CHAPTER XIVIN THE NIGHT
Autumnwas approaching. The long vacation had begun, and London lay sweltering beneath a heat-wave in the early days of August. Legal business was nearly at a stand-still, and Hensman with his wife had gone for three weeks to that charming spot amid the Welsh mountains, the Oakwood Park Hotel, near Conway in North Wales. Half the clubs were enveloped in holland swathings for their annual cleaning. Pall Mall and St. James’s Street were deserted, for the world of the West End seemed to be in flight, northward bound for the “Twelfth,” or crossing to the French coast.
At the office I was simply “carrying on” with such occasional matters as demanded immediate attention. But legal business was almost dead, half the staffs in London, our own included, were away. The time hung heavily on the heads of those left in town. I found life insupportably dull and had no energy, when the day’s scant duties were over, to do more than crawl back to my dull room in Russell Square and sit sweltering in the torrid heat.
In accordance with the usual arrangement, I had taken my holiday in the winter and was looking after the office while Hensman was away. He was one of the “sun-birds”; the delights of snow and frost had no attraction for him, while to me the hot weather was trying in the highest degree. Heat for him—cold for me!
Bedford Row in August is indeed a sorry place. The great wheels of the law machine almost cease their slow remorseless grinding; lawyers and clients seem able to forget their troubles and worries for a brief spell. I lounged my days away, heartily wishing myself elsewhere, but, with the help of the only lady secretary left, perfunctorily getting through such work as could not be shelved.
Late one afternoon, after an unusually busy day—for I had instructed counsel to appear for a client who was to be charged with a serious motoring offence at Brighton—I had risen from my chair and was about to take my hat and leave, when the telephone rang.
On answering I found a trunk call had come through from a village called Duddington, near Stamford, in Lincolnshire. The speaker was a young man who gave his name as Edward Pearson, the son of one of our oldest clients, a large landowner in the district.
Having told me his name he said:
“I wonder if you could come to Stamford tonight, Mr. Yelverton? My father is ill and has expressed his wish to add a codicil to the will you made for him three years ago.”
“Is it a matter of urgency?” I asked. “My partner is away, and it is a little difficult for me to leave London.”
“Yes. I fear it is urgent,” replied my client’s son. “My father had a stroke about three days ago on his return from London. The Doctor declares it to be a serious matter. Of course I won’t ask you to come over to Duddington tonight, but you could get to Stamford tonight, and sleep at the Cross Keys. I’ll call for you in the car at nine tomorrow morning. I’d be so grateful if you can do this. Will you?”
I hesitated.
“You can catch a convenient train from King’s Cross tonight. Change at Essendine. It takes about three hours,” he added.
“Is your father in grave danger?” I asked.
“He was, but he seems a trifle better now. He is asleep, and the Doctor says he is not to be awakened. So we’ll see how he is in the morning.”
“Did he express a wish to make the codicil?” I asked.
“Yes. He wants to leave the Gorselands to mybrother Alfred, instead of to mother,” was the reply.
“Very well,” I said, rather reluctantly, for as a matter of fact I had been looking forward to dining with old Mr. Humphreys that evening. “I’ll meet you at the Cross Keys at Stamford in the morning. Good-bye, Mr. Pearson.”
Having put down the receiver I resolved to ring up Hartley Humphreys at the Carlton, and did so.
“I’m sorry you’re called away,” the old financier replied. “But in any case come along now, and have a cocktail. You won’t leave London till after dinner.”
I took a taxi along to the hotel and found him alone in his private sitting-room. Together we took dry martinis, and while I smoked one of his exquisite Turkish cigarettes I explained the reason for my sudden visit to Lincolnshire.
“Well,” he laughed. “It all means costs to you, I suppose. And after all I believe you have a dining car to Peterborough, so the journey is not a very difficult one.”
“No. But I wanted to keep my appointment with you tonight,” I said.
The cheery old fellow laughed, saying:—
“My dear Yelverton, don’t think of that where business is concerned. Come and dine another night—the night after tomorrow. Feng is coming.We’ll have dinner at the Ritz for a change, and go to a show afterwards. Any further news of your little bride?”
“None,” I replied.
