(MR. FRANK PAINE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS ASSOCIATION WITH THE TESTAMENTARY DISPOSITIONS OF MR. BENJAMIN BATTERS.)
I havenot yet been able to determine if my connection with the testamentary dispositions of Mr. Benjamin Batters was or was not, in the first place, owing to what I call the Affair of the Freak in the Commercial Road. On no other hypothesis can I understand why the business should have been placed in my hands. While, at the same time, I am willing to admit that the connection, if any, was of so shadowy a nature that I am myself at a loss to perceive where it quite comes in.
What exactly took place was this.
George Kingdon had got his first command. As we have been the friends of a lifetime, and are almost of an age, he being twenty-seven and I twenty-eight, the matter had almost as much interest for me as it had for him. The vessel’s name wasThe Flying Scud. It was to leave the West India south dock on Tuesday, April 3. He dined with me the night before. We drank success to the voyage. The following day I went to see him start. All went well; he had a capital send off; was in the highest spirits; and the last I saw of him the ship was going down the river on the tide.
It was, I suppose, about seven o’clock in the evening. It had been a glorious day; promised to be as fine a night. The shadows were only just beginning to lengthen. I had had a drink or two with Kingdon, and felt that a walk would do me good. I strolled along Preston’s Road and High Street, into the West India Road, and thence into the Commercial Road. Before I had gone very far I came upon a number of people who were thronging round one of the entrances into Limehouse Basin. They were crowding round some central object which was apparently affording them entertainment of a somewhat equivocal kind. I asked a bystander what was the matter; a man with between his lips a clay pipe turned bowl downwards.
“It’s one of Barnum’s Freaks. They’re giving him what for.”
“What’s he done?”
“Done?” The fellow shrugged his shoulders. “He ain’t done nothing so far as I knows on; what should he ’ave done? They’re only ’aving a bit o’ fun.”
It was fun of a peculiar sort; humorous from the Commercial Road point of view only. I doubted if the “Freak” found it amusing. He was being hustled this way and that; serving as a target for remarks which were, to say the least, unflattering. All at once there came a dent in the crowd. The “Freak” had either tumbled, or been pushed, over. Three or four of his more assiduous admirers had gone down on the top of him. The others roared. Four or five of those in the front rank were shoved upon the rest. The joke expanded. Presently the “Freak” was at the bottom of a writhing heap.
Perceiving that the jest was likely to become a serious one for the point of it, I forced my way into the centre of the crowd.
“Stand back!” I cried. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! You ought to pity the man instead of making sport of him. He is as God made him; it is not his fault that he is not like you.”
Nor, I felt as I looked at the faces which surrounded me, was it, after all, his serious misfortune either. Unless their looks belied them, in a moral, mental, and physical sense, the majority of them were “freaks,” if the word had any meaning. They gave way, however, to let me pass; it seemed that their temper was thoughtless rather than cruel. Soon I had extricated the wretched creature from his ignominious, and even perilous, position. Hailing a passing four-wheeler I put him into it. I slipped some money into the driver’s hand, and, bidding him take his fare to Olympia, the man drove off. The crowd booed a little, and then stared at me. Then, seeing that I paid them no sort of heed, they were so good as to suffer me to pursue my way unmolested and alone.
It was only after I had gone some little distance that I realised that I knew nothing whatever about the creature I had put into the cab. I had only the clay-piped gentleman’s word for the fact that he, she, or it was a freak at all. The creature—I call it creature for lack of more precise knowledge as to what he, she, or it, really was—was so enveloped in an odd-shaped cloak of some dark brown material, that, practically, so far as I had been able to see, nothing of it was visible. For all that I could tell the creature beneath the cloak might not have been human. There was certainly nothing to show—except the way in which it was shrouded, and that might have been owing to the action of the crowd—that it was what is commonly called a freak. Its connection with the Barnum Show at Olympia might be as remote as mine. If a mistake had been made I wondered what would happen when it was discovered. Playing the Good Samaritan in the London streets is not always a remunerative rôle for any one concerned. In my blundering haste I had probably done at least as much harm as good. I smiled, drily, at the reflection. Anyhow, I had given the cabman a liberal fare. To me, then, as now, a cab fare is a cab fare.
I had turned into Cable Street and was nearing the Tower. By now the night had fallen. In that part of the world, at that hour—I remember that a minute or two before I had heard a clock strike nine, so that either I had been longer on the road, or it had been later at the start, than I imagined—there were not many people in the streets. There seemed to be fewer the further I went. At any rate, ere long, I should have them to myself. I was, therefore, the more surprised when, as I was reaching Tower Hill, without any sort of warning, someone touched me on the shoulder from behind. I turned to see who had accosted me. It was rather dark just there, so that it was a moment or two before I perceived who it was.
It was a woman, and that was about all which, at first, I could make out. She, too, was enveloped in a cloak. It was of such ample dimensions that not only did it conceal her figure, but, drawn over her head, it almost completely concealed her features. Nearly all that I could see was a pair of what seemed unusually bright eyes, gleaming from under its folds. My impulse was to take her for a beggar, or worse, for a woman of the streets.
“What do you want?”
“Take this, it is for helping him just now.”
Before I could prevent her she had slipped something into my hand. It felt as if it were something hard, wrapped in a piece of paper.
“For helping whom?”
“The Great God.”
She dropped her voice to a whisper. I had not the vaguest inkling of her meaning.
“What do you mean?—What is this you have given me?”
“It is the God of Fortune; it will bring you good luck. Tell me your name.”
“My name? What has my name to do with you? Whatever is this? I cannot take it from you; thank you all the same.”
I held out to her the little packet she had pressed into my palm. She ignored it; repeating her inquiry.
“Tell me your name, quick!”
There was a curious insistence in her manner which tickled what I, with sufficient egotism, call my sense of humour. She spoke as if she had but to command for me to obey; I obeyed. I furnished her not only with my name, but, also, with my address. There was no harm done. I am a solicitor; figure on the law list; advertisement, of some sort, is to me something very much like bread and cheese. Without thanking me, or dropping a hint to explain her curiosity, so soon as I had supplied her with the information she demanded, turning, she flew off down the street like some wild thing. I doubt if I could have kept pace with her had I tried. I did not try. I let her go.
“This is a night of adventures,” I said to myself. “What is the present which the lady’s given me; the money which I paid the cabman?—Hallo!—That’s queer!”
