I. — THE AMATEUR SAFE SMASHER
II. — SUNSTAR'S DERBY
III. — GILBERT LEAVES HURRIEDLY
IV. — THE MELODY IN F
V. — THE MAN WHO DESIRED WEALTH
VI. — THE SAFE AGENCY
VII. — THE BANK SMASHER
VIII. — THE WIFE WHO DID NOT LOVE
IX. — EDITH MEETS THE PLAYER
X. — THE NECKLACE
XI. — THE FOURTH MAN
XII. — THE PLACE WHERE THE LOOT WAS STORED
XIII. — THE MAKER OF WILLS
XIV. — THE STANDERTON DIAMONDS
XV. — THE TALE THE DOCTOR TOLD
XVI. — BRADSHAW
I. — THE AMATEUR SAFE SMASHER
ON the night of May 27,
1911, the office of Gilderheim, Pascoe and Company, diamond
merchants, of Little Hatton Garden, presented no unusual appearance
to the patrolling constable who examined the lock and tried the door
in the ordinary course of his duty. Until nine o'clock in the evening
the office had been occupied by Mr. Gilderheim and his head clerk,
and a plain-clothes officer, whose duty was to inquire into unusual
happenings, had deemed that the light in the window on the first
floor fell within his scope, and had gone up to discover the reason
for its appearance. The 27th was a Saturday, and it is usual for the
offices in Hatton Garden to be clear of clerks and their principals
by three at the latest.
Mr. Gilderheim, a pleasant
gentleman, had been relieved to discover that the knock which brought
him to the door, gripping a revolver in his pocket in case of
accidents, produced no more startling adventure than a chat with a
police officer who was known to him. He explained that he had to-day
received a parcel of diamonds from an Amsterdam house, and was
classifying the stones before leaving for the night, and with a few
jocular remarks on the temptation which sixty thousand pounds' worth
of diamonds offered to the unscrupulous "night of darkness,"
the officer left.
At nine-forty Mr.
Gilderheim locked up the jewels in his big safe, before which an
electric light burnt day and night, and accompanied by his clerk,
left No. 93 Little Hatton Garden and walked in the direction of
Holborn.
The constable on point
duty bade them good-night, and the plain-clothes officer who was then
at the Holborn end of the thoroughfare, exchanged a word or two.
"You will be on duty
all night?" asked Mr. Gilderheim as his clerk hailed a cab.
"Yes, sir," said
the officer.
"Good!" said the
merchant. "I'd like you to keep a special eye upon my place. I
am rather nervous about leaving so large a sum in the safe."
The officer smiled.
"I don't think you
need worry, sir," he said; and, after the cab containing Mr.
Gilderheim had driven off he walked back to No. 93.
But in that brief space of
time between the diamond merchant leaving and the return of the
detective many things had happened. Scarcely had Gilderheim reached
the detective than two men walked briskly along the thoroughfare from
the other end. Without hesitation the first turned into No. 93,
opened the door with a key, and passed in. The second man followed.
There was no hesitation, nothing furtive in their movements. They
might have been lifelong tenants of the house, so confident were they
in every action.
Not half a minute after
the second man had entered a third came from the same direction,
turned into the building, unlocked the door with that calm confidence
which had distinguished the action of the first comer, and went in.
Three minutes later two of
the three were upstairs. With extraordinary expedition one had
produced two small iron bottles from his pockets and had deftly fixed
the rubber tubes and adjusted the little blow-pipe of his lamp, and
the second had spread out on the floor a small kit of tools of
delicate temper and beautiful finish.
Neither man spoke. They
lay flat on the ground, making no attempt to extinguish the light
which shone before the safe. They worked in silence for some little
while, then the stouter of the two remarked, looking up at the
reflector fixed at an angle to the ceiling and affording a view of
the upper part of the safe to the passer-by in the street below:
"Even the mirrors do
not give us away, I suppose?"
The second burglar was a
slight, young-looking man with a shock of hair that suggested the
musician. He shook his head.
