Chapter XXII: Mr. Tracy Becomes Active

Melville's faculty of reading character did not err when it satisfied him that he might rely upon Lavender Sinclair keeping faithfully any secret which she had passed her word not to betray. There are plenty of women of whom the same might be said, all the gibes of all the cynics notwithstanding. But it also told him that he might be ill-advised in leaving her too much alone, especially just now, when the papers were so full of the trial and of speculations as to her own existence and whereabouts. The morning after the abortive trial, therefore, he determined to pay her an early visit, and donning a new suit of mourning, and an expression suited to the part he was being compelled to play in the Fairbridge tragedy, he walked out of his chambers as soon as he had finished his customary "brunch."

Thus it happened that he was not at home when a few minutes after his departure Mr. Tracy, who capriciously elected to walk upstairs without enquiring of the commissionaire whether Mr. Ashley was within, or troubling the lift attendant to convey him to the top floor, knocked at the outer door of his self-contained suite of apartments. Jervis opened the door.

"Mr. Ashley has only just gone out," he said, "and he gave me no instructions as to when he would return."

Mr. Tracy was visibly distressed; he was also elderly, and rather out of breath from scaling so many stairs.

"It is of the first importance that I should see him to-day. You have no idea where he has gone--whether I might find him at his club, for instance?"

Jervis could not say. Mr. Ashley was a member of several clubs, but it was scarcely likely that he would visit any of them so early in the day. Could not the gentleman leave a card and call again?

The gentleman would much prefer to wait on the chance of Mr. Ashley's returning, but Jervis seemed so disconcerted by the suggestion, and so much at a loss for a civil way of getting rid of the visitor, that Mr. Tracy took pity on him.

"In point of fact," he said, "I am Mr. Ashley's family solicitor, and you may have heard of the melancholy affair at Fairbridge Manor. I must see Mr. Ashley immediately, in order to prepare for the new trial that is now necessary."

No servant could fail to recognise the paramount importance of such a visitor, or take the responsibility of sending him away without explicit orders to that effect, and Jervis admitted Mr. Tracy. He did more, influenced perhaps by the transference of two new coins, a sovereign and a shilling from the lawyer's pocket to his own.

"I come of an old-fashioned school," Mr. Tracy said with a smile, "and must insist upon your accepting the shilling as well. There's a sentimental difference as well as a pecuniary one between a pound and a guinea, and I never cease to regret that guineas are coined no more. No thanks, I beg. I am really excessively obliged to you for allowing me to come in and await Mr. Ashley's return."

So Mr. Tracy gained his point, and Jervis never suspected that for more than half an hour he had been waiting in the tailor's shop opposite, watching for Melville to emerge before climbing the steep staircase to the little bachelor flat.

"Mr. Ashley always takes a very late breakfast," Jervis remarked as he proceeded with his work of clearing the table. "May I get you some luncheon, sir? I am sure it would be Mr. Ashley's wish that I should ask you."

"'Pon my word now, that's very obliging of you," Mr. Tracy answered; "very obliging indeed. I always breakfast very early myself, and I am distinctly hungry. If I shall not be causing anybody any inconvenience I should be uncommonly glad of some luncheon."

So Jervis relaid the table, and after several colloquies with the chef, conducted through the medium of the speaking tube outside, produced a meal which did great credit to the establishment, and which Mr. Tracy, to use his own language, found "vastly appetising." And while he gave proof of his appreciation of this vicarious hospitality by satisfying an appetite which would have been creditable to a young fellow of twenty, he entertained the valet with a chatty, circumstantial account of the famous murder trial, in which he knew he must be interested. Men of the old school, to which Mr. Tracy prided himself on belonging, are not prone to hold such animated conversations with other people's servants as Mr. Tracy held with Melville's valet now. Jervis was probably unaware of this, but, in all the circumstances, it is not surprising that he should be completely satisfied of the visitor's good faith, and chat as freely as the visitor did himself; which was precisely according to Mr. Tracy's anticipations, and was the sole reason of his going there at all.

"I daresay Mr. Ashley is very much upset by the suspicion attaching to his brother," Mr. Tracy said, as he attacked a second kidney.

"I don't doubt he is," Jervis replied, "but he's not the sort of gentleman to show it."

"Not given to showing his feelings, you mean," said the lawyer; "his uncle, Sir Geoffrey Holt, was just like that. But it doesn't follow that those very self-possessed people feel things less than the others do. You don't agree with me, eh?" for Jervis looked doubtful.

"I don't think Mr. Ashley minds things as much as I should if I were in his place," the valet answered; "that is to say, not some things."

"Little things, perhaps," Mr. Tracy suggested.

"Well, not what I should call little things," said Jervis, who was by no means disinclined to criticise one of his gentlemen, as he termed the several tenants of the chambers whom he had the privilege of valeting. "For instance, if his breakfast don't please him, or his boots don't shine enough, you'd think the house was on fire by the way he rings the bell, but in what I should call vexations he doesn't even begin to seem worried, when I should be off my head with scheming and devising."

Mr. Tracy laughed.

