old copy of Hippocrates on surgery and medicine, and I daresay many others which do not occur to me now. Yes, of course, I have Boerhaave. You will come?”“I shall be very glad to,” said Chester, warmly, though his conscience smote him for what he felt to be a false pretence.“I am very, very glad,” said the old man, rising, going to an old cabinet and pulling out a drawer, from which he took a key and at the same time something short and black which he cleverly thrust into the breast of his loosely-made, old-fashioned tail-coat. “Now I am about to ask a favour of you, doctor,” he said, turning with a pleasant, genial smile upon his countenance. “I have other treasures here down below, besides books. Stored up and rarely brought out, bin after bin of very fine old wine. I am going to ask you to drink a glass of exceedingly old port with me.”“No, no,” said Chester, “you must excuse me. I never drink wine at this time of day. Let me dine with you some time or other, and then—”“Yes, of course, my dear young friend; I hope many times; but just one glass now. Don’t say no. I feel to need it a little myself, for—don’t think me a feeble old dotard—the fact of telling you of my weakness, of confessing to a doctor my fears of coming to an end, have upset my nerves a little, and I can’t help fancying that a glass of good old wine would do me good.”“I am sure it would, sir,” said Chester, warmly. “Well, there! I will break a rule, and join you in one glass.”“Hah!” cried the old man, brightening up; “that is very good of you, doctor—very good. I feel better already in anticipation. Now, let me see—let me see.”He opened the library table drawer and took out a box of matches and an old-fashioned, curled-up twist of wax taper, such as was the accompaniment of a writing-table in sealing-wax days, fifty years or so ago. This latter he lit, and then hung a large old key upon his little finger.“The library next time you come, doctor; the cellar this time. A very fine cellar of wines, my dear sir, but wasted upon me. Just a glass now and then as a medicine. This way. I hope you will not mind the dust and cobwebs. An old-fashioned notion, but books seem to need the dust of ages, and it is precious upon them, just as old port ought to have its cobwebs and its crust. You will come with me to get a bottle?”“Oh yes,” said Chester, and he followed the old man out of the room into the book-encumbered hall, and along to the back, past chest and shelf, to where there was the glass door opening on the stone flight leading down into the basement.“This way, my dear sir. One moment; there should be a basket here. Yes, here we are; would you mind lighting me? Thank you.”Chester took the wax taper and lighted the old man, while he took down from behind the glass door, where it hung upon a hook, one of those cradle-like baskets in which a bottle of rich old wine can recline without destroying its fineness.“You see,” said the old man, “I am a bit of a connoisseur. I like to keep my wine as it has lain in the bin. No decanting for me. Straight on down, my dear sir.”Chester did not hesitate, but led on down the stone stairs, holding the light on high, the tiny taper shining back upon a pair of flashing eyes and the wrinkles of a now wonderfully wrinkled face, while in the shadows behind a thin, claw-like hand glided to the breast-pocket of the old-fashioned coat, to draw out one of those misnamed weapons formed of twisted whalebone, ending in a weighty leaden knob.Chester bore the light; behind him seemed to hover upon the dingy walls the Shadow of Death.
As it happened, Chester was musing as he went down the steps.
“They treat me as if I were mad. Have I got some strange notion in my head? No woman could possibly meet one with such a—Ah! good-day!” he cried quickly, for, as he was passing the next door, the grey, dreamy-looking old occupant was in the act of inserting the latch-key.
He turned slowly, pushed back his rather broad-brimmed hat, and blinked at the speaker through his spectacles.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, rather wonderingly; “I—can’t see; yes, to be sure, I remember now;” and the old man’s face lit up. “I remember now. My young friend who was making inquiries. Will you step in, sir? I do not have many visitors.”
He threw open the door and stood smiling holding it back, giving Chester a smile of invitation which made him enter—that, in combination with the sudden thought that he might perhaps learn something about the next-door neighbours.
“Really,” he said frankly, “as a perfect stranger, this is somewhat of an intrusion.”
“Not at all, my dear young friend, not at all. Glad to see you. I lead such an old-world, lost kind of life. I am very glad to have a caller. Come in, my dear young friend, come in. No, no; don’t set your hat down there; it will be covered with dust. Let me put it here. Now, then, come in.”
He led the way into the room on their left, and took a couple of very old folios off a chair.
“A dusty place—a very dusty place; but I dare not trust servants. They have no idea of the value of books, my dear sir. I found one had torn out some pages from a very rare specimen of Wynkyn de Worde to burn under some damp fire-wood. Can’t trust them—can’t trust them. I’ve just had a very serious disappointment. Been down to an auction.”
“Indeed?” said Chester, looking at the old man curiously and wondering where he had seen a face something like his before.
“Yes. One of the big sales. There was a priceless copy of one of Marie de Medici’s books in the list, and I fancy it was with a Grolier binding—just his style; but two other people wanted it. I bid up to four hundred and then stopped. A bit of a bibliomaniac, my dear sir, but not book-mad enough to go higher; couldn’t afford it, even for a unique, tall copy. Knocked down for se-ven hun-dred and forty-nine pounds, sir. A fact. Well, did you find your friends whom you were looking for?”
“Yes—no,” said Chester.
“Dear me; but is not that rather contradictory, my dear sir?” said the old man, smiling.
“Perhaps so, but there is a little mystery about the matter, sir,” replied Chester. “By the way, though, can you tell me anything about your next-door neighbours?”
“My next-door neighbours, my dear sir,” said the old man, smiling and rubbing his thin hands together softly; “well, not much, I am so unsociable a body; and here in London one can be so isolated. Let me see, he is something in the House of Commons—a clerk, or master-at-arms, or usher, or something.”
“Mr Clareborough is?” cried Chester, sharply.
“No—no! That is on the other side. Quite a large family party. Very gay people who have plenty of fashionable callers, and carriages, and parties. I fancy they go a great deal to operas and theatres. The confectioner’s people come sometimes, and musicians, and rout seats. Not in my way, my young friend—not in my way,” continued the old gentleman in his quiet, amiable manner, as he took down the great bulky London Directory. “Yes, yes, yes; here we are—Highcombe Street, Clareborough. There’s the name. Very wealthy, gay family, I believe. Clareborough. That’s it, and I think I’ve heard somehow—I don’t quite know how it was, unless one of the tradespeople told me—that they have a fine place somewhere in Kent—The Towers, I think they call it, and they are often down there, and this place is shut up. I like it to be, because it is so much more quiet for a man busy with his books.”
“Have you—have you noticed anything peculiar about the family?” said Chester in a hesitating way.
The old man beamed upon him through his glasses, then took them off deliberately, and wiped each carefully with an old silk handkerchief, gazing at his questioner with his face wrinkled up as if he were puzzled.
“Anything peculiar?” he said at last. “Well, no, I think not, unless it is that they seem to spend a great deal of money in ephemeral pleasures. Yes, I remember now thinking that they must waste a great deal, and that with so much at their command they might accumulate a grand collection of books.”
“Anything more?” said Chester.