"Unless all the rules
of optics have been specially reversed for the occasion," he
said with just a trace of a foreign accent, "we cannot possibly
be seen."
"I am relieved,"
said the first.
He half whistled, half
hummed a little tune to himself as he plied the hissing flame to the
steel door.
He was carefully burning
out the lock, and had no doubt in his mind that he would succeed, for
the safe was an old-fashioned one. No further word was exchanged for
half an hour. The man with the blow-pipe continued in his work, the
other watching with silent interest, ready to play his part when the
operation was sufficiently advanced.
At the end of half an hour
the elder of the two wiped his streaming forehead with the back of
his hand, for the heat which the flame gave back from the steel door
was fairly trying.
"Why did you make
such a row closing the door?" he asked. "You are not
usually so careless, Calli."
The other looked down at
him in mild astonishment.
"I made no noise
whatever, my dear George," he said. "If you had been
standing in the passage you could not have heard it; in fact, I
closed the door as noiselessly as I opened it."
The perspiring man on the
ground smiled.
"That would be fairly
noiseless," he said.
"Why?" asked the
other.
"Because I did not
close it. You walked in after me."
Something in the silence
which greeted his words made him look up. There was a puzzled look
upon his companion's face.
"I opened the door
with my own key," said the younger man slowly.
"You opened—"
The man called George frowned. "I do not understand you,
Callidino. I left the door open, and you walked in after me; I went
straight up the stairs, and you followed."
Callidino looked at the
other and shook his head.
"I opened the door
myself with the key," he said quietly. "If anybody came in
after you—why, it is up to us, George, to see who it is."
"You mean—?"
"I mean," said
the little Italian, "that it would be extremely awkward if there
is a third gentleman present on this inconvenient occasion."
"It would, indeed,"
said the other.
"Why?"
Both men turned with a
start, for the voice that asked the question without any trace of
emotion was the voice of a third man, and he stood in the doorway
screened from all possibility of observation from the window by the
angle of the room.
He was dressed in an
evening suit, and he carried a light overcoat across his arm.
What manner of man he was,
and how he looked, they had no means of judging, for from his chin to
his forehead his face was covered by a black mask.
"Please do not move,"
he said, "and do not regard the revolver I am holding in the
light of a menace. I merely carry it for self-defence, and you will
admit that under the circumstances and knowing the extreme delicacy
of my position, I am fairly well justified in taking this
precaution."
George Wallis laughed a
little under his breath.
"Sir," he said,
without shifting his position "you may be a man after my own
heart, but I shall know better when you have told me exactly what you
want."
"I want to learn,"
said the stranger. He stood there regarding the pair with obvious
interest. The eyes which shone through the holes of the mask were
alive and keen. "Go on with your work, please," he said. "I
should hate to interrupt you."
George Wallis picked up
the blow-pipe and addressed himself again to the safe door. He was a
most adaptable man, and the situation in which he found himself
nonplussed had yet to occur.
"Since," he
said, "it makes absolutely no difference as to whether I leave
off or whether I go on, if you are a representative of law and order,
I may as well go on, because if you are not a representative of those
two admirable, excellent and necessary qualities I might at least
save half the swag with you."
"You may save the
lot," said the man sharply. "I do not wish to share the
proceeds of your robbery, but I want to know how you do it—that is
all,"
"You shall learn,"
said George Wallis, that most notorious of burglars, "and at the
hands of an expert, I beg you to believe."
"That I know,"
said the other calmly.
Wallis went on with his
task apparently undisturbed by this extraordinary interruption. The
little Italian's hands had twitched nervously, and here might have
been trouble, but the strength of the other man, who was evidently
the leader of the two, and his self-possession had heartened his
companion to accept whatever consequences the presence of this man
might threaten. It was the masked stranger who broke the silence.
"Isn't it an
extraordinary thing," he said, "that whilst technical
schools exist for teaching every kind of trade, art and craft, there
is none which engage in teaching the art of destruction. Believe me,
I am very grateful that I have had this opportunity of sitting at the
feet of a master."
His voice was not
unpleasant, but there was a certain hardness which was not in harmony
with the flippant tone he adopted.