“Heard nothing?” he asked, looking at me curiously, as though he held me in some suspicion I thought. Did he know of my visit to Saumur and my discovery concerning his factotum, Harold Ruthen?
“Nothing,” was my reply. His attitude was always curious whenever he made any reference to Thelma.
In reply to a further question as to when I should return, I told him that I must be back in London by four o’clock on the morrow as I had an important appointment regarding the transfer of some London property—a side of the business which Hensman usually looked after.
I smoked a second cigarette and rose. He gripped my hand warmly before I left and repeated his invitation.
“Feng is very fond of you,” he added, “and we’ll have a real pleasant evening together.”
Back again at Russell Square I looked at the time-table, dressed leisurely and packing a suitcase, took the evening train from King’s Cross and having had my dinner between London and Peterborough arrivedat the ancient little town of Stamford in the late evening.
It was, I found, a place of quaint crooked streets and old churches, dim alleyways and a curious square with an ancient Butter Market close by the old-world hotel, the Cross Keys, once one of the famous posting-houses on the Great North Road.
Beyond three or four motorists and commercial travelers, I seemed to be about the only person in the hotel, a roomy comfortable place with many paneled rooms, and polished floors. About it was that air of cozy comfort and cheery welcome such as one finds to perfection in the too few old English posting-inns. The coffee-room was bounded by huge mahogany buffets laden with silver, and the drawing-room was devoid of that gimcrack furniture which one finds in most modern hotels.
My room, too, was big and spacious, with a window looking out upon the great courtyard into which the stage-coaches on their way from London to Edinburgh used to lumber before the days of motors. Yet even there I saw a row of stables and was informed by the “boots” that in winter a good many London gentlemen stabled their hunters there.
In the twilight, having nothing better to do, I strolled out of the town along a path which led through meadows beside the Welland river where many people seemed to be enjoying the fresh airafter the unusual heat of the day, while many anglers sat patiently upon the banks.
It was dark when I returned to the hotel, and passing into the smoking-room I found several men there, unmistakably commercial travelers. I chatted with one of them, a tall, rugged-faced, sharp-nose man in tweeds who spoke with a full Yorkshire burr, and whose business was undoubtedly “woolens.”
“I come here four times a year,” he told me. “This hotel is one of the best in the Midlands. The Bell at Barnby Moor is excellent, but a bit out of the way for us. We have to stay in Doncaster. Half our game is to know where to go, and how to live. A commercial’s life is a pretty tough one now-a-days, with high prices in traveling and cut prices in the trade.”
He seemed a particularly affable person, though his manner possessed that business-like briskness which characterizes all men “on the road.” I set him down as a man who could sell a tradesman nearly anything, whether he desired it or not—one of those particularly “smart” men found as travelers in every trade, shrewd, clever and far-seeing, yet suave ambassadors of commerce who are invaluable to wholesalers and manufacturers.
“I’ve had bad luck here today,” he said. “I was kept over-night in Peterborough and got here ateleven o’clock. Started out and forgot that it is their early-closing day. So I’m compelled to be here tomorrow instead of getting on to Bourne. One can work this town well in a whole day—not less.”
I noticed that his face was scarred and furrowed. He had no doubt led a hard life, and from his erect bearing I thought that he might possibly have risen to the rank of sergeant-major during the war. His keen black eyes seemed to search everywhere, while his nose was almost hawk-like. His cravat too, attracted me. It was of soft black silk, neatly tied, but in it was an onyx scarf-pin, oval and dark with a thin white line around the edge. It reminded me most forcibly of a miniature human eye.
As we sat together he gossiped about the bad state of trade, the craze for cheap dress materials and the consequent low prices.
“Things are horribly bad in Bradford,” he declared. “Most of the mills are only working half-time. In the cotton trade it is just the same. Oldham has been very hard hit, now that the boom has passed. Why, when that boom in cotton-mills was at its height, men became semi-millionaires in a single week. I know a man who was a clerk living in a seven-room house and keeping no servants who made a clear profit of a quarter of a million within six weeks, and he made a further hundred thousand in the same year. He’s just bought a pretty estatein Devonshire. And now the slump has come and other people are bearing the burden which the lucky ones unloaded on them.”
He took a cigarette case from his pocket and offered me one. I took it and for a further quarter of an hour we smoked.