“N-no, my dear sir. I think, now you mention it, that I have taken more notice of my neighbour on the other side. Yes, I am sure I have. I remember thinking how bad it must be for his health.”
“Indeed?” said Chester, inquiringly, but with the intention of leading the old man back into talking about his other neighbours.
“Oh yes. You see, I often hear him coming home extremely late in the night. Twelve, one, and two o’clock, sometimes even by broad daylight. Not that I was watching him, but I often lie awake for hours, musing about some particular book that I have not obtained. I’m afraid I shall not sleep to-night for thinking of that book I missed at the sale to-day. But I put it to you, my dear sir; it was too much to give, was it not?”
“Certainly,” said Chester, smiling, as he seized the opportunity to turn back the conversation to the other side; “but I suppose, according to your showing, the sum named would have been a trifle to your other neighbours.”
“Hah! Yes, I suppose it would—yes, I suppose it would. But are you a collector?”
“I? Oh no,” said Chester, smiling, “only a very ignorant body.”
“No, no, no, no,” said the old man, smiling pleasantly. “I know better than that. One gets to know what a person is more or less by his conversation, my dear sir, and I could vouch for it that you are a student.”
“Well, I must own to that, more or less, as to medicine and surgery.”
“I thought so, I thought so,” said the old man, bending down to clasp his hands about one knee and sit as if thinking deeply over something, while Chester gladly availed himself of the silence to give free rein to his own thoughts.
For an idea had suddenly occurred to him which lit up his troubled brain like a flash of light.
He was in the next house—the old man leading his solitary life seemed pleased to have found someone ready to converse with him. Why should he not try and cultivate the old fellow’s acquaintance, and take advantage of the opportunities it would afford him of watching his neighbours?
He had hardly thought this when the old man looked up, smiling at him in a child-like, pleasant way.
“How strange—how very strange it all is, my dear sir. Now, you will hardly credit me when I tell you that for some time past I have been suffering from little symptoms which at their frequent and more frequent recurrence suggest to me that I ought to consult a medical man.”
“Indeed?” said Chester.
“Yes, my dear sir, indeed; but you see, I am a very old man now, and I fear that I have grown weak and vacillating; I may add cowardly too. I have shrunk from going to a doctor for fear that he should tell me that I must give up my studies—that I am failing and coming very near to the end of my span.”
“Oh, surely not,” said Chester. “You look a very healthy subject, sir.”
“I—I don’t know, my dear sir, but I have been afraid to go; and here, all at once, in the most casual way, I suddenly make the acquaintance of a medical man, and find him seated opposite to me, talking in a friendly way which quite invites my confidence. It is strange, is it not?”
“Very strange, indeed,” said Chester, gazing hard in the pleasant, bland old countenance before him. “But really, my dear sir, I do not think you require medical advice.”
The old man returned the fixed gaze and then said appealingly—
“I hope, my dear sir, you are speaking sincerely.”
“Of course,” replied Chester.
“Not as doctors sometimes do, to encourage their patients?”
“Certainly not,” cried Chester. “There is every sign of a vigorous, green old age about you.”
“That is very pleasant to hear, my dear sir,” said the old man, “very pleasant. I don’t think I am one ready to repine, or one who would seek to live for selfish considerations—love of pleasure or the like—but I have so much to do. I want years yet to complete my collection, and I may have to go over to Leyden, Leipsic, Nuremberg, Florence, and several of the other Continental towns which were the birthplaces of many of these old tomes which you see upon my shelves.”
“I see no reason why you should not live for years yet, sir,” said Chester, encouragingly.
“But my head—my brain. I find I grow forgetful, my dear sir. I put away books and forget their places. All little symptoms, are they not, of failing powers?”
“To be perfectly candid, certainly they are,” said Chester; “but in a healthy old age these failings come very, very gradually, and nature suggests so many ways of palliating them. For instance, a clever young secretary with a methodical turn of mind would relieve you of a trouble like this. Really I do not think that you have any occasion to trouble yourself about such a symptom as that, any more than you have about the failing powers of sight which compelled you to take to glasses.”
“My dear young friend!” cried the old man, leaning forward to catch at his visitor’s hand, “I cannot find words to express my gratitude. You do not know what a relief your words have been to me. It is wonderful, and upon such a casual acquaintanceship. But I sincerely hope that you will let me see more of you—er—that is, if I am not troublesome to you; such a wearisome old bookworm as I fear I must be. But the mouse helped the lion, you know, and who knows but what I may be able to help you with some information about your friends next door—let me see, I think you said it was the people next door whom you had been trying to find.”
“I did not say so,” said Chester, quietly.
“I beg your pardon; but you do wish to know something about them.”
“Well, frankly, yes, I do,” said Chester.
“Hah! And who knows but what I may be able to help you? I may remember something that does not occur to me now—a trifle or two perhaps, but which may be of importance from your point of view. Come and see me sometimes. Let me show you my library. I think you might be interested in some of my books.”
“I have no doubt but that I should be.”
“To be sure, yes. I have an old copy of Hippocrates on surgery and medicine, and I daresay many others which do not occur to me now. Yes, of course, I have Boerhaave. You will come?”
“I shall be very glad to,” said Chester, warmly, though his conscience smote him for what he felt to be a false pretence.
“I am very, very glad,” said the old man, rising, going to an old cabinet and pulling out a drawer, from which he took a key and at the same time something short and black which he cleverly thrust into the breast of his loosely-made, old-fashioned tail-coat. “Now I am about to ask a favour of you, doctor,” he said, turning with a pleasant, genial smile upon his countenance. “I have other treasures here down below, besides books. Stored up and rarely brought out, bin after bin of very fine old wine. I am going to ask you to drink a glass of exceedingly old port with me.”
“No, no,” said Chester, “you must excuse me. I never drink wine at this time of day. Let me dine with you some time or other, and then—”
“Yes, of course, my dear young friend; I hope many times; but just one glass now. Don’t say no. I feel to need it a little myself, for—don’t think me a feeble old dotard—the fact of telling you of my weakness, of confessing to a doctor my fears of coming to an end, have upset my nerves a little, and I can’t help fancying that a glass of good old wine would do me good.”
“I am sure it would, sir,” said Chester, warmly. “Well, there! I will break a rule, and join you in one glass.”
“Hah!” cried the old man, brightening up; “that is very good of you, doctor—very good. I feel better already in anticipation. Now, let me see—let me see.”
He opened the library table drawer and took out a box of matches and an old-fashioned, curled-up twist of wax taper, such as was the accompaniment of a writing-table in sealing-wax days, fifty years or so ago. This latter he lit, and then hung a large old key upon his little finger.
“The library next time you come, doctor; the cellar this time. A very fine cellar of wines, my dear sir, but wasted upon me. Just a glass now and then as a medicine. This way. I hope you will not mind the dust and cobwebs. An old-fashioned notion, but books seem to need the dust of ages, and it is precious upon them, just as old port ought to have its cobwebs and its crust. You will come with me to get a bottle?”