The man on the floor went
on with his work for a little while, then he said without turning his
head:
"I am anxious to know
exactly how you got in."
"I followed close
behind you," said the masked man. "I knew there would be a
reasonable interval between the two of you. You see," he went
on, "you have been watching this office for the greater part of
a week; one of you has been on duty practically every night. You
rented a small office higher up this street which offered a view of
these premises. I gathered that you had chosen to-night because you
brought your gas with you this morning. You were waiting in the dark
hallway of the building in which your office is situated, one of you
watching for the light to go out and Mr. Gilderheim depart. When he
had gone, you, sir"—he addressed the man on the floor—"came
out immediately, your companion did not follow so soon. Moreover, he
stopped to pick up a small bundle of letters which had apparently
been dropped by some careless person, and since these letters
included two sealed packets such as the merchants of Hatton Garden
send to their clients, I was able to escape the observation of the
second man and keep reasonably close to you."
Callidino laughed softly.
"That is true,"
he said, with a nod to the man on the floor. "It was very
clever. I suppose you dropped the packet?"
The masked man inclined
his head.
"Please go on,"
he said, "do not let me interrupt you."
"What is going to
happen when I have finished?" asked George, still keeping his
face to the safe.
"As far as I am
concerned, nothing. Just as soon as you have got through your work,
and have extracted whatever booty there is to be extracted, I shall
retire."
"You want your share,
I suppose?"
"Not at all,"
said the other calmly. "I do not want my share by any means. I
am not entitled to it. My position in society prevents me from going
farther down the slippery path than to connive at your larceny."
"Felony,"
corrected the man on the floor.
"Felony," agreed
the other. He waited until without a sound the heavy door of the safe
swung open and George had put his hand inside to extract the
contents, and then, without a word, he passed through the door,
closing it behind him. The two men sat up tensely, and listened. They
heard nothing more until the soft thud of the outer door told them
that their remarkable visitor had departed.
They exchanged
glances—interest on the one face, amusement on the other.
"That is a remarkable
man," said Callidino.
The other nodded.
"Most remarkable,"
he said, "and more remarkable will it be if we get out of Hatton
Garden to-night with the loot."
It would seem that the
"more than most" remarkable happening of all actually
occurred, for none saw the jewel thieves go, and the smashing of
Gilderheim's jewel safe provided an excellent alternative topic for
conversation to the prospects of Sunstar for the Derby.
II. — SUNSTAR'S DERBY
THERE it was again! Above
the babel of sound, the low roar of voices, soft and sorrowful, now
heard, now lost, a vagrant thread of gold caught in the drab woof of
shoddy life gleaming and vanishing. . . Gilbert Standerton sat
tensely straining to locate the sound.
It was the "Melody in
F" that the unseen musician played.
"There's going to be
a storm."
Gilbert did not hear the
voice. He sat on the box-seat of the coach, clasping his knees, the
perspiration streaming from his face.
There was something
tragic, something a little terrifying in his pose. The profile turned
to his exasperated friend was a perfect one—forehead high and
well-shaped, the nose a little long, perhaps, the chin strong and
resolute.
Leslie Frankfort, looking
up at the unconscious dreamer, was reminded of the Dante of
convention, though Dante never wore a top-hat or found a Derby Day
crowd so entirely absorbing.
"There's going to be
a storm." Leslie climbed up the short step-ladder, and swung
himself into the seat by Gilbert's side.
The other awoke from his
reverie with a start.
"Is there?" he
asked, and wiped his forehead. Yet as he looked around it was not the
murky clouds banking up over Banstead that held his eye; it was this
packed mass of men and women, these gay placards extolling loudly the
honesty and the establishment of "the old firm," the booths
on the hill, the long succession of canvas screens which had. been
erected to advertise somebody's whisky, the flimsy-looking stands on
the far side of the course, the bustle, the pandemonium and the
vitality of that vast, uncountable throng made such things as June
thunderstorms of little importance.
