Chapter II

Colonel Frederick Tallboys, Mallender Tallboys, to give him his complete name, held a high official appointment, and occupied suitable quarters in St. George's Fort. He belonged to a distant branch of the Mallender family, was head of a department, and the husband of a wealthy and worshipping wife. All his life--now numbering over fifty years--"Freddy" had been steady, hard-working, and far-seeing; passed his examinations creditably,--if without distinction,--and from an English regiment entered the good old Madras Staff Corps, and worked his way up from adjutant to wing officer, till he had at last succeeded in climbing into a comfortable berth in the secretariat.

His climb was possibly accelerated by an attractive personality, a buoyant manner, and a remarkable skill in horsemanship. For years "Freddy T." had been the most notable gentleman rider in the Presidency; indeed, such was his fame, that it extended to Lucknow, the Punjab, and had even oozed into far Cashmere; but now, this wise little man had discarded his racing colours, and was resting on well-earned laurels.

"Freddy T." was short, well-made, and remarkably dapper, with a pair of twinkling grey eyes--eyes quick to notice a misplaced badge, a woman's dress, or a breach of etiquette. He had a handsome nose, an imposing moustache, was always admirably turned-out, and carried his well-groomed upright person with considerable dignity. In spite of certain insignificant foibles--a hot temper, and a vein of dogged obstinacy, he was popular all over the Presidency. Most people had a cordial word for "Freddy T.," who was known to be a smart officer, and as influential and good-natured as he was straight, and safe! During his years of expatriation, Tallboys had never lost his interest in Mallender of Mallender--the head of his house; unfortunately, like other old families, the race was now almost extinct. Geoffrey was the last of the direct line, and failing him, and an aged and decrepit cousin, this high official in Madras Fort was the next heir! But it was not on this account that Colonel Tallboys' interest in the family had been kept alight. As a raw youth from Bedford and Sandhurst, he had visited at Mallender, and never forgotten the charm and kindness of his lovely hostess; or how she had talked to, drawn out, and encouraged, a callow, awkward boy; the wise and witty things she said to him in those far-off days were still green in his memory; for her he had broken the ice of his reserve, and imparted to Mollie Mallender many opinions and aspirations that were withheld from his own widowed mother,--a helpless, faded lady, who spent half her days in bed, reading novelettes--the other half in bemoaning her health, her fate, and her servants. But this exquisite Irish cousin with her brilliant complexion, irresistible charm, eloquent dark eyes, and impulsive manner, was a divinity to whom the stiff shy youth immediately surrendered his heart and confidence. Cousin Mollie gave him self-respect, wise advice, courage, and an everlasting reverence for all womenkind--her sisters. In a secret pocket in his battered dressing-case (known only to his bearer) there still reposed a little gold pencil-case, her gift, and several old and well-worn letters. Mrs. Mallender's influence was far-reaching, and radiated over two parishes; her generosity, energy, and high spirits were infectious. The prim old-fashioned "Court" became the centre of activity and gaiety. Edgar Mallender himself,--inclined to be misanthropic and morose,--expanded in such domestic sunshine, and took a prominent part in county business, and the affairs of his tenants and property; ably maintaining the family traditions, until the sudden death of his adorable wife. After this crushing loss, he became a changed man, declaring that a light had gone out, and left him for the rest of his life in outer darkness. Gradually, he sank from the sight of his neighbours, neglected his estates and his duties, and lived among his books, his memories, and his servants, the life of an eccentric, and recluse.

* * * * *

The most ardent flatterer could not pretend that Colonel Tallboys looked "good-natured" this morning, as he sat before his big office table, gold spectacles on nose, reading a private letter; it was one which Geoffrey Mallender had despatched the week before he left for India, and as his relative perused it, his eyebrows knit, till they almost met over the bridge of his well-shaped nose; obviously he became every moment more and more astonished and annoyed. This missive said:

"I have decided to take up the question of my Uncle's disappearance, and to thoroughly investigate the case."

"The boy's mad!" muttered Colonel Tallboys, as he hastily whirled over a page.

"I am starting for Madras by the next mail, and hope to arrive a week after you receive this."

"Why," glancing at the date, "it missed the mail. He may be here to-day--Good Lord!"

"I will look you up at once," continued the writer, "and trust you will give me a helping hand, as you know the Presidency so well."

"Stark staring mad!" exclaimed Colonel Tallboys, pushing away the letter with a gesture of irritation. "Never heard of such an idea, never. _Help!_" The words seemed to choke him. "Well, I must put all this bother out of my head, and set to work," and he reached for a large bundle of official documents, in which he became speedily absorbed.