“Oh yes,” said Chester, and he followed the old man out of the room into the book-encumbered hall, and along to the back, past chest and shelf, to where there was the glass door opening on the stone flight leading down into the basement.
“This way, my dear sir. One moment; there should be a basket here. Yes, here we are; would you mind lighting me? Thank you.”
Chester took the wax taper and lighted the old man, while he took down from behind the glass door, where it hung upon a hook, one of those cradle-like baskets in which a bottle of rich old wine can recline without destroying its fineness.
“You see,” said the old man, “I am a bit of a connoisseur. I like to keep my wine as it has lain in the bin. No decanting for me. Straight on down, my dear sir.”
Chester did not hesitate, but led on down the stone stairs, holding the light on high, the tiny taper shining back upon a pair of flashing eyes and the wrinkles of a now wonderfully wrinkled face, while in the shadows behind a thin, claw-like hand glided to the breast-pocket of the old-fashioned coat, to draw out one of those misnamed weapons formed of twisted whalebone, ending in a weighty leaden knob.
Chester bore the light; behind him seemed to hover upon the dingy walls the Shadow of Death.
Chapter Nineteen.By the Skin of his Teeth.The Shadow passed away.In another moment a crushing blow from a life-preserver, delivered by a vigorous arm, would have fallen upon the back of Chester’s skull, and sent him headlong down the flight of stairs; but the deadly weapon was thrust back into its owner’s breast, and the fierce, vindictive expression passed from his face as there was a violent ringing of the largest of the row of bells hanging to their right, and Chester turned sharply round, taper in hand, to look questioningly at the old man.“Dear me!” he said, smiling, “how tiresome! This is one of the troubles of living quite alone, my dear young friend. I always have to answer my own door. I’m afraid that I must ask you to come back to the front room. Would you mind bringing the light? Thank you; I will take it.”He blew out the clear little flame as they reached the glass door, and then set down the basket, before leading the way back into the library, where he glanced from the window.“Dear me!” he said. “More books. So very late in the day too. They always come at awkward times. Pray sit down or look at some of my works. You’ll find something to interest you, I feel sure. Yes—yes; I’m coming,” he said, as the bell rang loudly again. “Don’t be so impatient, my good men, don’t be so impatient.”“One moment; if you have business, I will go now,” said Chester.“Oh, by no means,” said the old man. “I shall not be many moments. Pray take a book and my chair, there. It is only the railway men. I shall soon be done.”Chester did not take the chair, but began to inspect the dusty shelves, while he heard the front door open and after a time the sound of heavy feet upon the steps, and then the bump down of what sounded like a heavy chest. Then more steps outside, the rattle of a chain belonging to the tail-board of a van, and the steps again.Then he ceased to hear anything that was going on, for his thoughts had run to the adjoining house and his experiences there, but only to be succeeded by an indescribable sensation of dread—a singular feeling of malaise which troubled his faculties. It was like a portent of something hanging over him, or over her who occupied so much of his thoughts.“I can’t stay here,” he said to himself. “I must get out into the open air. This place makes me feel sick and faint.”He picked up one of the many books lying about, and threw it down again impatiently, to walk to the door, where he could hear the old student directing the men who had brought the consignment; while from the sounds it was evident that they were carrying the chests or whatever they were, down into the basement.Feeling that it would be rude to interrupt his host then, he went back to the table.“What is the matter with me?” he muttered, as he shivered involuntarily. “Is it from cold, or from over-thought and worry? Not going to be ill, am I, and at such a time?”“I know,” he thought, at the end of a few minutes; “it is this place. The air is close and mephitic. I don’t believe the windows are ever open. I cannot stay here. I feel as if I should faint. Rude or not, I must go.”He had sunk into a chair, and now started up, just as the old man re-entered.“Just done,” he said cheerfully. “One moment. Heavy boxes, and these men like to have a glass. Not my old port, though. They would not appreciate it. A little of this—a little of this brandy.”He kept on talking softly as he took out a bottle and glasses from a cellarette, filled a couple, set the bottle down again, and carried the glasses out; and as the door swung to, Chester caught up the bottle quickly, held it to his lips, and gulped down a mouthful.“Hah!” he muttered, as he set the brandy down and sank back in the chair; “that is stimulating. But how strange that I should feel like this. Ugh!”He shuddered, for a cold chill ran through him, and the sensation of fear increased.“Can it be something threatening her?” he muttered. “How strange! I have not felt like this since I lost my first patient,” and the chill of coming dissolution seemed to hang in the air.“Pooh! Fancy. It is a slight chill. That brandy will soon take it off.”The voices reached him again, and the steps were heard outside; then the front door was closed, and the old man came in smiling.“Always at such inconvenient times,” he said. “Generally when I am studying some intricate passage by an old author; but to-day when I have had my first visitor for months. I’m afraid you have found me very long.”“Oh no, don’t name it,” said Chester, hurriedly, “but—”“Ah! your kindness of heart makes you speak thus,” said the old man, hastily. “Two heavy chests of books, and I was obliged to make the men take them downstairs, or they would block the passage. But now for the glass of wine and our chat.”“I’m afraid that I shall be obliged to ask you to excuse me to-day,” said Chester, who had risen.“Oh, surely not,” cried the old man in a disappointed tone. “I was reckoning so upon asking your opinion, my dear sir. Like liquid rubies. It will not take long.”“No, it would not take long,” replied Chester, who now spoke rather excitedly, while the old man’s eyes glittered strangely behind his glasses; “but I have been here some time now, and I must get back.”“But, my dear sir—”“Don’t press me, please. I, am rather unwell.”“You are not offended at my leaving you?”“No, absurd!” cried Chester, hastily. “I have had a good deal of trouble lately, and my nerves have been shaken.”“Your nerves have been shaken?” said the old man, gazing at him in a peculiar way.“Yes,” said Chester; “but another day you must let me come; and perhaps you can tell me a little more about your neighbours.”The old man smiled sadly.“Ah!” he said, “I am growing old and garrulous, and I have bored you, as you young people call it. You will not come again.”“Indeed, I will,” cried Chester, holding out his hand to take his host’s, which was extended unwillingly, and felt like ice. “Oh yes, I will come to-morrow or the next day. This is no paltry excuse. You may trust me.”“Ah, well, I will,” said the old man, who seemed to be satisfied with his scrutiny. “Pray come, then, and put up with my strange, unworldly ways; and you must give me some more hints about my health. In the meantime I will look out some of the old medical and surgical works. You will find them interesting.”“Yes, I hope we shall spend many hours together,” said Chester, frankly, as he moved toward the door, the old man walking by his side with his hands under the tails of his coat, where a looker-on would have seen that they were crooked and opening and shutting spasmodically.It was very dim now in the book-burdened room, the evening light having hard work to pierce the uncleaned panes of the windows; but there was light enough to show that, and also that the old bookworm’s claw-like right hand went into the coat-pocket and half drew from it something small and hard.But nothing followed as they walked into the gloomy hall and away to the front door, where, after a friendly shake of the hand, Chester uttered a sigh of relief as he turned away from the house, seeming to breathe more freely as he walked briskly along.“Pah! the old place felt like a sepulchre,” he muttered. “It was just as if the hand of death were clutching at me. I believe that if I had not taken that brandy I should have fainted. What a state my nerves must be in. Why, it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened. Once gain the old man’s confidence, I can stay there and watch the next house as long as I like.”There was something ominous about the old bookworm’s act as he went softly back into his half-dark, dusty room, evidently thinking deeply, till he stopped short in the middle to stand gazing down at the floor.“Yes, he said he was ill; he looked ill when he came up to the door—half mad. He will come back again, perhaps to-morrow—perhaps to-morrow. Hah! it was very near.”He raised his head now, went to the drawer from which he had taken the key, and placed back in it the heavy life-preserver, and then taking from the tail of the coat one of the short, old-fashioned pocket pistols which were loaded by unscrewing the little barrel by means of a key. This he examined, taking off the cap, after raising the hammer and putting a fresh one in its place. After this he closed the drawer and sat down to think.“Yes,” he said, half aloud, “it was very near. The next time he comes perhaps he’ll stay. He is getting to be a nuisance, and a dangerous one, as well.”