I was beginning to tear open the piece of paper, and with that intent had already twisted off a corner, when, hey presto! it opened of its own accord, just as if a living thing had been inside, and, with a rapid movement, rent it from top to bottom. I was holding what seemed to be a curiosity in the way of tiny dolls. The toy, if it was a toy, was not so long as my forefinger. It seemed to have been cut out of a piece of wood, and fantastically painted to illustrate some very peculiar original. It had neither feet nor legs, nor hands or arms. Its head, which was set between hunched-up shoulders, was chiefly remarkable for a pair of sparkling eyes, which I concluded to be beads. I turned it over and over without discovering anything which pointed to a hidden spring. It looked as if it had never moved, and never would. There was nothing whatever to show by what means the paper had come open.
“It’s odd, and ingenious. I suppose there is a spring of some sort; wood, even when it represents the God of Fortune—I think the lady mentioned the God of Fortune—does not move of its own volition. I’ll discover it when I get home.”
I slipped the toy into my waistcoat pocket, meaning to subject it to a searching examination later on. However, when I reached my chambers I found letters which demanded immediate attention. They occupied some time. It was only when I was thinking of a nightcap preparatory to turning into bed, and was feeling for a penknife with which to cut a cigar, that I remembered the doll. I tossed it on to the mantelshelf. There it remained.
As I have said, that was the night of April 3. Since nearly a month elapsed before the arrival of Mr. Batters’ will, and nothing in any way suggestive occurred in the interval, it would seem as if the connection between the will and the events of that evening was of the slightest. Yet I felt that if it had not been for the Affair of the Freak in the Commercial Road, or if I had afterwards refused to give the woman my name and address, I should have heard nothing of Mr. Batters’ will. I do not pretend to be able to explain the feeling, but there it was.
I should, perhaps, in fairness add, that a queer little incident which coincided with the arrival of the will, seemed to point, whimsically enough, in the same direction.
The document came on a Thursday morning. When I entered the room which I used as an office, I found that four communications were awaiting me. The postman had brought them all. The boy I call—to shed dignity on him and on myself—a clerk, had set them out upon the table. Three letters in ordinary envelopes. The fourth was an awkward, bulky, coarse brown paper parcel. On it was the doll which the woman had given me on the night of April 3, in the lonely street near Tower Hill.
I had forgotten its existence. I took it for granted that its presence on that spot was owing to Crumper’s sense of humour. I called to him.
“Crumper!” His head appeared at the door. “What do you mean by putting this here?” He stared, as if he did not catch my meaning. There are moments when Crumper finds it convenient to be dull. “You understand me well enough; what do you mean by putting this doll upon my parcel?”
He still looked as if he did not understand. But Crumper had a capacity of being able to handle his face as if it were an indiarubber mask, on which he is able to produce any expression at will.
“Doll, sir? I don’t know anything about a doll, sir.” He came into the room, pointing with his thumb. “Do you mean that, sir? It wasn’t there when I left the room just now; to that I’ll take my affidavit.”
It is no use arguing with Crumper. The depth of his innocence is not to be easily plumbed. I sent him back to his den; knocked the doll with a fillip of my finger backwards on to the table; opened the brown paper parcel.
Of its contents I was not able, at first, to make head or tail. After prolonged examination, however, I arranged them thus:
(a) The Missionary’s Letter.(b) The Holograph Will.(c) The Bonds.(d) The Enclosure.
(a) The Missionary’s Letter.(b) The Holograph Will.(c) The Bonds.(d) The Enclosure.
(a) The Missionary’s Letter.
(b) The Holograph Will.
(c) The Bonds.
(d) The Enclosure.
Summed up, the contents of the packet amounted to this.
A certain Benjamin Batters was reported to have died on an island on the other side of the world of which I had never heard; why I was advised of the fact, there was nothing to show. His will was entrusted to my keeping—how my name had travelled through space so as to reach the cognisance of the Mr. Arthur Lennard who had reported the death of the said Benjamin Batters there was not the faintest hint. Bonds—“Goschens”—to the value of £20,000 accompanied the will; since they were payable to bearer this alone suggested profound confidence in an apparently perfect stranger. Finally, there was a smaller parcel which was sealed and endorsed “To be given to my niece, Mary Blyth, and to be opened by her only.”
The will—which was almost as rudimentary a document of the kind as I ever lighted on—bequeathed to the said Mary Blyth the income which was derived from the consols. As to the person in whose name the capital was to be vested not a word was said, nor did I perceive anything which would prevent her from dealing with it exactly as she chose. She was also, under curious and stringent conditions, to become the life tenant of a house in Camford Street of which, however, no title-deeds were enclosed, nor was their existence hinted at.
Had it not been for the presence of the bonds I should have set the whole thing down right away as a hoax. The heading on “Arthur Lennard’s” letter was “Great Ka Island: Lat. 5° South; Long. 134° East.” There might be such a place; the description seemed precise enough, and I had no atlas which would enable me to determine. But, at any rate, the packet in which it came had not been posted there. The postmark was Deptford; the date yesterday’s. When I held the paper on which the letter had been written up to the light I found that the watermark was “Spiers and Pond. Freshwater Mill Note. London,” which, under the circumstances, seemed odd.
It was, perhaps, nothing that the will was obviously the production of an unlettered person. Such persons do make their own wills, and, probably, will continue to do so to the crack of doom. But it was something that it was both unwitnessed and undated. And when to this was added the fact that the letter which told of Mr. Batters’ decease was undated too, the conjunction struck one a trifle forcibly.
Then the conditions under which Mary Blyth was to inherit were so puerile, not to say outrageous. She was never to be out of the precious house in Camford Street after nine at night. She was to receive no visitors; have only a woman as a companion, and if that woman left her, was to occupy the premises alone. After I had read it for the fourth time I threw the paper on to the table.
“Monstrous! monstrous! It consigns the unfortunate woman to an unnatural existence; she cannot marry; is cut off from her fellows; sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. Who would care to become even a millionaire on such conditions? Even if the thing is what it pretends to be, I doubt if it would be upheld by any court in England. I’m inclined to think that someone has been having a little joke at my expense.”
But there were the bonds. My experience of such articles is regrettedly small; but, such as it was, it went to show that they were genuine. Bonds for £20,000 are not a joke. They are among the most solemn facts of life. If, then, they were real, the presumption was that the will was not less so. In which case my duty was to have it proved, and to see that its terms were carried out. Anyhow, there were the bonds on which to draw for payment of my fees. Emphatically, my practice was not of sufficient extent to permit me to treat so fat a client with indifferent scorn.
Cogitating such matters, I had been indulging in what is a habit of mine; pacing, with my hands in my pockets, up and down the room. Returning to the table, I prepared to subject the supposititious will to a still more minute examination. It was not till I stretched out my hand that I noticed that, in the centre of the sheet of blue foolscap on which it was inscribed, was—the God of Fortune, the doll in miniature which, once already, I had ejected from a similar position. How it had returned to it was a problem which, just then, was beyond my finding out. I had filliped it right to the extreme edge of the table. No one had been in the room; Crumper had not so much as put up the tip of his nose inside the door. I had not touched the thing. Yet there it was, ostentatiously perched on Mr. Batters’ will. I stared at the doll; I had an odd notion that the doll stared at me; a ridiculous feeling, indeed, that the preposterous puppet was alive. I scratched my head.