"If you only knew how
the low-brows are pitying you," said Leslie Frankfort, with
good-natured annoyance, "you would not be posing for a picture
of 'The Ruined Gambler.' My dear chap, you look for all the world,
sitting up here with your long, ugly mug a-droop, like a model for
the coloured plate to be issued with the Christmas number of
the Anti-Gambling Gazette. I suppose they have a
gazette."
Gilbert laughed a little.
"These people
interest me," he said, rousing himself to speak. "Don't you
realize what they all mean? Every one of them with a separate and
distinct individuality, every one with a hope or a fear hugged tight
in his bosom, every one with the capacity for love, or hate, or
sorrow. Look at that man!" he said, and pointed with his long
nervous finger.
The man he indicated stood
in a little oasis of green. Hereabouts the people on the course had
so directed their movements as to leave an open space, and in the
centre stood a man of medium height, a black bowler on the back of
his head, a long, thin cigar between his white even teeth. He was too
far away for Leslie to distinguish these particulars, but Gilbert
Standerton's imagination filled in the deficiencies of vision, for he
had seen this man before.
As if conscious of the
scrutiny, the man turned and came slowly towards the rails where the
coach stood. He took the cigar from his mouth and smiled as he
recognized the occupant of the box-seat.
"How do you do, sir?"
His voice sounded shrill and faint, as if an immeasurably distance
separated them, but he was evidently shouting to raise his voice
above the growling voices of the crowd. Gilbert waved his hand with a
smile; the man turned and raised his hat, and was swallowed up in a
detachment of the crowd which came eddying about him.
"A thief," said
Gilbert "on a fairly large scale—his name is Wallis; there are
many Wallises here. A crowd is a terrible spectacle to the man who
thinks," he said, half to himself.
The other glanced at him
keenly.
"They're terrible
things to get through in a thunderstorm," he said, practically.
"I vote we go along and claim the car."
Gilbert nodded.
He rose stiffly, like a
man with cramp, and stepped slowly down the littIe ladder to the
ground. They passed through the barrier and crossed the course,
penetrated the little unsaddling enclosure, through the long passages
where pressmen, jockeys and stewards jostled one another every moment
of race days, to the roadway without.
In the roped garage they
found their car, and, more remarkable, their chauffeur.
The first flicker of blue
lightning had stabbed twice to the Downs, and the heralding crash of
thunder had reverberated through the charged air, when the car began
to thread the traffic towards London. The storm, which had been
brewing all the afternoon broke with terrific fury over Epsom. The
lightning was incessant, the rain streamed down in an almost solid
wall of water, crash after crash of thunder deafened them.
The great throng upon the
hill was dissolving as though it was something soluble; its edges
frayed into long black streamers of hurrying people moving towards
the three railway stations. It required more than ordinary agility to
extricate the car from the chaos of charabancs and motor-cabs in
which it found itself.
Standerton had taken his
seat by the driver's side, though the car was a closed one. He was a
man quick to observe, and on the second flash he had seen the
chauffeur's face grow white and his lips twitching. A darkness almost
as of night covered the heavens. The horizon about was rimmed with a
dull, angry orange haze; so terrifying a storm had not been witnessed
in England for many years.
The rain was coming down
in sheets, but the young man by the chauffeur's side paid no heed. He
was watching the nervous hands of the man twist this way and that as
the car made detour after detour to avoid the congested road.
Suddenly a jagged streak of light flicked before the car, and
Standerton was deafened by an explosion more terrifying than any of
the previous peals.
The chauffeur
instinctively shrank back, his face white and drawn; his trembling
hands left the wheel, and his foot released the pedal. The car would
have come to a standstill, but for the fact that they were at the top
of a declivity.
"My God!" he
whimpered, "it's awful. I can't go on, sir." Gilbert
Standerton's hand was on the wheel, his neatly-booted foot had closed
on the brake pedal.
"Get out of it!"
he muttered. "Get over here, quick!"