The Shadow passed away.
In another moment a crushing blow from a life-preserver, delivered by a vigorous arm, would have fallen upon the back of Chester’s skull, and sent him headlong down the flight of stairs; but the deadly weapon was thrust back into its owner’s breast, and the fierce, vindictive expression passed from his face as there was a violent ringing of the largest of the row of bells hanging to their right, and Chester turned sharply round, taper in hand, to look questioningly at the old man.
“Dear me!” he said, smiling, “how tiresome! This is one of the troubles of living quite alone, my dear young friend. I always have to answer my own door. I’m afraid that I must ask you to come back to the front room. Would you mind bringing the light? Thank you; I will take it.”
He blew out the clear little flame as they reached the glass door, and then set down the basket, before leading the way back into the library, where he glanced from the window.
“Dear me!” he said. “More books. So very late in the day too. They always come at awkward times. Pray sit down or look at some of my works. You’ll find something to interest you, I feel sure. Yes—yes; I’m coming,” he said, as the bell rang loudly again. “Don’t be so impatient, my good men, don’t be so impatient.”
“One moment; if you have business, I will go now,” said Chester.
“Oh, by no means,” said the old man. “I shall not be many moments. Pray take a book and my chair, there. It is only the railway men. I shall soon be done.”
Chester did not take the chair, but began to inspect the dusty shelves, while he heard the front door open and after a time the sound of heavy feet upon the steps, and then the bump down of what sounded like a heavy chest. Then more steps outside, the rattle of a chain belonging to the tail-board of a van, and the steps again.
Then he ceased to hear anything that was going on, for his thoughts had run to the adjoining house and his experiences there, but only to be succeeded by an indescribable sensation of dread—a singular feeling of malaise which troubled his faculties. It was like a portent of something hanging over him, or over her who occupied so much of his thoughts.
“I can’t stay here,” he said to himself. “I must get out into the open air. This place makes me feel sick and faint.”
He picked up one of the many books lying about, and threw it down again impatiently, to walk to the door, where he could hear the old student directing the men who had brought the consignment; while from the sounds it was evident that they were carrying the chests or whatever they were, down into the basement.
Feeling that it would be rude to interrupt his host then, he went back to the table.
“What is the matter with me?” he muttered, as he shivered involuntarily. “Is it from cold, or from over-thought and worry? Not going to be ill, am I, and at such a time?”
“I know,” he thought, at the end of a few minutes; “it is this place. The air is close and mephitic. I don’t believe the windows are ever open. I cannot stay here. I feel as if I should faint. Rude or not, I must go.”
He had sunk into a chair, and now started up, just as the old man re-entered.
“Just done,” he said cheerfully. “One moment. Heavy boxes, and these men like to have a glass. Not my old port, though. They would not appreciate it. A little of this—a little of this brandy.”
He kept on talking softly as he took out a bottle and glasses from a cellarette, filled a couple, set the bottle down again, and carried the glasses out; and as the door swung to, Chester caught up the bottle quickly, held it to his lips, and gulped down a mouthful.
“Hah!” he muttered, as he set the brandy down and sank back in the chair; “that is stimulating. But how strange that I should feel like this. Ugh!”
He shuddered, for a cold chill ran through him, and the sensation of fear increased.
“Can it be something threatening her?” he muttered. “How strange! I have not felt like this since I lost my first patient,” and the chill of coming dissolution seemed to hang in the air.
“Pooh! Fancy. It is a slight chill. That brandy will soon take it off.”
The voices reached him again, and the steps were heard outside; then the front door was closed, and the old man came in smiling.
“Always at such inconvenient times,” he said. “Generally when I am studying some intricate passage by an old author; but to-day when I have had my first visitor for months. I’m afraid you have found me very long.”
“Oh no, don’t name it,” said Chester, hurriedly, “but—”
“Ah! your kindness of heart makes you speak thus,” said the old man, hastily. “Two heavy chests of books, and I was obliged to make the men take them downstairs, or they would block the passage. But now for the glass of wine and our chat.”
“I’m afraid that I shall be obliged to ask you to excuse me to-day,” said Chester, who had risen.
“Oh, surely not,” cried the old man in a disappointed tone. “I was reckoning so upon asking your opinion, my dear sir. Like liquid rubies. It will not take long.”
“No, it would not take long,” replied Chester, who now spoke rather excitedly, while the old man’s eyes glittered strangely behind his glasses; “but I have been here some time now, and I must get back.”
“But, my dear sir—”
“Don’t press me, please. I, am rather unwell.”
“You are not offended at my leaving you?”
“No, absurd!” cried Chester, hastily. “I have had a good deal of trouble lately, and my nerves have been shaken.”
“Your nerves have been shaken?” said the old man, gazing at him in a peculiar way.
“Yes,” said Chester; “but another day you must let me come; and perhaps you can tell me a little more about your neighbours.”
The old man smiled sadly.
“Ah!” he said, “I am growing old and garrulous, and I have bored you, as you young people call it. You will not come again.”
“Indeed, I will,” cried Chester, holding out his hand to take his host’s, which was extended unwillingly, and felt like ice. “Oh yes, I will come to-morrow or the next day. This is no paltry excuse. You may trust me.”
“Ah, well, I will,” said the old man, who seemed to be satisfied with his scrutiny. “Pray come, then, and put up with my strange, unworldly ways; and you must give me some more hints about my health. In the meantime I will look out some of the old medical and surgical works. You will find them interesting.”
“Yes, I hope we shall spend many hours together,” said Chester, frankly, as he moved toward the door, the old man walking by his side with his hands under the tails of his coat, where a looker-on would have seen that they were crooked and opening and shutting spasmodically.