“I fancy this morning I must be a bit off colour. A penny doll alive, indeed! I shall begin seeing things if I don’t look out.”
I slipped the doll into my waistcoat pocket; noting, as I did so, that it was ugly enough to startle the most morbid-minded juvenile admirers of its kind. I glanced at the three letters which the morning post had brought me, neither of which proved to be of any account. Slipped the missionary’s letter, Mr. Batters’ will, and one of the bonds into an envelope. Locked the enclosure to be given to Mary Blyth and the rest of the bonds in a drawer; and, with the envelope in my hand, went to call on Gregory Pryor.
Pryor is a barrister of some years’ standing; a “rising junior”; hard-working, hard-headed, a sound lawyer, and a man of the world. What is more, a friend of my father’s who has transferred his friendship to me. More than once when I have found myself in a professional quandary I have laid the matter before him; on each occasion he has given me just that help and advice I needed. I felt assured that I should lose nothing by asking for his opinion on the curious case of Mr. Batters’ will.
When, however, I reached his chambers the clerk told me he was out, engaged in court. I left word that I would return later in the day. Having nothing on hand of pressing importance, I felt that I could hardly employ the interval better than by finding out all that I could with reference to the house in Camford Street which Mr. Batters claimed as his own. If the claim proved to be well founded, then the document which purported to be his will was probably no hoax.
I shouldnot myself have cared to live in Camford Street, though it had many residents. It was in the heart, if not exactly of a slum, then certainly of an unsavoury district. Its surroundings, residentially speaking, were about as undesirable as they could have been. Camford Street itself was long, dreary, out-at-elbows, old enough to look as if it would be improved by being rebuilt. Painters, whitewashers, people of that kind, had not been down that way for years; that was obvious from the fronts of the houses. Buildings stretched from end to end in one continuous depressing row. Half-a-dozen houses, then a shop; half-a-dozen more, and a blacking manufactory; three more, and a public-house; another six and a “wardrobe dealer’s,” doubtful third and fourth hand garments dimly visible through dirty panes of glass, and so on, for a good half mile.
Eighty-four looked, what it undoubtedly was, an abode of mystery, as grimy an edifice as the street contained. I know nothing of the value of property thereabouts; whatever it might have been it was not the kind of house I should care to have bequeathed to me. Especially if I had to reside in it. I would rather pass it on to someone who was more deserving. Shutters were up at all the windows. There was not a trace of a blind or curtain. At the front door there was neither bell nor knocker. It seemed deserted. I rapped at the panels with the handle of my stick; once, and then again. An urchin addressed me from the kerb.
“There ain’t no one living in that ’ouse, guv’nor.”
I thanked him for the information; it never occurred to me to shed a shadow of doubt on it. I felt sure that he was right. I crossed to a general shop on the other side of the way.
“Excuse me,” I said to the individual whom I took for the proprietor—“Kennard” was the name over the shop front—“Can you tell me who lives at No. 84?”
“No one.”
Mr. Kennard—I was convinced it was he—was a short, paunchy man, with a bald head and a club foot. He pursed his lips and screwed up his eyes in a fashion which struck me as rather comical.
“Who is the landlord?”
“No one knows.”
“No one?” I smiled. “I presume you mean that you don’t know. Someone must; the local authorities, for instance.”
“The local authorities don’t. I’m a vestryman myself, so you can take that from me. There’s been no rates and taxes paid on that house for twenty years or more; because no one knows to whom to go for them.”
He thrust his hands under his white apron, protruding his stomach in a manner which was a little aggressive.
“The last person who lived at Eighty-four was an old gentleman, named Robertson. He was a customer of mine, and owed me three pound seven and four when he was missing. It’s on my books to this hour.”
“Missing? Did he run away?”
“Not he; he wasn’t that sort. Besides, there was no reason. He was a pensioner; he told me so himself. I don’t know what he got his pension for, but it must have been a pretty comfortable one, because he paid me regular for over seven years; and I understood at that time, from what he said, that the house was his own. If it wasn’t I can’t say to whom he paid rent. The last time I saw him was a Friday night. He came in here and bought a pound of bacon—out of the back; twelve eggs—breakfast; five pounds of cheese—I never knew anyone who was fonder of cheese, he liked it good; a pound of best butter—there was no margarine nor Australian either in those days; and a pound of candles. I’ve never seen or heard anything of him since; and, as I say, that’s more than twenty years ago.”
“But what became of him?”
“That’s more than I can tell you. Perhaps you can tell me. You see, it was this way.”
Mr. Kennard was communicative. Business was slack just then. Apparently I had hit upon a favourite theme.
“Mr. Robertson was one of your quiet kind. Kept himself to himself; lived all alone; seemed to know no one; no one ever came to see him. He never even had any letters; because, afterwards, the postman told me so with his own lips; he said he’d never known of his having a letter all the time he was in this district. Sometimes nothing would be seen of him for three weeks together. Whether he went away or simply shut himself up indoors I never could make out. He was the least talkative old chap I ever came across. When you asked him a question which he didn’t want to answer, which was pretty well always, he pretended he was silly and couldn’t understand. But he was no more silly than I was; eccentric, that was all. Anyhow, when the weeks slipped by, and he wasn’t seen about, no one thought it odd, his habits being generally known. When quarter day came round I sent my little girl, Louisa—she’s married now, and got a family—across with my bill. She came back saying that she could make no one hear; and, through my window, I could see she couldn’t. ‘That’s all right,’ I said, ‘There’s no fear for Mr. Robertson’—I’d such a respect for the man—‘he’s sure to pay.’ But, if sure, he’s been precious slow; for, as I say, that three seven four is on my books to this hour.”
“If, as you say, the old gentleman lived alone, he may have been lying dead in the house all the time.”
“That’s what I’ve felt. And, what’s more, I’ve felt that his skeleton may be lying there now.”
“You suggest some agreeable reflections. Do you mean to say that, during all these years, no one has been in the house to see?”
“No one.” He paused; presently adding, in a tone which he intended should be pregnant with meaning, “At least, until shortly before this last Christmas. And I’ve no certainty about that. A man can only draw his own conclusions.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see those shutters? Well, for over twenty years there weren’t any shutters hiding those windows. One morning I looked across the street, and there they were.”
“Someone had put them up in the night?”