The man obeyed. He moved,
shivering, to his master's place, his hands before his face, and
Standerton slipped into the driver's seat and threw in the clutch. It
was fortunate that he was a driver of extraordinary ability, but he
needed every scrap of knowledge as he put the car to the slope which
led to the lumpy Downs. As they jolted forward the downpour
increased, the ground was running with water as though it had been
recently flooded The wheels of the car slipped and skidded over the
greasy surface, but the man at the steering-wheel kept his head, and
by and by he brought the big car slithering down a little slope on to
the main way again. The road was sprinkled with hurrying, tramping
people. He moved forward slowly, his horn sounding all the time, and
then of a sudden the car stopped with a jerk.
"What is it?"
Leslie Frankfort had
opened the window which separated the driver's seat from the
occupants of the car.
"There's an old chap
there," said Gilbert, speaking over his shoulder, "would
you mind taking him into the car? I'll tell you why after." He
pointed to two woe-begone figures that stood on the side of the road.
They were of an old man and a girl; Leslie could not see their faces
distinctly. They stood with their backs to the storm, one thin coat
spread about them both.
Gilbert shouted something,
and at his voice the old man turned. He had a beautiful face, thin,
refined, intellectual: it was the face of an artist. His grey hair
straggled over his collar, and under the cloak he clutched something,
the care of which seemed to concern him more than his protection from
the merciless downpour.
The girl at his side might
have been seventeen, a solemn child, with great fearless eyes that
surveyed the occupants of the car gravely. The old man hesitated at
Gilbert's invitation, but as he beckoned impatiently he brought the
girl down to the road and Leslie opened the door.
"Jump in quickly,"
he said. "My word, you're wet!"
He slammed the door behind
them, and they seated themselves facing him. They were in a pitiable
condition; the girl's dress was soaked, her face was wet as though
she had come straight from a bath.
"Take that cloak
off," said Leslie brusquely. "I've a couple of dry
handkerchiefs, though I'm afraid you'll want a bath towel."
She smiled. "It's
very kind of you," she said. "We shall ruin your car."
"Oh, that's all
right," said Leslie cheerfully. "It's not my car. Anyway,"
he added, "when Mr. Standerton comes in he will make it much
worse." He was wondering in his mind by what freakish
inclination Standerton had called these two people to the refuge of
his limousine.
The old man smiled as he
spoke, and his first words were an explanation.
"Mr. Standerton has
always been very good to me," he said gently, almost humbly. He
had a soft, well-modulated voice. Leslie Frankfort recognized that it
was the voice of an educated man. He smiled. He was too used to
meeting Standerton's friends to be surprised at this storm-soddened
street musician, for such he judged him to be by the neck of the
violin which protruded from the soaked coat.
"You know him, do
you?" The old man nodded.
"I know him very
well," he said.
He took from under his
coat the thing he had been carrying, and Leslie Frankfort saw that it
was an old violin. The old man examined it anxiously, then with a
sigh of relief he laid it across his knees.
"It's not damaged, I
hope?" asked Leslie.
"No, sir," said
the other; "I was greatly afraid that it was going to be an
unfortunate ending to what had been a prosperous day."
They had been playing on
the Downs, and had reaped a profitable harvest.
"My grand-daughter
also plays," said the old man. "We do not as a rule care
for these great crowds, but it invariably means money"—he
smiled—"and we are not in a position to reject any opportunity
which offers."
They were now drawing
clear of the storm. They had passed through Sutton, and had reached a
place where the roads were as yet dry, when Gilbert stopped the car
and handed the wheel to the shame-faced chauffeur.
"I'm very sorry,
sir," the man began.
"Oh, don't bother,"
smiled his employer; "one is never to be blamed for funking a
storm. I used to be as bad until I got over it. . . there are worse
things," he added, half to himself.
The man thanked him with a
muttered word, and Gilbert opened the door of the car and entered. He
nodded to the old man and gave a quick smile to the girl. "
"I thought I
recognized you," he said. "This is Mr. Springs," he
said, turning to Leslie. "He's quite an old friend of mine. I'm
sure when you have dined at St. John's Wood you must have heard
Springs' violin under the dining-room window. It used to be a
standing order, didn't it, Mr. Springs ?" he said. "By the
way," he asked suddenly, "were you playing—"
He stopped, and the old
man, misunderstanding the purport of the question, nodded.