It was very dim now in the book-burdened room, the evening light having hard work to pierce the uncleaned panes of the windows; but there was light enough to show that, and also that the old bookworm’s claw-like right hand went into the coat-pocket and half drew from it something small and hard.
But nothing followed as they walked into the gloomy hall and away to the front door, where, after a friendly shake of the hand, Chester uttered a sigh of relief as he turned away from the house, seeming to breathe more freely as he walked briskly along.
“Pah! the old place felt like a sepulchre,” he muttered. “It was just as if the hand of death were clutching at me. I believe that if I had not taken that brandy I should have fainted. What a state my nerves must be in. Why, it is the most fortunate thing that could have happened. Once gain the old man’s confidence, I can stay there and watch the next house as long as I like.”
There was something ominous about the old bookworm’s act as he went softly back into his half-dark, dusty room, evidently thinking deeply, till he stopped short in the middle to stand gazing down at the floor.
“Yes, he said he was ill; he looked ill when he came up to the door—half mad. He will come back again, perhaps to-morrow—perhaps to-morrow. Hah! it was very near.”
He raised his head now, went to the drawer from which he had taken the key, and placed back in it the heavy life-preserver, and then taking from the tail of the coat one of the short, old-fashioned pocket pistols which were loaded by unscrewing the little barrel by means of a key. This he examined, taking off the cap, after raising the hammer and putting a fresh one in its place. After this he closed the drawer and sat down to think.
“Yes,” he said, half aloud, “it was very near. The next time he comes perhaps he’ll stay. He is getting to be a nuisance, and a dangerous one, as well.”
Chapter Twenty.Strangely Mysterious Proceedings.The Clareboroughs’ carriage was at the door, and the well-matched, handsome pair of horses were impatiently pawing the ground, in spite of sundry admonitions from the plump coachman of the faultless turn-out to be “steady there!” “hold still!” and the like.Mr Roach, the butler, had appeared for a minute on the step, looking very pompous and important, exchanged nods with the coachman, and gone in again to wait for the descent of their people, bound for one of Lord Gale’s dinner-parties in Grosvenor Place.All was still in the hall as the door was closed, and the marble statues and bodiless busts did not move upon their pedestals, nor their blank faces display the slightest wonder at the proceedings which followed, even though they were enough to startle them out of their equanimity.For all at once the pompous, stolid butler and the stiff, military-looking footman, in his good, refined livery, suddenly seemed to have been stricken with a kind of delirious attack. The expression upon their faces changed from its customary social diplomatic calm to one of wild delight, and they both broke into a spasmodic dance, a combination of the wildest step of thecan-canand the mad angulations of a nigger breakdown, with the accompaniment of snapping of fingers at each other and the final kick-up and flop of the right foot upon the floor.Then they rushed at each other and embraced—the solemn, middle-aged butler and the tall young footman—theatrically, after which they seemed to come to their normal senses, and quietly shook hands.“’Bliged to let some of the steam off, old man?” whispered the footman.“Yes, Orthur, my boy, had to open the safety valve,” replied the butler. “We’re made men, eh?”“Not quite,” said the footman, grinning, “but getting into shape. Three hundred a-piece. I say, ain’t it grand?”“Splendid,” said the butler, with a broad smile. “But steady now.”“I say; wasn’t the idea right?”“Right as right, my boy.”“Ah,” said the footman, with a knowing wink, “who’d be without a good only uncle to tip you when you want a few pounds to invest? I say, though, you’ll go and pay the old boy as soon as we’re gone?”“Won’t be time.”“Oh yes; you’ll be all right. Get it done. Make it easy if we want to do it again, eh?”“All right; I’ll go. I say, Orthur, ain’t I like a father to you?”“Dear old man!” whispered the gentleman addressed, with a grin. “Me long-lost forther!”“Steady!” said the butler, sternly, and their masks of servitude were on their faces again, with the elder stern and pompous, the younger respectful and steady as a rock. “Yes; I’ll go and put that right. Must take a cab. You’ll pay half?”“Of course; that’s all right, sir. Fair shares in everything. I say, Bob’s got something else on. Hadn’t a chance to tell you before.”“Eh? What is that?”“Goodwood. He’s had a letter. I say, shall we be on there? Oh no, not at all.”“Pst! coming down,” whispered the butler; and the footman opened the door and went out to the carriage, which soon after dashed off, while the butler, after the regular glance up street and down, closed the door. He descended to his pantry, where he drew a glossy hat from a box, took an empty Gladstone bag from a cupboard and went out to hail the first hansom round the corner. This rattled him away in the direction of Bloomsbury, where he descended close to the great grim portico of the church, and told the man to wait.The driver gave a glance at him, but the butler looked too respectable for a bilker, and he settled down for a quiet smoke, muttering, “Grapes or pears.”But cabby was wrong. Mr Roach was not the class of domestic to lower his dignity by engaging in a kind of commerce which could be properly carried on by the fruiterer. He made for a quiet street, turned up a narrow court, and passed in through a glazed swing door upon whose embossed pane appeared the blazon of the Medici family—the three golden pills—the crest of the generous relative—“mine uncle” of the borrower high and low, and the minute after he stood in darkness in a narrow box.A sharp-faced young man with a pen behind his ear came from the right and stretched out his hand across the broad counter.“Send the guv’nor,” said Roach, importantly.A sharp look was the answer, the shopman went away, and his place was taken directly by a keen, dark man, with a gaslight complexion, and to him Roach handed a little white ticket.“Hullo! So soon!” said the man, showing his teeth, which matched his skin.“Well, didn’t I tell you so?” said Roach, importantly.“Yes, but I don’t quite believe everything my clients say.”“No, and you were precious uppish and hold-offish the other day,” said Roach, shortly.“Obliged to be careful, Mr Smith, in my profession,” said the pawnbroker, with a peculiar smile. “There’s a law against receiving stolen goods, and one don’t want to get into trouble.”“Well, you needn’t begin to suspect everybody who wants money, if there is. Do you suppose gentry don’t run short of money sometimes?”“Oh no. I know they do, Mr Smith. I could show you some jewellery that would open your eyes.”“And I dessay I could show you something that would open yours. May have to bring it to you some day. Who knows?”“Glad to do business on the square any time, Mr Smith,” said the pawnbroker.“Of course you are; so’s lots more. People thinks there’s no card-playing going on now, and gents and ladies running short.”“We don’t think so, Mr Smith.”“No, I suppose not,” said Roach. “I did make up my mind I wouldn’t come here again after what passed.”“Only business caution, Mr Smith.”“Oh, well, if that’s all, perhaps I may. This was a commission; hundred pound wanted on the nail, and security worth five offered. Money’s come in again, and my people want the security. Here’s the cash and interest, and the sooner I’m off the better.”“Soon done, Mr Smith,” said the pawnbroker, “and I shall be happy to do business with you again any time.” The man made some memoranda on the card, and went into a back room to a safe, from which he brought a carefully-done-up packet.“Rather I hadn’t fetched it, eh?” said Roach, after having the packet opened and satisfied himself that the gold contents were intact.“Don’t you make that mistake, Mr Smith,” said the pawnbroker. “We don’t want unredeemed pledges to sell, but to have them taken out and receive our interest. That’s the way money is made, sir.”