“That was my impression. But Mrs. Varley, who lives next door to this, says that she noticed them coming for about a week. Each morning there was another window shuttered. She never mentioned a word of it to me; so that I can only tell you that when I saw them first they were all up.”
“Who was responsible for their appearance?”
“That’s what I should like to know. Directly I clapped eyes on them I went straight across the road, and knocked at the door; thinking that if old Robertson had come back—though he’d be pretty ancient if he had—I might get my money after all; and that if he hadn’t there’d be no harm done. But no more attention was paid to me than if I hadn’t been there. I daresay that if I’ve knocked once since I’ve knocked twenty times; but, though I’ve always felt as if there was someone inside listening, I’ve never seen a soul about the place, and no one has ever answered. I tell you what; there’s something queer about that house. More than once it’s been on the tip of my tongue to warn a policeman to keep an eye on it. It’s my opinion that London will hear about it yet.”
Mr. Kennard was oracular. When, however, on quitting his establishment I glanced at No. 84, I myself was conscious of a queer feeling that there was an unusual atmosphere about the house, as if something strange was brooding over it. I told myself that I was still a little bilious, and imagined things.
While I had been in conversation with Mr. Kennard I had observed a curious face peering at us through the window of his shop. Now I noticed a man, who struck me as being the owner of the face, loitering a few doors up the street. As I came out, turning, so that his back was towards me, he began to slowly stroll away. Urged by I know not what odd impulse, I moved quickly after him. Immediately, he crossed the street. I crossed at his heels. As if seized with sudden fear, breaking into a run, he tore off down the street at the top of his speed. I was reminded of the behaviour of the woman who had thrust the God of Fortune into my hand.
All the way back to my chambers I was haunted by a disagreeable sense of being followed. I frequently turned in an endeavour to detect my shadower; each time no one suspicious seemed to be in sight. Yet, so persistent was the feeling that, on entering, after lingering for a second or two in the hall, I darted back again into the court; to cannon against the man who had been loitering in Camford Street. Had I not gripped him by the shoulders he would have been bowled over like a ninepin.
There was no mistaking the individual. I had marked his peculiar figure; the nondescript fashion of his dress—a long black coat, made, apparently, of alpaca, reaching to his heels; a soft black felt hat so much too large for his head that it almost covered his eyes. He was a foreigner, undersized, unnaturally thin.
“Well, my man, what can I do for you?” He did not reply. His countenance assumed an expression of vacuous imbecility. I shook him gently, to spur his wits. “Do you hear, what can I do for you? Since you have taken the trouble to follow me all this way, I suppose there is important business which you wish to transact with me.”
The fellow said nothing. Whether he understood I could not say. He evidently wished me to believe that he did not, shaking his head, as if he had no tongue. I took him for a Chinaman, though he was darker than I imagine Chinamen are wont to be. His two little bead-like eyes burned out of two small round holes, in circumference scarcely larger than a sixpence. Eyebrows or eyelashes he had none. His skin was scarred by smallpox.
Since, apparently, nothing could be done with him, I let him go. So soon as my hand was off him he darted into the Strand like some eager wild thing. After momentary hesitation I went to see what had become of him. Already the traffic had swallowed him up. He was out of sight.
Gregory Pryor was in when I called the second time. I laid the God of Fortune down before him on the table.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a joss.”
“A joss?” The promptness of his reply took me aback. “I thought a joss was an idol.”
“So it is; what you might call an idol. A symbol some would style it. They’re of all sorts, shapes and sizes; that is one of the waistcoat pocket kind. I was once in a case for a Chinaman with an unpronounceable name. He spoke English better than you and I, knew the ropes at least as well, yet he had one of these things in each of about twenty-seven pockets. He was a member of one of the thirteen thousand Taoist sects. He told me that they’d a joss for everything; a joss for the hearth, another for the roof, another for the chimney; three for the beard, whiskers and moustache. In every twig of every tree they saw a joss of some sort. Where did you get yours from?”
I informed him; then spoke of the contents of the parcel which the morning’s post had brought.
“I can give you one assurance—this bond’s all right. At a shade under the market price, I can do with any number. As for your missionary’s letter, let’s see if Great Ka Island is on the map.”
He got down a gazetteer and an atlas.
“The gazetteer’s an old one. There’s no mention of it here, so it seems that it was either not known when this was published, or it was too obscure a spot to be worth recording. The atlas is newer. Ah! here we have it. Arafura Sea—New Guinea—Dutch New Guinea. There’s a group of Ka Islands—Great Ka, Little Ka, and others. Great Ka’s largish, nearly one hundred miles long, but narrow; apparently not ten miles at the broadest part, and tapering to a point. Sort of reef, I fancy. A good deal out of the way, and not in any steamer route I ever heard of. A convenient address for a man who wishes to avoid inquiries.”
Leaning back in his chair, pressing the tips of his fingers together, Pryor regarded the ceiling.
“Letter’s fishy, and, being undated, no use as evidence. Will’s fishy, too. But there are the bonds So long as a lawyer sees his way to his fee, what else matters? I take it that there was a Benjamin Batters, and that there is a Mary Blyth. I also fancy that there’s more in the matter than meets the eye. It has come to you in an irregular fashion, and therefore, in the nature of things, it is sniffy. My advice to you is, move warily. Discover Mary Blyth; hand over the estate to her, accepting no responsibility; present your bill, get your money; and, unless you see good reason to the contrary, wipe your hands of her thenceforward. If you do that you won’t do very far wrong. Now, good-bye; I’ve got all this stuff to wade through before I dine.”
I left him to the study of his briefs. His advice I turned over in my mind, finally resolving that I would move even more warily than he suggested. Before introducing myself to Mary Blyth, I would spend a day in endeavouring to discover something about the late Benjamin Batters, and, particularly, I would try to learn how it was that, after his death, his affairs had chanced to fall into my hands.
I work, live, eat and sleep in my chambers. As it happens I am the only person on the premises who does so. There used to be others. But now, with the exception of my set, what were living rooms are used as offices, and I am the only actual resident the house contains. After dark—sometimes before—the workers flit away. I have the entire building to myself until they return with the morning.
My rooms are four: bedroom; an apartment in which I am supposed to take my meals; one which I use as an office; and the den, opening immediately on to the staircase, in which Crumper has his being. That night I was roused suddenly from sleep. At first I could not make out what had woke me. Then I heard what was unmistakably the clatter of something falling.
“There’s someone in the office.”
Slipping out of bed, picking up a hockey stick, making as little noise as possible, I stole officewards. Intuitively I guessed who was there, and proposed to interview my uninvited visitor.
My hasty conclusions proved, however, to be a little out.
Theoffice door was ajar. I remembered that I had left it so when I came to bed. Through the opening a dim light was visible. I peeped in.