"After all,"
said Gilbert, with a sudden change of manner, "it wouldn't be
humane to leave my private band to drown on Epsom Downs, to say
nothing of the chance of his being struck by lightning."
"Was there any
danger?" asked Leslie in surprise.
Gilbert nodded.
"I saw one poor chap
struck as I cleared the Downs," he said; "there were a lot
of people near him, so I didn't trouble to stop. It was a terrifying
experience." He looked back out of the little oval window
behind.
"We shall have it
again in London to-night," he said, "but storms do not feel
so dangerous in town as they do in the country. They're not so
alarming. Housetops are very merciful to the nervous."
They took farewell of the
old man and his grand-daughter at Balham, and then, as the car
continued, Leslie turned with a puzzled look to his companion.
"You're a wonderful
man, Gilbert," he said; "I can't understand you. You
described yourself only this morning as being a nervous wreck—"
"Did I say that?"
asked the other dryly.
"Well, you didn't
admit it," said Leslie, with an aggrieved air, "but it was
a description which most obviously fitted you. And yet in the face of
this storm, which I confess curled me up pretty considerably, you
take the seat of your chauffeur and you push the car through it.
Moreover, you are sufficiently collected to pick up an old man when
you had every excuse to leave him to his dismal fate."
For a moment Gilbert made
no reply; then he laughed a little bitterly.
"There are a dozen
ways of being nervous," he said, "and that doesn't happen
to be one of mine. The old man is an important factor in my life,
though he does not know it—the very instrument of fate."
He dropped his voice
almost solemnly. Then he seemed to remember that the curious gaze of
the other was upon him.
"I don't know where
you got the impression that I was a nervous wreck," he said
briefly. "It's hardly the ideal condition for a man who is to be
married this week."
"That may be the
cause, my dear chap," said the other reflectively. "I know
a lot of people who are monstrously upset at the prospect. There was
Tuppy Jones who absolutely ran away—lost his memory, or some such
newspaper trick."
Gilbert smiled.
"I did the next worst
thing to running away," he said a little moodily. "I wanted
the wedding postponed."
"But why?"
demanded the other. "I was going to ask you that this morning
coming down, only it slipped my memory. Mrs. Cathcart told me she
wouldn't hear of it."
Gilbert gave him no
encouragement to continue the subject, but the voluble young man went
on:
"Take what the gods
give you, my son," he said. "Here you are with a Foreign
Office appointment, an Under-Secretaryship looming in the near
future, a most charming and beautiful bride in prospect, rich—"
"I wish you wouldn't
say that," said Gilbert sharply. "The idea is abroad all
over London. Beyond my pay I have no money whatever. This car,"
he said, as he saw the other's questioning face, "is certainly
mine—at least, it was a present from my uncle, and I don't suppose
he'll want it returned before I sell it. Thank God it makes no
difference to you," he went on with that note of hardness still
in his voice, "but I am half inclined to think that two-thirds
of the friendships I have, and all the kindness which is from time to
time shown to me, is based upon that delusion of riches. People think
that I am my uncle's heir."
"But aren't you?"
gasped the other. Gilbert shook his head.
"My uncle has
recently expressed his intention of leaving the whole of his fortune
to that admirable institution which is rendering such excellent
service to the canine world—the Battersea Dogs' Home."
Leslie Frankfort's jovial
face bore an expression of tragic bewilderment.
"Have you told Mrs.
Cathcart this?" he asked.
"Mrs. Cathcart!"
replied the other in surprise.
"No, l haven't told
her. I don't think it's necessary. After all," he said with a
smile, "Edith isn't marrying me for money, she is pretty rich
herself, isn't she? Not that it matters," he said hastily,
"whether she's rich or whether she's poor."
Neither of the two men
spoke again for the rest of the journey, and at the corner of St.
James's Street Gilbert put his friend down. He continued his way to
the little house which he had taken furnished a year before, when
marriage had only seemed the remotest of possibilities when his
worldly prospects had seemed much brighter than they were at present.