For an hour, he sat intent on his correspondence, glancing through papers, and making pencil notes; suddenly there was a sound of steps, and talking, he heard the door open, and a young and cheerful voice saying:

"All right, thanks, give Colonel Tallboys my card."

It was Geoffrey. He sprang to his feet, tore off his glasses, and turned to receive him.

"Hullo, Geoff!" shaking him warmly by the hand, "I'm glad to see you. Do you know, I only got your letter an hour ago--and so you have come out!"

"Yes, here I am."

Colonel Tallboys surveyed his kinsman with critical appraisement--in his opinion, appearance ranked high. A well-bred, well set-up young fellow, with the clear-cut Mallender nose, and his mother's dark eyes. Yes. An excellent specimen of the average good-looking Englishman!

"I've not seen you for years. How long ago is it?"

"Not since you came down to Eton on the 4th of June, and gave me a jolly good tip."

"Did I?--ha! ha! You have a long memory. Well, where are you staying? Or did you come straight from the station?"

"No; I arrived last night. I'm at a pot-house that calls itself 'Hotel St. George,' and reeks of rancid cocoanut oil. My driver introduced me."

"Good Lord, it's in Blacktown! I beg its pardon--Georgetown! Of course, you come to us at once. I'll send over a fellow to pack, and bring your kit. We are pretty full, as this is the season, but Fanny will find you a corner."

"Oh, don't you bother about _me_," protested his cousin, "I'm only going to stop in Madras for two or three days, just to see you, get the hang of the country, and benefit of your experience--I expect you can give me lots of tips, and I want to arrange about money and letters, before I go off on my travels!"

"But, my dear boy," said Colonel Tallboys, sitting down as he spoke, and pointing to a chair, "you don't mean to tell me, that you are really _serious_ about this business? You are not in earnest, in starting on such a wild-goose chase?"

"But of course I am, and in deadly earnest; that is what brought me out here, in the middle of the hunting season."

The young fellow with his mother's eyes, and her impulsive and warm-hearted nature, had also inherited his father's square jaw, and (cold thought) possibly been cursed with Edgar's stubborn will,--and curious strain of eccentricity!

For a few seconds Colonel Tallboys surveyed his visitor in grave speculative silence. At last he said:

"Well, look here, Geoffrey; you may as well spend two or three weeks with us, and see how the poor benighted Presidency enjoys itself? There are a couple of balls, a big gymkhana, and the polo tournament coming off. This is our cold weather."

"Is it?" and he laughed ironically. "Well, I'm glad you mentioned it!"

"Of course this is a particularly nasty day! Don't sample us by a beastly long-shore wind. By the by, you play polo--your regiment had a strong team. I used to see your name in matches. I'll find you ponies."

"It's most awfully good of you, Cousin Fred; polo and dances are all right--but you know what I'm out for, and _they_ are not my job."

"No, but after a lapse of thirty years, a few weeks one way or the other can't possibly matter, and Fanny and I would be mortally hurt if you start off without paying us a visit. We want to get to know you--and you want to get to know something of this blessed old country."

As the young man looked half persuaded he continued:

"Anyway, my dear fellow, you will never find your Uncle, and you may take my word for it. I've not lived out here for twenty-nine years without knowing what I am talking about. Now tell me something about yourself, and Mallender, and your poor father."

"Oh, yes! Well, you see, he had been ailing the last five years--the result of a bad fall from his horse--and he was greatly changed latterly. He could not bear to see anyone, would lie all day staring before him, and took no interest in any mortal thing!"

"No, not since your mother died, _that_ I can well understand. You remember her, of course?"

The next moment Colonel Tallboys, who was proud of his tact, could have kicked himself. Why, the boy was fifteen when she died! Geoffrey made no reply, but he suddenly looked down, and his face seemed to quiver, and go white.

"What a lovely face! yes, and a lovely soul! There never was anyone like her." The speaker's voice sounded a little husky.

From the moment this sentence fell from his lips, Geoffrey entertained another feeling,--a sudden warm glow of personal affection,--for his dapper little kinsman, and instantly made up his mind to accept the invitation to spend some weeks in his company.

"And what does the old place look like now?" resumed Colonel Tallboys in a livelier key.

"It looks frightfully dilapidated. You see, the pater let things slide--the grounds, and the gardens, and the shooting. He only occupied a few rooms, and the rest of the house was given up to rats and damp; the paper was peeling off the walls, the roof leaked like a sieve, and drains required to be overhauled. I'm getting the house done up."