I had expected to find that my guest would take the shape of the individual who had dogged my footsteps home from Camford Street. I hardly know on what I based my expectation, but there it was. A single glance, however, was sufficient to show that “guest” should read “guests,” for they were three. One was the pock-marked gentleman in question; a second was seemingly his brother—they were as alike as two peas; the third was as remarkable a person as I had ever yet beheld. He was of uncommon height and uncommon thinness. I never saw a smaller head set on human shoulders. My impression was that it was a monstrously attenuated monkey, which had thrown a yellow dust sheet about it anyhow. And it was only when I perceived the deftness with which the contents of my drawers were being emptied out upon the table that it occurred to me that, man or monkey, it was advisable I should interfere.
Just as I had decided that it was about time for me to have a finger in the pie, my beady-eyed acquaintance of the afternoon lighted on the God of Fortune, which I had tossed upon the table on my return from Pryor’s. Snatching it up with a curious cry, he handed it to his monkey-headed friend. That long-drawn-out gentleman, after a rapid glance at it, held it up with both hands high above his head. At once his two associates threw themselves down flat on their faces, grovelling before the penny doll as if it had been an object too sacred for ordinary eyes to look upon. The man of length without breadth began to say something in a high pitched monotone, which was in a language quite unknown to me, but which sounded as if it were a prayer or invocation. He spoke rapidly, as if he were repeating a form of words which he knew by heart.
I was getting interested. It seemed that I was surreptitiously assisting at some sort of religious service in which the doll played a conspicuous part. As I was momentarily expecting something to happen, something in the Arabian Nights way, as it were, that stupid hockey stick, slipping somehow from my grasp, fell with a bang upon the floor. That concluded the service on the spot. It must needs strike against the door in falling, driving it further open, so that I stood revealed to the trio in plain sight.
My impression is that they took me for something of horror; a demoniacal visitation, for all I know. My costume was weird enough to astonish even the Occidental mind. Anyhow, no sooner did they get a glimpse at me than they stood not on the order of their going, but went at once. Out went the light, and, also, out went they, through the window by which they had entered, and that with a show of agility which did them credit. I caught up that wretched stick, rushed after them in the darkness, and had the satisfaction of giving someone a pretty smart crack upon the head as he dropped from the sill on to the pavement below. I am not sure, but I fancy it was the lengthy one.
Striking a light I looked to see what damage had been done. So far as I could discover the only thing which was missing was the God of Fortune, to which they were entirely welcome. Apparently they prized it more than I did. I had a kind of notion, born of I know not what, that they had been after the Batters’ papers. If so, they were disappointed, for I had taken them with me into my bedroom, and at that moment they were reposing on a chair by my bedside.
The greater part of the following day I spent in searching for someone who knew something about Benjamin Batters, or Great Ka Island, or Arthur Lennard, missionary—without result. I learned what I was already aware of, that there were numerous missionary societies, both in England and America; and acquired the additional information that to try to find out something about a particular missionary without knowing by which society he had been accredited, resembled the well-known leading case of the search for the needle in the haystack. At the great shipping office at which I made inquiries no one knew anyone who had ever been to Great Ka Island, or ever wanted to go. And as for Benjamin Batters, the general impression seemed to be that if I wanted to know anything about him I had better put an advertisement in the agony column, and see what came of that.
Altogether, I felt that the day had been pretty well wasted. But as it would probably have been wasted anyhow, I had the consolation of knowing that there had not been so much harm done after all. To the credit side of the account was the fact that I had picked up three or four odds and ends of curious information which had never come my way before. And, as luck would have it, shortly after my return I actually had a client. Or something like one, at any rate.
Crumper was making ready for departure, when he appeared at the door with a face on which was an unmistakable grievance.
“Gentleman wishes to see you, sir. Told him that the office was just closing.”
“Did you? Then don’t be so liberal with information of the kind. Show the gentleman in.”
Crumper showed him in. When I saw him I was not sure that, in the colloquial sense, he was a gentleman. And yet I did not know.
He was a tall, well set-up man of between thirty and forty, distinctly good-looking, with fair hair and beard, and a pair of the bluest eyes I ever saw. He wore a blue serge suit, a turn down collar, and a scarlet tie. I know something of the sea and of sailors, having several of the latter among my closest friends. If he was not a sailor I was no judge of the breed. He brought a whiff of sea air into the room.
I motioned him to a chair, on which he placed himself as if he was not altogether at his ease. He glanced at a piece of paper which he had in his hand.
“You are Mr. Frank Paine?” I inclined my head. “A lawyer?”
I nodded again. He pulled at his beard; observing me with his keen blue eyes, as if he was thinking that for a lawyer I was rather young.
“I want a lawyer, or rather I want advice which I suppose only a lawyer can give me. I was speaking about it to George Gardiner, and he mentioned your name.”
“I am obliged to George; he is my very good friend. To whom have I the pleasure of speaking?”
“I’m Max Lander.”
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, as I should any friend of Mr. Gardiner’s. You, like him, are connected with the sea.”
“How did you find that out? Do I look as if I were?”
“Perhaps only to the instructed eye.” I wondered who, with ordinary perception, could associate him with anything else. “I am so fortunate as to have many friends among sailors, therefore I am always on the look-out for one.”
“That so?”
He kept trifling with his beard, apparently desirous that the burden of the conversation should rest with me.
“You know Mr. Gardiner well?”
“Not over well.”
“He was my schoolfellow, with another man who is now also a sailor—another George; George Kingdon.”
“What name?”
“Kingdon. He has lately received his first command; of a ship namedThe Flying Scud.”
Mr. Lander ceased to play with his beard. His hands dropped on to his knees. He sat forward on his chair, staring at me as if I were some strange animal.
“Good Lord!”
He seemed agitated. I had no notion why. Something I had said had apparently disturbed him.
“You know Mr. Kingdon?”
“Kingdon? Kingdon? Is that his name? Then devil take him! No, I don’t mean that. Perhaps it’s not his fault after all; it’s the fortune of war. Still—devil take him all the same.”
“What has Mr. Kingdon done to you, Mr. Lander?”
“Done!—done!” Apparently his feelings were too strong for words. Rising from his seat he began to stride about the room. Then, resting both hands upon the table, he glared at me. “What has Mr. Kingdon done to me? Did you hear my name?”
“I understood you to say it was Lander.”
“That’s it, Lander; Max Lander. Now don’t you know who I am?”
“It may be my stupidity, but I have not the least idea.”
“Do you mean to say that you don’t know George Kingdon’s taken my ship from me?”