“I dessay,” said the butler, paying over the sum needed in notes and gold, and then packing the security in the Gladstone bag; “but it’s a free country, and people have a right to believe what they like.”“Of course, my dear sir, of course.”“Now look here,” whispered Roach; “if there happens to be an emergency, mister, and I’m disposed to come here again with something for an advance, is it to be prompt business, or a lot of humbugging questions?”“Prompt business, Mr Smith, with approved customers, and to any amount.”“That will do then. I’ll come. Private and confidential, eh?”“Private and confidential, sir. Good-evening.—Jobson, shut up.”“Yes, and I shut him up,” muttered Roach, as he went out with his Gladstone bag feeling weighty, and sought his cab, but not without looking back once or twice and choosing another way for his return.But he saw nothing to excite his suspicions of being followed, for it was not likely that the homely-looking woman with a thickish umbrella had come from the pawnbroker’s. But somehow she had.An hour later, Roach’s carefully-done-up parcel was denuded of its wrappings, and its golden glories were hidden in the iron plate-closet at the back of his pantry. And then he came upon Arthur, not long returned from setting down their people at Grosvenor Place.“Hullo! Didn’t know you’d come back. Got it?” said the footman.The butler nodded.“Shut the door,” he said; and as soon as they were alone in the pantry, Roach unlocked the iron closet which contained the plate under his charge, and pointed to a handsome centre-piece standing on the shelf.Then it was that the younger man so far forgot the respect due to his elder as to slap him on the back, an act not in the least resented, but responded to by a playful dig in the ribs.“But I say, my boy,” whispered the butler, “it won’t do, you know. I’ve funked horribly for fear that they should ask for it.”“Likely!” said the footman, scornfully. “It’s never been used but once.”“More likely to be asked for to be put away with the rest in the vault. Jemmy’s safe to remember it some day.”The footman was thoughtful as the butler locked up the iron closet.“We ought to put away something not likely to be asked for, eh?”“Yes,” said the butler, shaking his head sagely; “but what is there? We may have a dinner-party any day, and everything have to be shown.”“Must be lots of things in the vault.”“Course there is.”“I say, ain’t it rum that they don’t send the things to their bankers?”“Not a bit, when they’ve got a strong closet of their own, Orthur, my boy. I heard ’em talking about it one day at dinner, and Jemmy said something about their old bank breaking, and a lot of the family plate and jewels being lost. The rogues had been hard up for long enough and sold it.”“Ah! there’s a sight o’ rogues in the world,” said Arthur, quietly.“We’ve got some capital now.”“Yes, but let’s think of a rainy day. Now, look here, there must be no end of things in the vault as they’re never like to ask for.”“No end,” said the butler.“Never been in it?”“Never.”“Well, couldn’t we have a look in, and pick out something small and handy?—say jools. They do lock them there when they go down to The Towers. I do know that.”“Yes, my lad, they do; and I believe there’s a lot of old gold, family plate and diamonds as they never do want.”“That’s the stuff for us—in case we want it, of course. Don’t hurt them to borrow it, and it finds us the capital to do us good.”“Yes, but how are we to get at it?”“Keys.”“Where are they kept?”“Oh, we could soon find out that.”“Well, I can’t. I’ve been on the look-out this two years, and I believe Jemmy keeps ’em somewhere, but I never could find out where.”“Then you had thought of that plan, old man?”“Of course I had. Where you ain’t trusted it sets you thinking. They’re well-bred, but somehow the Clareboroughs ain’t real gentlemen. They trust me with some of the plate, and I’m supposed to be butler, but what about the wine? Do they ever let me have the key of the cellar?”“No, that’s Bob’s job,” said the footman, thoughtfully.“Yes, and a couple of paltry dozen at a time. How am I to know if the wine’s keeping sound or not? But there are ways, Orthur,” continued Roach, with a wink, and he rose slowly, went to a chest of drawers, unlocked it, took out a box, unlocked that, and drew forth a couple of new-looking keys.“Hullo!” said the footman in a whisper; “cellar?”“That one is,” replied the butler, as his companion turned over the big bright key he had taken up.“Good. And what’s this?”“One I got made to try the vault.”“Phe-ew!” whistled Arthur, excitedly. “Then you have been in?”“No, my lad; that only opens the wooden door at the end of the passage. Then you’re in a bit of a lobby, with a big iron door on one side.”“Well, didn’t you get a key made for that?”“No, my lad. I couldn’t. It’s a rum one. I don’t believe you could get one made by anybody but them as sold the safe.”“Don’t believe it,” cried the footman, contemptuously, “Let me have a look.”“Nay, nay, you’d better not.”“Gammon. Where’s the old woman?”“In her room, up atop.”“Who’s in the kitchen?”“Only the scullery-maid. T’others are all gone out.”“Then let’s go and have a look,” cried Arthur. “I want to be a man. I’m sick of being a mouse.”The butler seemed disposed to sit still, but the energy of his young companion stirred him to action, and he placed the keys in his pocket and stood hesitating.“Go and see first what that gal’s doing,” he whispered, “while I make sure the old woman’s up in her room.”The footman nodded, and both went their ways, to meet again with a nod indicating that all was right, and then the butler led on along one of the passages of the extensive basement to where another struck off at right angles, ending in an ordinary stout oak-grained door. This readily yielded to the key the butler brought, and after lighting a bit of candle the pair stepped into a little stone-walled room of about ten feet square, with a closely-fitting drab-painted door on their right, standing flush with the iron frame which filled up the centre.“That’s a tight one, Orthur, lad,” said the butler.“Yes, to them as has no key,” said the footman, quietly, after going down on one knee and examining the key-hole by holding the loose cover on one side. “I’m a-going to have a key to fit that lock, old man, afore long.”“You are, my boy?”“I am, guv’nor. You and I’s got together and we’ve got to stick together and make our fortunes. There’s horses and carriages and plate chests and cellars o’ wine for them as likes to be enterprising, and we’re enterprising now.”“But we mustn’t do anything shady, Orthur.”“Shady, guv’nor!” cried the footman, contemptuously; “not us. It’s to be sunshiny. Don’t you be afraid o’ that. We sha’n’t do nothing to make us afraid to look a bobby in the face. Only a bit of speckylation—a bit o’ borrowing now and then to raise the wind, and paying of it back. Give us your hand on it, old man. We sticks together through thick and thin.”There were vinous tears in the butler’s eyes as he extended his plump white hand to be grasped hard, and the two speculators looked each in the other’s face, seeing a gilded future before them, the glare of which hid everything else.“That’ll do for the present, guv’nor,” said Arthur.He drew open the door, and was about to pass out, when a short cough came echoing along the passage, and he pushed the door close again.“Hist!” he whispered, as he blew out the light; “the old woman’s coming down.”“Quick! take out the key, and lock it from inside,” whispered the butler. “She’s always coming along here to see if this place is all right and try the door.”The footman obeyed, making a faint rattle with the key, after which he closed the door, leaving them in darkness.“Have you locked it?”“No, there ain’t no key-hole on this side. Hist! she’s coming straight here.”The next moment the footman’s shoulder was placed against the door to keep it fast.The men stood holding their breath and feeling the perspiration gather upon their faces like a heavy dew, as they waited, hearing nothing now but the throbbing of their own hearts for what seemed to be an interminable time, before there came the sound as of something soft being dabbed against the door, followed by a sudden heavy push which, in spite of his strength, sent a jarring thrill through every nerve of the footman’s body.