"That will cost you a pretty penny!"

"Yes, I'm afraid so--it will mop up all my bit of capital."

"And so you chucked the service at seven-and-twenty! How was that?"

"Well, you see, my father made a point of it; the regiment was ordered to Egypt, and I could not get much leave, and anyway, I was all he had; but I don't mind telling you, Cousin Fred, that it was a wrench--I was most desperately sorry to go. Those bugles this morning in the Fort gave me--er--a horrible lump in my throat. Now I want to talk to you, if I am not taking up too much of your time."

"My time is my own," rejoined the little man rather grandly, "and anyway, it's not every day I have a call from _you_, Geoff."

"Then look here," tilting his chair nearer, "it's about this business--I want to know your opinion about Uncle Geoffrey."

"My opinion is, that he is dead--dead as a door-nail this thirty years," replied Colonel Tallboys with prompt decision.

"He certainly was not dead twenty-nine years ago, and supposing for the sake of argument he was still alive--I ask you just to look at the case from that point of view?"

"Possibly, but improbably, he got into some big scrape--and found it necessary to disappear."

"But by all accounts, he was straight as a die--no debts--no scandals," argued the young man.

"He is most certainly dead this many a day--or----" and the little Colonel pursed up his lips, and stonily contemplated the opposite wall.

"Or?" repeated Mallender eagerly.

"Oh, I could tell you queer stories. If Geoffrey is alive, I can solve the puzzle in six letters--'_a woman_.'"

"What--a black woman! Oh, rats! you're not serious? though I've been to Brown and Co., and they hinted at the same thing."

"You did not get much change out of them, did you?"

"No, but I gathered that the man who impersonates my Uncle moves about within a radius of three hundred miles, more or less--and if he is to be found, I mean to have a good try. I told the old boys quite plainly, and they did not like it, no, not a little bit. I left them with their hackles up." He paused abruptly, for Colonel Tallboys--who had been lounging in his chair, nursing a remarkably neat foot and ankle--now sat erect, stiff as a ramrod; his face had assumed an entirely different aspect, it wore the expression of the President of a district court martial, who listens to some vital and unexpected evidence.

"I give you my solemn word of honour, Geoffrey, that I have not the vaguest idea of what you are talking about--a man who impersonates your Uncle--did you say?"

"Oh, of course I forgot that you had not heard anything. My father never told me, till a few weeks before he died."

"Yes, yes, yes, go on," urged his listener impatiently.

"You will see all about it in this," now producing a pocket-book, from which he carefully extracted a thin flimsy letter. "Our lawyers at home know of this, so do Brown and Co., but no one else."

Colonel Tallboys resumed his spectacles, and slowly read and re-read the contents of a single sheet of paper. Here was the second startling episode, which had come before him that morning. As he studied the faded lines, he was thinking hard, and swiftly making up his mind. So Geoffrey the elder was alive, and Geoffrey the younger, in spite of his mandate, had come out to search for him--and thereby risk the loss of the whole of his income. Of course, such madness must be put a stop to: he would look after Mollie Mallender's boy, and save him from himself. With the alertness of a mental gymnast, his active and well-trained brain was already weaving schemes, and like a character in ancient melodrama he promptly decided to "dissemble."

"By Jove! so your Uncle is actually alive, and in India! I am completely bowled out--what an amazing thing!" As he tenderly refolded the frail letter he added: "Bazaar paper, and bazaar ink. I say! if you hunt him down, you forfeit four thousand a year, eh? It's rather a wild enterprise!"

"It would be if my Uncle were alive, but I believe this travelling criminal is the man who has made away with him."

"So you are determined to run your head against a brick wall--obstinacy is a family trait."

"If you call my father's last wish a brick wall, I am here to deal with it," and he sat back, as if to study the effect of his announcement.

"Oh, well, well, poor fellow," mumbled Colonel Tallboys, "no doubt he was in a weak state."

"Bodily, yes; but his mind was stronger than it had been for a long time. He had a vivid dream about his brother." Geoffrey paused and coloured, noticing his listener's expression of amused, but tolerant, disdain. "I say! you are not laughing, are you?"

"No, my dear boy--go on, go on."