“Taken her from you? I don’t understand. I understood thatThe Flying Scudwas the property of Messrs. ——”
“Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe; that’s so. That’s the name and title of the firm; they’re the owners. But I was in command of her the last three voyages; and when I brought her home I was hoping it was for the last time.”
“It seems that your hope was justified.”
“Are you laughing at me, Mr. Paine? Because, if you are, take my tip and don’t. I don’t mind being laughed at in a general way; but this is a subject on which I bar so much as a smile. I’m too sore, sir, too sore. Do you know the circumstances under which I got chucked fromThe Flying Scud?”
“I do not. May I ask if that is the matter on which you are seeking my advice?”
“Well,” he began, pulling at his beard again, hesitating, as if fearing to say too much. “What I want to know is, are your sympathies with the owner, with Kingdon, or with me?”
“Since I know nothing of what you are referring to, what answer do you expect me to give? So far as I am concerned, you are talking in riddles.”
“Look here, Mr. Paine, I’ll make a clean breast of the whole thing. Gardiner told me you were a decent sort, so I’ll take his word for it. You see before you the best done man in London—in England—in the world, for all I know. Done all round! I knew I was taking a certain risk, but I didn’t know it was a risk in that particular direction, and that’s where I was had. I saw my way to a real big thing. I went for it, shoved on all steam; brought the ship home, pretty well empty as she was; then got diddled. So, when I laid the ship alongside, and the owners found that there was scarcely enough on board to pay expenses, they didn’t like it. I got my marching ticket, and Mr. George Kingdon was in command instead. If it hadn’t been that I’d got a little money of my own, I should have been on my beam ends before now.”
“Do I gather that you complain of the way in which the owners ofThe Flying Scudhave treated you?”
“Not a bit of it; nothing of the kind. The only person I complain of is—we’ll say a party. If I got that, we’ll say, party, alone in a nice quiet little spot for about ten minutes, after that time I wouldn’t complain of him. The complaint would be on the other foot.”
“Then do you wish me to assist you in a scheme of assault and battery?”
“I don’t want that either. The fact is, it’s a queer story. You wouldn’t believe me if I told it; no one has done yet, so I’m not going to try my luck again with you. What I want to know is this. Suppose I ship, we’ll say, a man, and that, we’ll say, man, undertakes to hand over certain—well, articles, to pay for passage, and deposits certain other articles by way of earnest money. Before the ship reaches port that, we’ll say, man, vanishes into air, the articles which were to have been handed over, vanish with him, and the deposit likewise. What offence has that, we’ll say, man, been guilty of against the English law?”
“Your point is a knotty one. Where was the deposit?”
“In a locker in my cabin.”
“Secured by lock and key?”
“Secured by lock and key. And the key was in my pocket.”
“How was it taken out?”
“That’s what I want to know.”
“You are sure it was taken out?”
“Dead sure.”
“If you have evidence which will show that the person to whom you refer made free with the contents of your locker, then I should say that it was a case of felony. But there may be other points which would have to be considered. I should have to be placed in possession of all the facts of the case before I could pronounce an opinion. The matter may not be so simple as you think.”
“Simple! I think it simple! Good Lord!” He held up his hands, as if amazed at the suggestion. “There’s another thing I want to know. Suppose on the strength of that, we’ll say, man’s promises, I make promises on my own account to certain members of the crew. Being done by that, we’ll say, man, I was obliged to do them. What is my position, Mr. Paine, toward those members of the crew?”
“That is a question to which I cannot reply off-hand. It would depend on so many circumstances. I am afraid you will have to tell me the whole of your story before I can be of use to you.”
“Ah! That so? I was afraid it would be. I said to myself that you can’t expect a man, lawyer or no lawyer, to see what’s inside a box unless you open the lid. But I can’t tell you the story; I can’t. I’m too sore, sir, too sore. Smarting almost more than I can bear. I’ve been done out of a fortune, out of my good name, and out of something I value more than both. That’s a fact. I’ll look round a bit more, and try to get one of them back, in my own way. Then, if I can’t, perhaps I’ll come to you again. Sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Paine. What’s your fee?”
“For what? I’ve been of no use to you. For a pleasant conversation with my friend’s friend? I charge no fee for that, Mr. Lander.”
“You’re a lawyer. A lawyer’s time is money. I’ve always understood that a lawyer’s fee is six and eightpence. You’ve found me pretty trying. So I’ll make it a pound if you don’t mind.”
He laid a sovereign on the table. Without another word he left the room. I did not try to stop him. To my thinking the whole interview had verged perilously near to the ridiculous. I took the coin and locked it in a drawer, proposing, with Gardiner’s assistance, to hunt up Mr. Lander again. His money should be restored to him, if not in one form, then in another.
I would dine the man, and make him tell his funny tale.
Thenext day I was engaged. On that following I went up to Fenchurch Street, to the offices of Messrs. Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe. I had ascertained that Gardiner was out of town, and actuated by motives of curiosity thought I would learn where Mr. Lander might be found. As I was going up the steps an old gentleman came down. I knew him pretty well. His name was Curtis. He had been, and, indeed, for all I knew, was still an agent of Lloyd’s. For two or three years we had not met. After we had exchanged greetings, I put to him my question.
“Do you know a man named Lander, Max Lander?”
“Late ofThe Flying Scud?”
An odd expression came on his face, as it were the suggestion of a grin.
“That’s the man.”
“Yes, I know something of Max Lander, Captain Max, as he likes to be called. Though there’s not much of the captain about him just at present.”
The grin came more to the front.
“He called on me about a matter of which I could make neither head nor tail. I should like to have another talk with him. Can you tell me where he’s to be found?”
Mr. Curtis shook his head.
“Just now he’s resting. It’s been a little too hot for him of late. I fancy he’s lying by till it gets a little cooler.”
“What’s wrong with the man?”
“Nothing exactly wrong, only he’s had a little experience. Sorry I can’t stay, this cab’s waiting for me.” He stepped into the hansom which was drawn up by the kerb. “If you want to know what’s wrong with Lander, you mention to him the name of Batters—Benjamin Batters.”
The cab drove off. Before I had recovered from my astonishment it was beyond recall.
Batters? Benjamin Batters? My Benjamin Batters? There could hardly be two persons possessed of that alliterative name. If I had only guessed that there was any sort of connection between him and Benjamin Batters, Mr. Lander would not have departed till we had arrived at a better understanding. Why had the idiot not dropped a hint? Why had Curtis driven off at that rate at the wrong moment?
I asked at the office for the address of Captain Max Lander. I was snubbed. The name was evidently not a popular one in that establishment. The clerk, having submitted my inquiry to someone elsewhere, informed me curtly that nothing was known of such a person there, and appeared to think that I had been guilty of an impertinence in supposing that anything was. When I followed with a request for information about a Mr. Benjamin Batters, I believe that clerk thought I was having a game with him. Somewhere in the question must have been a sting, with which I was unacquainted; for, with a scowl, he turned his back on me, not deigning to reply.