“Yes,” he said. “This is a pretty comfortable place. I’ve known it for twenty years—and it’s always been the same. Old Brimelow, who used to be the landlord, was a queer old fellow. He’s dead now. He used to make us some wonderful rum-punch in the commercial room at Christmas-time. His father kept the place before him, and he could remember the stage-coaches, the York coach, the Lincoln coach, the Birmingham coach and the Edinburgh coach, and tell tales of all of them.”
“Of highwaymen?” I asked laughing.
“No. Not exactly that,” he said merrily. “But sometimes he told us tales of hold-ups that he had heard from his father. Why, King George the Third once got snowed up at the Colly Weston cross-roads and slept there. Oh! this is a very historic old place.”
After lighting another of his cigarettes I left my entertaining companion and ascended the broad oak staircase to my room, which was on the first floor.
It was a fine old apartment, three sides of which were paneled in dark oak. The floor, on which afew rugs were strewn, was of polished oak and creaked as I entered, while through the open window the moon cast a long white beam.
After a glance out upon the silent courtyard I half closed the window, drew down the blind and lit the gas. Then, having turned the key in the door, I undressed and retired.
At first I could not sleep because I heard the scuttling of a mouse or rat behind the paneling. I lay thinking of Thelma. A momentary wish, wicked as a venomous snake, and swift as fire darted through my thoughts. I wished that Stanley Audley were dead. With such thoughts uppermost in my mind I suddenly experienced a heavy drowsiness and I must have at last dozed off.
I was awakened by feeling something cold upon my mouth. I struggled, only to find that I was breathless and helpless. I tried to cry out, but could not. My breath came and went in short quick gasps. Was it possible that I had left the gas turned on and was being asphyxiated!
I struggled and fought for life, but the cold Thing, whatever it was, pressed upon my mouth.
In the darkness I strove to shout for help, but no sound escaped my lips, while my limbs were so paralyzed that I could not raise my hands to my face.
I recollect struggling frantically to free myself from the horrible and mysterious influence that was upon me. I tried frantically to extricate myself from that deadly embrace, but was helpless as a babe. I thought I heard the sound of heavy breathing, but was not quite sure. Was I alone—or was someone in the room?
My lips seemed to burn, my brain was on fire, a wild madness seized me and then the cold Thing left my lips.
I must have fainted, for all consciousness was suddenly blotted out.
When I came to myself I heard strange faint whisperings around me. Before my eyes was a blood-red haze and I felt in my mouth and throat a burning thirst.
I breathed heavily once or twice, I remember, and then I lapsed again into unconsciousness. How long I remained, I know not. I must have been inert and helpless through many hours. Then I became half conscious of some liquid being wafted into my face, as though by a scent-spray, and once I seemed to hear Thelma’s soft, sweet voice. But it was faint and indistinct, sounding very far away.
I fell back into a dreamy stupor. Yet before my eyes was always that scarf-pin like a tiny human eye which had been worn by my commercial friend. Ithad attracted me as we had gossiped, and as is so often the case its impression had remained upon my subconscious mind.
I lay wondering. Things assumed fantastic shapes. I could still hear that scuttling of rats behind the old paneling, and I recollected the narrow streak of moonlight which fell across the room from between the blind and the window-frame. I recollected too, the sharp brisk voice of my commercial friend, and moreover I once more saw, shining before me, that tiny gem like a human eye.
After a lapse of quiet I tried again to rouse myself. The room was still dark, and I listened again for the scuttling of the rats behind the paneling, but the only sounds I heard seemed to be faint whisperings. Then suddenly I seemed to hear drowsy sounds of bells, like the sweet beautiful carillon that I had heard from the tower at Antwerp.
I lay there bewildered and alarmed. I thought of Thelma—thoughts of her obsessed me. I did not know whether to believe in her or not. Was I a fool? In those dreamy moments I remembered my last visit to Bexhill when I had questioned her. She had trembled, I remember, and her lustrous eyes had scanned me with what now seemed to my tortured brain a remorseless and merciless scrutiny.
I recollected too, her words:—
“I am sorry, but I can’t tell you. I am under the promise of secrecy.”
The whole enigma was beyond me: in my half conscious state, the pall of a great darkness upon me, I felt my sense strung to breaking point.