"He said he saw him beckoning to him with one hand, whilst he held the other over his eyes--it was always the same dream--he dreamt it many times, and he felt, when he was helpless and dying, that he had made a mistake in not setting this letter aside, and coming straight out here; but, you see, he was in love with my mother, and there was the money, and other things, and so he stayed at home; but the affair preyed on his conscience more and more every year; till at last it became an obsession. Latterly, he could talk of nothing else; he said he was a miserable coward, who had deserted his only brother, and that my mother's death was his punishment; he worked himself up into a fearful state of excitement, and made me swear to undertake a duty in which he had failed."

"But God bless me, Geoffrey! there is this letter in black and white, forbidding any search--as plain as plain can be."

"Yes, but my father thought the letter was a forgery."

"What do Brown and Brown say?"

"They declare the letter to be genuine."

"Ah, and I agree with them! Your father's mind was undoubtedly unhinged by a long illness."

"But mine is not, Cousin Fred. At first, I must confess, I was rather reluctant to come out,--though, of course, I intended to keep my word; but by degrees, when I was all alone at Mallender, the idea grew upon me; _I_ had no dreams, but I had the picture of Uncle Geoffrey always facing me in the dining-room--an oil-painting in uniform, done before he left England--and it seemed to me that he not only took his meals with me, but rode, and walked, and sat with me as well; and I knew I'd never shake off the delusion--if it was a delusion--till I had left no stone unturned out here--and here I am! I see you think I'm _crazy_? Stark mad. Eh?"

"And have you any plans?" asked his cousin abruptly.

"Not anything very definite. I know that my Uncle or his double is in this Presidency--within about three hundred miles of Madras City."

"Then what is your scheme? your proposed campaign? Surely you won't advertise in the press, and have every filthy European loafer claiming a beloved nephew, and howling on his neck?"

"Certainly not," replied Mallender, who looked a little nettled; "I consulted a firm of smart lawyers, as our own old stick-in-the-muds were dead against my trip, and they put me on to a private enquiry firm of the name of Jaffer, who live in the City of Hyderabad in the Deccan."

"By George, they must do a great business! The city is full of the bad characters of every nation, people, and tongue. Well, go on."

"And Jaffer and Co. believe they can help me; and say that a good many men disappear in India much in the same way; but, of course, they don't know it is not my Uncle I expect to find--I'm afraid you look upon me as a lunatic?"

"No, no. I see that you feel the claims of kinship as keenly as I do myself; but you are wrong in starting on this crazy quest. If your Uncle is alive--I believe he has gone _native_. Take my advice," and he looked full into Mallender's grave face, "let sleeping dogs lie."

"Not this sleeping dog!" rejoined the young man, with unexpected energy. "The clever brute who murdered my Uncle draws his money and forges his name!"

"Well, well, Geoffrey, the weather is far too muggy for argument, we must agree to differ. One thing is certain; you cannot go up-country as ignorant as a new-born Europe babe; you must give us a couple of months at least--till we start for the Neilgherries."

"It's most awfully kind of you; and I'd like to stay with you for a few weeks and learn a little experience."

"Then that's settled," said Colonel Tallboys aloud. To himself: "Fan will easily keep this headstrong fellow amused, perhaps entangle him in a matrimonial engagement, and drive this lunacy out of his head."

"Just one word more, my dear boy. For God's sake, don't let a soul know of your _real_ reason for your trip to this country. If it ever got out, you'd be the laughing-stock of all Madras!"

At this painful announcement Geoffrey coloured up to his crisp brown hair.

"Come now," he continued, "put it before yourself impartially. What would _you_ think of a fellow coming to India to hunt for a lost relative, when he had been expressly warned that if he made a search he would lose four thousand a year?"

"Yes, I admit that it sounds fairly mad; so I'll keep all particulars dark; but mad or not, nothing shall stop me--or choke me off!" declared Mallender with vehement sincerity.

"All right, all right, meanwhile we will give out that you are interested in coffee in Mysore, or gold mines--yes, that is best--it's more _vague_," added Colonel Tallboys, with a grin. "And now, the first thing to do is to find you a first-class boy."

"Boy?"

"A servant--a full-grown man; anything up to eighty years of age is a boy here. I know of one, Anthony, he speaks Telagu, Canarese, Tamil, English, and at a pinch French! He will cook for you, valet you, wait on you, and generally run you, and do for you--he is just out of a place--his master went home last mail."

"But I only want a smart, honest chap that can rough it a bit," protested the new-comer.

"Oh, Anthony has often been in camp, and on shooting trips; he is a capital servant. My bearer will get hold of him at once, and now I'll 'phone for the car, and take you to the Club for tiffin--there you shall taste for the first time in your life the real, true, and only prawn curry."