As I did not want to have an argument with Messrs. Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe’s staff, I went away. I pursued my inquiries elsewhere, both for Captain Max Lander and for Mr. Benjamin Batters. But without success. The scent had run to ground. By the evening I concluded that I had had about enough of the job. Instead of trying to find out things about Benjamin Batters, I would seek out Mary Blyth. She should have the good news. I was not sure that I had not already kept them from her longer than I was justified in doing. She should learn that she was the proud possessor of a tumble-down, disreputable house in Camford Street; though, so far as I could see, she had not a shadow of a title to it which would hold good in law; but perhaps she was not a person who would allow herself to be hampered by a trifle of that description; also of a comfortable income derived from consols—conditions being attached to both bequests which were calculated to drive her mad. Having imparted that good news, I would wash my hands of the Batters’ family for good and all. There was something about it which was, as Gregory Pryor put it, “sniffy.”
With that design I started betimes the next morning. I had no difficulty in finding the establishment of Messrs. Cardew and Slaughter, where Mr. Batters stated in his will that he had last heard of his niece as an assistant. It was an “emporium,” where they sold many things you wanted, and more which you did not, from gloves to fire-irons. After being kept waiting an unconscionable length of time, asked many uncalled-for questions, and enduring what I felt to be intentional indignities, I was ushered into the office of Mr. Slaughter.
That gentleman was disposed to mete out to me even more high-handed treatment than Messrs. Staple, Wainwright and Friscoe. Under the circumstances, however, that was more than I was inclined to submit to. He seemed to regard it as sheer insolence that a stranger should venture to speak to him—the great Slaughter!—of such a mere nothing as one of his assistants. As if I had wanted to! We had quite a passage of arms. In the midst who should come running in but the girl herself—Mary Blyth.
She had just been dismissed. I had come in the nick of time to prevent her being thrown—literally thrown—into the street. That was a partial explanation of Mr. Slaughter’s haughtiness. Pretty badly she seemed to have been used. And very hot she was with a sense of injury. She had a companion in misfortune; a prettier girl I had never seen. The pair had been sent packing at a moment’s notice. If I had been a minute or two later I should have missed them; they would have gone. In which case the most striking chapter in my life’s history might have had to be written in a very different fashion.
When it came to paying the two girls the wretched pittance which was due to them as wages, an attempt was made to keep back the larger portion of it under the guise of “fines,” that rascally system by means of which so many drapers impose upon the helpless men and women they employ. A few sharp words from me were sufficient to show that this was an occasion on which that method of roguery could hardly be safely practised. I judged that the sum paid them—fifteen shillings—represented their entire fortune. With that capital they were going out to face the world.
In the cab I had an opportunity of forming some idea of what my client was like.
Mary Blyth was big, rawboned, and, I may add, hungry looking. She gave me the impression that she had had a hard life, one in which she had had not seldom to go without enough to eat. In age I set her down as twenty-six or seven. She was not handsome; on the other hand she was not repellent. Her features were homely, but they were not unpleasing, and there was about them more than a suggestion of honesty and shrewdness. Her experience of the rougher side of life had probably given her a readiness of wit, and a coolness of head, which would cause her to find herself but little at a loss in any position in which a changeable fate would place her. That was how she struck me. I liked her clear eyes, her pleasant mouth, her determined nose and chin. Intellectuality might not be her strongest point; obviously, in a scholastic sense, her educational advantages had been but small. Her tongue betrayed her. But, unless I greatly erred, she was a woman of character for all that. Strong, enduring, clear-sighted, within her limits; sure and by no means slow. A little prone to impatience, perhaps; it is a common failing. I am impatient myself at times. Still, on the whole, on her own lines, a good type of an Englishwoman.
My client’s appearance pleased me better than I feared would have been the case. I was not so eager to wash my hands of the Batters’ connection as I had been.
But it was my client’s friend who appealed most strongly to my imagination. She took my faculties by storm. I am not easily disconcerted. Yet, in her presence, I felt ridiculously ill at ease. She was only a girl. I kept telling myself that she was only a girl. I believe that it was because she was only a girl that I was conscious of such curious sensations. She sat opposite me in the cab. Every time her knee brushed against mine, I felt as if I was turning pink and green and yellow. It was not only uncomfortable, it was undignified.
She was just the kind of girl I like to look at; yet, for some reason, I hardly dared allow my eyes to stray in her direction. I could look at Miss Blyth; stare at her, indeed, till further notice, in the most callous, cold-blooded way. But my glances studiously avoided her friend. Her name was Emily Purvis—the friend’s name, I mean. I had a general impression that she had big eyes, light brown hair, and a smile which lit up her face like sunshine. I am aware that this sounds slightly drivelling; if it were another man I should say that his language reminded me of a penny novelette. But my mood at the moment was pronouncedly imbecile; I was only capable of drivel. The girl had come upon me with such a shock of surprise. I had never expected to light on anything of that kind when pursuing the niece of Benjamin Batters.
Miss Purvis was small. I like small women. I am aware that this is an age of muscularity, and that athletics do cause women to run to size. But, for my part, I like them little. Bone, muscle, stamina, these things are excellent. From a physical point of view, no doubt, the Amazon, when she is fit, in good condition, is all that she should be. I admire such a one, even when her height is five feet eleven. But I do not like her; I never could. As to having a woman of that description for a wife—the saints forbid!
Miss Purvis was little. Not a dwarf, nor insignificant in any sense, but small enough. I am six foot one, and I judged that the top of her head would just come above my shoulder. Daintily fashioned, curves not angles. Exactly the kind of girl ninety-nine men out of a hundred would feel inclined to take into their arms at sight. The hundredth man would be a sexless idiot; and, also, most probably, stone blind. It was astonishing how afraid I felt of her.
It was an odd drive to my chambers. My client talked, Miss Purvis talked, I only dropped a boobyish remark at intervals. The idea that such a girl as that should only have fifteen shillings between her and starvation, and that to keep herself alive she should have to seek another situation in such a den of roguery, servitude, humiliation, as that from which she had just escaped, was to me most horrible. I was irritated, illogically enough, because Benjamin Batters had not left her a portion of the income which was derived from those bonds of his. I was conscious of the fact that he had had no cognisance of her existence. But, at the moment, that was not the point.
Two incidents marked our progress.