The Clareboroughs’ carriage was at the door, and the well-matched, handsome pair of horses were impatiently pawing the ground, in spite of sundry admonitions from the plump coachman of the faultless turn-out to be “steady there!” “hold still!” and the like.
Mr Roach, the butler, had appeared for a minute on the step, looking very pompous and important, exchanged nods with the coachman, and gone in again to wait for the descent of their people, bound for one of Lord Gale’s dinner-parties in Grosvenor Place.
All was still in the hall as the door was closed, and the marble statues and bodiless busts did not move upon their pedestals, nor their blank faces display the slightest wonder at the proceedings which followed, even though they were enough to startle them out of their equanimity.
For all at once the pompous, stolid butler and the stiff, military-looking footman, in his good, refined livery, suddenly seemed to have been stricken with a kind of delirious attack. The expression upon their faces changed from its customary social diplomatic calm to one of wild delight, and they both broke into a spasmodic dance, a combination of the wildest step of thecan-canand the mad angulations of a nigger breakdown, with the accompaniment of snapping of fingers at each other and the final kick-up and flop of the right foot upon the floor.
Then they rushed at each other and embraced—the solemn, middle-aged butler and the tall young footman—theatrically, after which they seemed to come to their normal senses, and quietly shook hands.
“’Bliged to let some of the steam off, old man?” whispered the footman.
“Yes, Orthur, my boy, had to open the safety valve,” replied the butler. “We’re made men, eh?”
“Not quite,” said the footman, grinning, “but getting into shape. Three hundred a-piece. I say, ain’t it grand?”
“Splendid,” said the butler, with a broad smile. “But steady now.”
“I say; wasn’t the idea right?”
“Right as right, my boy.”
“Ah,” said the footman, with a knowing wink, “who’d be without a good only uncle to tip you when you want a few pounds to invest? I say, though, you’ll go and pay the old boy as soon as we’re gone?”
“Won’t be time.”
“Oh yes; you’ll be all right. Get it done. Make it easy if we want to do it again, eh?”
“All right; I’ll go. I say, Orthur, ain’t I like a father to you?”
“Dear old man!” whispered the gentleman addressed, with a grin. “Me long-lost forther!”
“Steady!” said the butler, sternly, and their masks of servitude were on their faces again, with the elder stern and pompous, the younger respectful and steady as a rock. “Yes; I’ll go and put that right. Must take a cab. You’ll pay half?”
“Of course; that’s all right, sir. Fair shares in everything. I say, Bob’s got something else on. Hadn’t a chance to tell you before.”
“Eh? What is that?”
“Goodwood. He’s had a letter. I say, shall we be on there? Oh no, not at all.”
“Pst! coming down,” whispered the butler; and the footman opened the door and went out to the carriage, which soon after dashed off, while the butler, after the regular glance up street and down, closed the door. He descended to his pantry, where he drew a glossy hat from a box, took an empty Gladstone bag from a cupboard and went out to hail the first hansom round the corner. This rattled him away in the direction of Bloomsbury, where he descended close to the great grim portico of the church, and told the man to wait.
The driver gave a glance at him, but the butler looked too respectable for a bilker, and he settled down for a quiet smoke, muttering, “Grapes or pears.”
But cabby was wrong. Mr Roach was not the class of domestic to lower his dignity by engaging in a kind of commerce which could be properly carried on by the fruiterer. He made for a quiet street, turned up a narrow court, and passed in through a glazed swing door upon whose embossed pane appeared the blazon of the Medici family—the three golden pills—the crest of the generous relative—“mine uncle” of the borrower high and low, and the minute after he stood in darkness in a narrow box.
A sharp-faced young man with a pen behind his ear came from the right and stretched out his hand across the broad counter.
“Send the guv’nor,” said Roach, importantly.
A sharp look was the answer, the shopman went away, and his place was taken directly by a keen, dark man, with a gaslight complexion, and to him Roach handed a little white ticket.
“Hullo! So soon!” said the man, showing his teeth, which matched his skin.
“Well, didn’t I tell you so?” said Roach, importantly.
“Yes, but I don’t quite believe everything my clients say.”
“No, and you were precious uppish and hold-offish the other day,” said Roach, shortly.
“Obliged to be careful, Mr Smith, in my profession,” said the pawnbroker, with a peculiar smile. “There’s a law against receiving stolen goods, and one don’t want to get into trouble.”
“Well, you needn’t begin to suspect everybody who wants money, if there is. Do you suppose gentry don’t run short of money sometimes?”
“Oh no. I know they do, Mr Smith. I could show you some jewellery that would open your eyes.”
“And I dessay I could show you something that would open yours. May have to bring it to you some day. Who knows?”
“Glad to do business on the square any time, Mr Smith,” said the pawnbroker.
“Of course you are; so’s lots more. People thinks there’s no card-playing going on now, and gents and ladies running short.”
“We don’t think so, Mr Smith.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Roach. “I did make up my mind I wouldn’t come here again after what passed.”
“Only business caution, Mr Smith.”
“Oh, well, if that’s all, perhaps I may. This was a commission; hundred pound wanted on the nail, and security worth five offered. Money’s come in again, and my people want the security. Here’s the cash and interest, and the sooner I’m off the better.”
“Soon done, Mr Smith,” said the pawnbroker, “and I shall be happy to do business with you again any time.” The man made some memoranda on the card, and went into a back room to a safe, from which he brought a carefully-done-up packet.
“Rather I hadn’t fetched it, eh?” said Roach, after having the packet opened and satisfied himself that the gold contents were intact.
“Don’t you make that mistake, Mr Smith,” said the pawnbroker. “We don’t want unredeemed pledges to sell, but to have them taken out and receive our interest. That’s the way money is made, sir.”
“I dessay,” said the butler, paying over the sum needed in notes and gold, and then packing the security in the Gladstone bag; “but it’s a free country, and people have a right to believe what they like.”
“Of course, my dear sir, of course.”
“Now look here,” whispered Roach; “if there happens to be an emergency, mister, and I’m disposed to come here again with something for an advance, is it to be prompt business, or a lot of humbugging questions?”
“Prompt business, Mr Smith, with approved customers, and to any amount.”
“That will do then. I’ll come. Private and confidential, eh?”
“Private and confidential, sir. Good-evening.—Jobson, shut up.”