Gilbert Standerton was a
member of one of those peculiar families which seem to be made up
entirely of nephews. His uncle, the eccentric old Anglo-Indian, had
charged himself with the boy's future, and he had been mainly
responsible for securing the post which Gilbert now held. More than
this, he had made him his heir, and since he was a man who did,
nothing in secret, and was rather inclined to garrulity, the news of
Gilbert's good fortune was spread from one end of England to the
other.
Then, a month before this
story opens, had come like a bombshell a curt notification from his
relative that he had deemed it advisable to alter the terms of his
will, and that Gilbert might look for no more than the thousand
pounds to which, in common with innumerable other nephews, he was
entitled.
It was not a shock to
Gilbert except that he was a little grieved with the fear that in
some manner he had offended his fiery uncle. He had a too lively
appreciation of the old man's goodness to him to resent the
eccentricity which would make him a comparatively poor man.
It would have considerably
altered the course of his life if he had notified at least one person
of the change in his prospects.
III. — GILBERT LEAVES HURRIEDLY
GILBERT was dressing
for dinner when the storm came up over London. It had lost none of
its intensity or strength. For an hour the street had glared
fitfully in the blue lightning of the electrical discharges, and
the house rocked with crash after crash of
thunder.
He himself was in tune with the elements, for there
raged in his heart such a storm as shook the very foundations of
his life. Outwardly there was no sign of distress. The face he saw
in the shaving-glass was a mask, immobile and
expressionless.
He sent his man to call a taxi-cab. The storm had
passed over London, and only the low grumble of thunder could be
heard when he came out on to the rain-washed streets. A few
wind-torn wisps of cloud were hurrying at a great rate across the
sky, stragglers endeavouring in frantic haste to catch up the main
body.
He descended from his cab at the door of No. 274
Portland Square slowly and reluctantly. He had an unpleasant task
to perform, as unpleasant to him, more unpleasant, indeed, than it
could be to his future mother-in-law. He did not doubt that the
suspicion implanted in his mind by Leslie was unfair and unworthy.
He was ushered into the drawing-room, and found himself the
solitary occupant. He looked at his watch.
"Am I very early, Cole?" he asked the
butler.
"You are rather, sir," said the man, "but I will tell
Miss Cathcart you are here."
Gilbert nodded. He strolled across to the window, and
stood, his hands clasped behind him, looking out upon the wet
street. He stood thus for five minutes, his head sunk forward on
his breast, absorbed in thought. The opening of the door aroused
him, and he turned to meet the girl who had
entered.
Edith Cathcart was one of the most beautiful women in
London, though "woman" might be too serious a word to apply to this
slender girl who had barely emerged from her schooldays. In some
grey eyes of a peculiar softness a furtive apprehension always
seems to wait—a fear and an appeal at one and the same time. So it
was with Edith Cathcart. Those eyes of hers were for ever on guard,
and even as they attracted they held the over-eager seeker of
friendship at arm's length. The nose was just a
littleretroussé; the sensitive lips played supporter to
the apprehensive eyes. She wore her hair low over her forehead; it
was dark almost to a point of blackness. She was dressed in a plain
gown of sea-green satin, with scarcely any jewel or
ornamentation.
He walked to meet her with quick steps and took both
her hands in his; his hungry eyes searched her face
eagerly.
"You look lovely to-night, Edith," he said, in a voice
scarcely above a whisper.
She released her hands gently with the ghost of a smile
that subtly atoned for her action.
"Did you enjoy your Derby Day?" she
asked.
"It was enormously interesting," he said; "it is
extraordinary that I have never been before."
"You could not have chosen a worse day. Did you get
caught in the storm? We have had a terrible one
here."
She spoke quickly, with a little note of query at the
end of each sentence. She gave you the impression that she desired
to stand well with her lover, that she was in some awe of him. She
was like a child, anxious to acquit herself well of a lesson; and
now and then she conveyed a sense of relief, as one who had
surmounted yet another obstacle.