The first was when Miss Blyth, putting her head out of the cab window, recognised, with every appearance of surprise, a man standing on the pavement whom she called Isaac Rudd. I observed that he saw us, and the keenness with which his gaze was fastened on us. There was a seafaring air about the fellow which recalled Max Lander to my mind. Although I said nothing of it to the ladies, I had a shrewd suspicion that he was following us in another cab, which he had hailed as soon as we had passed. Two or three times when I looked out I noticed that a second four-wheeler seemed to be keeping us in sight. In view of my recent experiences, had I been alone I should have lost no time in putting the question to the proof. Not only, however, just then, were my wits a good deal wanting, but I felt a not unnatural disinclination to cause my companions uneasiness. Especially as I more than suspected that Miss Blyth might have enough of that a little later on.
The second incident was a trifle startling.
Shortly after catching sight of the man she called Isaac Rudd, she gave a sudden exclamation. She was staring at something with wide-open eyes. I looked to see what it was.
There, on her knee, was my God of Fortune.
Her surprise at its appearance was unmistakably genuine. How it had come there she was unable to explain. It might have been “materialised,” as the Theosophists have it, out of the intangible air. But it seemed that it was not the first time she had encountered it.
It had been slipped into her hand the night before by a fantastically attired individual who was evidently my length without breadth visitor, whom I had interrupted in his pseudo service, and who had dropped out of my office window with my God of Fortune in his hand. Although I made no reference to that occurrence, I was none the less struck by the fashion in which he had chosen to introduce himself to the niece of Mr. Benjamin Batters. The singularity of the thing went further. When the doll was slipped into the lady’s hand it was cased in a piece of paper, as it was when it was slipped into mine, from, which, again exactly as had happened with me, it forced itself apparently of its own volition.
I made no comment, but, with Miss Blyth’s permission, I put the doll into my waistcoat pocket; concluding that it might prove worthy of more minute examination than I had yet bestowed on it—even to the breaking of it open to discover “the works.”
This is a sober chronicle. I trust I am a sober chronicler. I wish to set down nothing which suggests the marvellous. I have an inherent dislike to wonders, being without faith. When men speak of the inexplicable I think of trickery, and of some quality which is not perception. Therefore I desire it to be understood that the following lines are written without prejudice; and that of what happened there may be a perfectly simple explanation which escaped my notice.
I trust that there is.
I had read the missionary’s letter, and the will, and had handed to Miss Blyth the sealed enclosure. When she opened it she found that within the packet was a little wooden box. On lifting the lid of this box, the first thing she saw—which we all saw—was my God of Fortune, or its double. It was just inside the box, staring at her, as it lay face upwards. Feeling in my waistcoat pocket for the duplicate, I found that it had gone. It had, apparently, passed into that wooden box, which had, until that moment, remained inviolate within that sealed enclosure. How, I do not pretend to say.
It was but a little thing, yet it affected me more than a greater might have done. A succession of “trifles light as air” may unsettle the best balanced mind. One begins, by degrees, to have a feeling that something is taking place, or is about to take place, of a character to which one is unaccustomed. And under such circumstances the unaccustomed, particularly when one is unable to even dimly apprehend the form which it may take, one instinctively resents.
I decided that, at any rate, that should be the last appearance of the God of Fortune. Taking it from Miss Blyth, who yielded it readily enough, I walked with it to the fire, intending to make an end of it by burning. As I went something pricked my fingers so suddenly, and so sharply, that in my surprise and, I might add, pain, the doll dropped from my hand. When we came to look for it it was not to be found. We searched under tables and chairs in all possible and impossible places, with a degree of eagerness which approached the ludicrous, without success. The God of Fortune had disappeared.
I am reluctant to confess how much I was disconcerted by so trivial an occurrence.
I must have been morbidly disposed; still liverish. That is the only explanation which I can offer why I should all at once have felt so strongly that everything connected with Mr. Benjamin Batters’ testamentary dispositions wore a malign aspect. I was even haunted—the word is used advisedly—by a wholly unreasonable conviction that Miss Blyth was being dragged into a position of imminent peril.
This foolishness of mine was rendered more ridiculous by the fact that Miss Blyth’s own mood was all the other way. And in this respect Miss Purvis was at one with her. Somewhat to my surprise they seemed to see nothing in the situation but what was pleasant.
Miss Blyth’s attitude was one of frank delight. She had never known Mr. Batters’ personally; all she knew of him was to the disadvantage of his character. She was enraptured by the prospect of a fortune and a house. It seemed she had a lover. In her mind, fortune, house, and lover were associated in a delightful jumble. She did not appear to realise that the acceptance of the fortune, if the attached conditions were to stand, meant the practical ostracising of the lover. Nor, at the instant, did I feel called upon to go out of the way to make the whole position plain to her understanding. It would have meant the spoiling of the happiest hour she had known.
Miss Purvis enjoyed what she regarded as her friend’s good luck to the full as much as if it had been her own. It was delightful to see her. I had plucked up courage enough to observe her so long as she did not know that I was doing so. The moment she became conscious of my scrutiny, my eyes, metaphorically, sank into my boots; actually they wandered round the room, as if the apartment had been strange to me. When she proposed to become Miss Blyth’s companion in that horrible house in Camford Street my heart thumped against my ribs in such a manner that I became positively ashamed.
Was I a lawyer, the mere mechanical exponent of an accidental situation, or was I the intimate of a lifetime? I had to ask myself the question. What right had I to throw obstacles in the way, to prevent her doing her friend a service? What right had I to even hint that she might be running a risk in doing her that service? My fears might be—were—purely imaginary. So far they certainly had no foundation in fact. They resembled nothing so much as the nervous fancies of some timorous old woman. It might be ruinous to my professional reputation to breathe a syllable which would point to their existence. People do not want shivery-shakery fools for lawyers. These two young women knew as much—and as little—about the house as I did. If they chose to live in it, let them. It was their affair, not mine. They plainly regarded the prospective tenancy as an excellent jest. I tried to persuade myself that I had no doubt whatever that that was just what they would find it.
So they entered into the occupation of No. 84 Camford Street. I went with them and saw them enter. It was a curious process, that of entry; an unreasonably, unnaturally curious process. It should be necessary to enter no honest house like that. The first step suggested, possibly, that something unsavoury was concealed within, which it was necessary, at all and any cost, to keep hidden from the light of day.
When they were in, and the door was closed, and they had gone from sight, an icy finger seemed to be pressed against my spine. I shivered as with cold. An almost irresistible longing possessed me to batter at the door and compel them to come out. But I had not sufficient courage to write myself down an ass.
Instead, I rode home in the cab which had brought us to the house to which I had taken so cordial a disrelish, oppressed by a sense of horrible foreboding which weighed upon my brain nearly to the point of stupefaction.
“Before I go to bed to-night,” I told myself, “I’ll take a dozen of somebody or other’s antibilious pills. I had no idea I was so liverish.”