“Yes, and I shut him up,” muttered Roach, as he went out with his Gladstone bag feeling weighty, and sought his cab, but not without looking back once or twice and choosing another way for his return.
But he saw nothing to excite his suspicions of being followed, for it was not likely that the homely-looking woman with a thickish umbrella had come from the pawnbroker’s. But somehow she had.
An hour later, Roach’s carefully-done-up parcel was denuded of its wrappings, and its golden glories were hidden in the iron plate-closet at the back of his pantry. And then he came upon Arthur, not long returned from setting down their people at Grosvenor Place.
“Hullo! Didn’t know you’d come back. Got it?” said the footman.
The butler nodded.
“Shut the door,” he said; and as soon as they were alone in the pantry, Roach unlocked the iron closet which contained the plate under his charge, and pointed to a handsome centre-piece standing on the shelf.
Then it was that the younger man so far forgot the respect due to his elder as to slap him on the back, an act not in the least resented, but responded to by a playful dig in the ribs.
“But I say, my boy,” whispered the butler, “it won’t do, you know. I’ve funked horribly for fear that they should ask for it.”
“Likely!” said the footman, scornfully. “It’s never been used but once.”
“More likely to be asked for to be put away with the rest in the vault. Jemmy’s safe to remember it some day.”
The footman was thoughtful as the butler locked up the iron closet.
“We ought to put away something not likely to be asked for, eh?”
“Yes,” said the butler, shaking his head sagely; “but what is there? We may have a dinner-party any day, and everything have to be shown.”
“Must be lots of things in the vault.”
“Course there is.”
“I say, ain’t it rum that they don’t send the things to their bankers?”
“Not a bit, when they’ve got a strong closet of their own, Orthur, my boy. I heard ’em talking about it one day at dinner, and Jemmy said something about their old bank breaking, and a lot of the family plate and jewels being lost. The rogues had been hard up for long enough and sold it.”
“Ah! there’s a sight o’ rogues in the world,” said Arthur, quietly.
“We’ve got some capital now.”
“Yes, but let’s think of a rainy day. Now, look here, there must be no end of things in the vault as they’re never like to ask for.”
“No end,” said the butler.
“Never been in it?”
“Never.”
“Well, couldn’t we have a look in, and pick out something small and handy?—say jools. They do lock them there when they go down to The Towers. I do know that.”
“Yes, my lad, they do; and I believe there’s a lot of old gold, family plate and diamonds as they never do want.”
“That’s the stuff for us—in case we want it, of course. Don’t hurt them to borrow it, and it finds us the capital to do us good.”
“Yes, but how are we to get at it?”
“Keys.”
“Where are they kept?”
“Oh, we could soon find out that.”
“Well, I can’t. I’ve been on the look-out this two years, and I believe Jemmy keeps ’em somewhere, but I never could find out where.”
“Then you had thought of that plan, old man?”
“Of course I had. Where you ain’t trusted it sets you thinking. They’re well-bred, but somehow the Clareboroughs ain’t real gentlemen. They trust me with some of the plate, and I’m supposed to be butler, but what about the wine? Do they ever let me have the key of the cellar?”
“No, that’s Bob’s job,” said the footman, thoughtfully.
“Yes, and a couple of paltry dozen at a time. How am I to know if the wine’s keeping sound or not? But there are ways, Orthur,” continued Roach, with a wink, and he rose slowly, went to a chest of drawers, unlocked it, took out a box, unlocked that, and drew forth a couple of new-looking keys.
“Hullo!” said the footman in a whisper; “cellar?”
“That one is,” replied the butler, as his companion turned over the big bright key he had taken up.
“Good. And what’s this?”
“One I got made to try the vault.”
“Phe-ew!” whistled Arthur, excitedly. “Then you have been in?”
“No, my lad; that only opens the wooden door at the end of the passage. Then you’re in a bit of a lobby, with a big iron door on one side.”
“Well, didn’t you get a key made for that?”
“No, my lad. I couldn’t. It’s a rum one. I don’t believe you could get one made by anybody but them as sold the safe.”
“Don’t believe it,” cried the footman, contemptuously, “Let me have a look.”
“Nay, nay, you’d better not.”
“Gammon. Where’s the old woman?”
“In her room, up atop.”
“Who’s in the kitchen?”
“Only the scullery-maid. T’others are all gone out.”
“Then let’s go and have a look,” cried Arthur. “I want to be a man. I’m sick of being a mouse.”
The butler seemed disposed to sit still, but the energy of his young companion stirred him to action, and he placed the keys in his pocket and stood hesitating.
“Go and see first what that gal’s doing,” he whispered, “while I make sure the old woman’s up in her room.”
The footman nodded, and both went their ways, to meet again with a nod indicating that all was right, and then the butler led on along one of the passages of the extensive basement to where another struck off at right angles, ending in an ordinary stout oak-grained door. This readily yielded to the key the butler brought, and after lighting a bit of candle the pair stepped into a little stone-walled room of about ten feet square, with a closely-fitting drab-painted door on their right, standing flush with the iron frame which filled up the centre.
“That’s a tight one, Orthur, lad,” said the butler.
“Yes, to them as has no key,” said the footman, quietly, after going down on one knee and examining the key-hole by holding the loose cover on one side. “I’m a-going to have a key to fit that lock, old man, afore long.”
“You are, my boy?”
“I am, guv’nor. You and I’s got together and we’ve got to stick together and make our fortunes. There’s horses and carriages and plate chests and cellars o’ wine for them as likes to be enterprising, and we’re enterprising now.”
“But we mustn’t do anything shady, Orthur.”
“Shady, guv’nor!” cried the footman, contemptuously; “not us. It’s to be sunshiny. Don’t you be afraid o’ that. We sha’n’t do nothing to make us afraid to look a bobby in the face. Only a bit of speckylation—a bit o’ borrowing now and then to raise the wind, and paying of it back. Give us your hand on it, old man. We sticks together through thick and thin.”
There were vinous tears in the butler’s eyes as he extended his plump white hand to be grasped hard, and the two speculators looked each in the other’s face, seeing a gilded future before them, the glare of which hid everything else.
“That’ll do for the present, guv’nor,” said Arthur.
He drew open the door, and was about to pass out, when a short cough came echoing along the passage, and he pushed the door close again.
“Hist!” he whispered, as he blew out the light; “the old woman’s coming down.”
“Quick! take out the key, and lock it from inside,” whispered the butler. “She’s always coming along here to see if this place is all right and try the door.”
The footman obeyed, making a faint rattle with the key, after which he closed the door, leaving them in darkness.
“Have you locked it?”
“No, there ain’t no key-hole on this side. Hist! she’s coming straight here.”
The next moment the footman’s shoulder was placed against the door to keep it fast.
The men stood holding their breath and feeling the perspiration gather upon their faces like a heavy dew, as they waited, hearing nothing now but the throbbing of their own hearts for what seemed to be an interminable time, before there came the sound as of something soft being dabbed against the door, followed by a sudden heavy push which, in spite of his strength, sent a jarring thrill through every nerve of the footman’s body.