Gilbert was always conscious of the strain which marked
their relationship. A dozen times a day he told himself that it was
incredible that such a strain should exist. But he found a ready
excuse for her diffidence and the furtive fear which came and went
in her eyes like shadows over the sea. She was young, much younger
than her years. This beautiful bud had not opened yet, and his
engagement had been cursed by over-much formality. He had met her
conventionally at a ball. He had been introduced by her mother,
again conventionally; he had danced with her and sat out with her;
punted her on the river; motored her and her mother to Ascot. It
was all very ordinary and commonplace. It lacked something. Gilbert
never had any doubts as to that.
He took the blame upon himself for all deficiencies,
though he was something of a romancist, despite the chilly
formalism of the engagement. She had kept him in his place with the
rest of the world, one arm's length, with those beseeching eyes of
hers. He was at arm's-length when he proposed, in a speech the
fluency of which was eloquent of the absence of, anything which
touched emotionalism. And she had accepted in a murmured word, and
turned a cold cheek for his kiss, and then had fluttered out of his
arms like an imprisoned bird seeking its liberty, and had escaped
from that conventional conservatory with its horrible palms and its
spurious Tanagra statuettes.
Gilbert in love was something of a boy: an idealist, a
dreamer. Other grown men have shared his weakness; there are
unsuspected wells of romance in the most practical of men. So he
was content with his dreams, weaving this and that story of sweet
surrender in his inmost heart. He loved her, completely,
absorbingly. To him she was a divine and a fragrant
thing.
He had taken her hand again in his, and realized with
pain, which was tinctured with amusement that made it bearable,
that she was seeking to disengage herself, when Mrs. Cathcart came
into the room.
She was a tall woman, still beautiful, though age had
given her a certain angularity. The ravages of time had made it
necessary for her to seek artificial aid for the strengthening of
her attractions. Her mouth was thin, straight and uncompromising;
her chin was too bony to be beautiful. She smiled as she rustled
across the room and offered her gloved hand to the young
man.
"You're early, Gilbert," she said.
"Yes," he replied awkwardly. Here was the opportunity
which he sought, yet he experienced some reluctance in availing
himself of the chance.
He had released the girl as the door opened, and she
had instinctively taken a step backwards, and stood with her hands
behind her, regarding him gravely and intently.
"Really," he said, "I wanted to see
you."
"To see me?" asked Mrs. Cathcart archly. "No, surely
not me!"
Her smile comprehended the girl and the young man. For
some reason which he could not appreciate at the moment Gilbert
felt uncomfortable.
"Yes, it was to see you," he said, "but it isn't
remarkable at this particular period of time."
He smiled again.
She held up a warning finger.
"You must not bother about any of the arrangements. I
want you to leave that entirely to me. You will find you have no
cause to complain."
"Oh, it wasn't that," he said hastily; "it was
something more—more—"
He hesitated. He wanted to convey to her the gravity of
the business he had in hand. And even as he approached the question
of an interview, a dim realization came to him of the difficulty of
his position. How could he suggest to this woman, who had been all
kindness and all sweetness to him, that he suspected her of motives
which did credit neither to her head nor her heart? How could he
broach the subject of his poverty to one who had not once but a
hundred times confided to him that his expectations and the
question of his future wealth were the only drawbacks to what she
had described as an ideal love marriage?
"I almost wish you were poor, Gilbert," she had said.
"I think riches are an awful handicap to young people circumstanced
as you and Edith will be." She had conveyed this suspicion of his
wealth more than once. And yet, at a chance word from Leslie, he
had doubted the purity of her motives! He remembered with a growing
irritation that it had been Mrs. Cathcart who had made the marriage
possible; the vulgar-minded might even have gone further and
suggested that she had thrown Edith at his head. There was plenty
of groundwork for Leslie's suspicion, he thought, as he looked at
the tall, stylish woman before him. Only he felt ashamed that he
had listened to the insidious suggestion.
"Could you give me a quarter of an
hour—"
He stopped. He was going to say "before dinner," but
thought that possibly an interview after the meal would be less
liable to interruption "—after dinner?"