"To have the power of not being worried by worries must be a great blessing sometimes, but the word has such different meanings for different people. A man like Mr. Ashley, with comfortable quarters and first-class attendance, and well-to-do people belonging to him, can't have real anxieties."

"I don't know about all that," Jervis said sententiously. "Nobody can see very far into anybody else's life. What I should be rich on, Mr. Ashley may be poor on, but I've known lots of times when he's been in difficulties, so to speak, and never turned a hair. Those are poached eggs on spinach, sir."

"Thanks, I'll take some," said Mr. Tracy, who would have gone on eating until dinner-time if only so he could have prolonged the conversation; "but what do you mean by difficulties?"

Jervis laughed a little in his turn.

"Of course, all this is quite between ourselves? It would never do if Mr. Ashley knew I'd remarked upon it, but people can't help seeing what goes on under their noses if they're not blind, and gentlemen's gentlemen see more than other people, to say nothing of their having to do with it in a manner of speaking. Well, there was one time I remember particularly, because it seemed so funny--the sort of thing nobody but Mr. Ashley would have thought of, yet it came quite natural-like to him. It was last time he came home from Monte Carlo, where he'd been making money for the bank. I don't believe he had a penny piece to call his own, and he was going out in the evening. 'Jervis,' he says, 'put out my dress clothes early; I'm dining out to-night.' So I went to do it, but couldn't find any shirts in his portmanteau. When he went away I'd sent all his linen to the laundry, and they wouldn't send it back without he paid the bill, which was a pretty long one. 'Have you any shirts, sir?' I asked, and he took me up, vexed-like. 'How the devil am I to know?' he says; 'find some.' Course I had to tell him about the laundry, and he colours up and says he'll be hanged if he writes them a cheque."

"How did you manage?" Mr. Tracy enquired.

"I didn't manage at all," Jervis announced; "that's what I'm telling you. It worried me at the time, although it wasn't me who was going out, but Mr. Ashley takes it all as a matter of course. 'Go over to the Burlington Arcade,' he says, like a lord, 'and tell my hosiers to send over three dozen and put them down to my account.'"

"Did they do it?" Mr. Tracy asked.

"Do it?" said Jervis scornfully; "of course they did it. Seems to me people will do anything in this world if you only bluff them enough. Still, there's a case to show what I mean. I should never have thought of getting three dozen shirts on credit because I couldn't pay my laundry bill, but to Mr. Ashley it was the natural thing to do."

Mr. Tracy was really amused, but he thought it a most illuminating anecdote, and followed up the vein it opened.

"So Mr. Ashley plays at Monte Carlo, does he? Well, one wants a long purse for that game. Does he entertain much here? He very well might where things are so well done."

Jervis appreciated the compliment.

"Only a very occasional supper," he answered. "I'm sure I'm sorry he doesn't have company oftener." Jervis's regret may, perhaps, have been due to financial considerations, but he hastened to admit that Mr. Ashley's failure to receive his friends in Jermyn Street made the work lighter for his attendants. "Of course, it makes the place an easier one for me," he said, "and I will say that, although there are times when for weeks together he doesn't know where to lay his hand on a shilling, Mr. Ashley is very considerate and very free with his money when he's got any. Often and often he's thrown me over a couple of sovereigns and said I might find them useful if I knew anybody who would like to go up to Hampton Court or have an afternoon at Kempton--which I do."

He became anecdotal, and Mr. Tracy found it a not very easy matter to get him back to the subject of Melville's habits without making his purpose too apparent, but he did it at last.

"No," said Jervis, in reply to some indirect question, "Mr. Ashley hardly ever has ladies here. There was two called the other day, and one came to tea once."

"The two were the Austens, I expect," said Mr. Tracy. "Miss Austen is engaged to be married to Mr. Ashley's brother."

"Is she?" said Jervis, with interest; "poor young lady! Do you think Mr. Ashley--our Mr. Ashley, I mean--is going to marry the other lady? She's the only one I've ever known come here alone."

"I don't know, I'm sure," Mr. Tracy answered. "I don't even know who she was."

"Her name was Sinclair," Jervis said. "She was a lady, anyone could see, and beautifully dressed. She must know him very well, because I heard her call him Melville. It was the very day before the murder at Fairbridge that she called and took tea with Mr. Ashley."

"The day before, or the day it happened?" Mr. Tracy asked.

"The day before," said Jervis. "The day of the murder Mr. Ashley didn't go out. I know that because he happened to say he would be going out and he wouldn't want me. So I went to Hendon, but when I got back Mr. Ashley had been telegraphed for, and the manager told me he was in a terrible way because he had stopped at home after all, owing to the storm, and the telegram wasn't brought up to him at once."

With all this, and much more, did Jervis entertain Mr. Tracy, in whom, as Mr. Ashley's family solicitor, he felt he might place entire confidence. He removed the luncheon, set the room in order, and attended to his various duties in Melville's bedroom, brushing his dress clothes and laying them out in preparation for the evening, but still Melville did not return. When the clock upon the mantelpiece chimed half-past three Mr. Tracy began to show signs that even his patience was becoming exhausted.

"I am afraid that after all I shall have to give it up," he said, with evident reluctance. "If you will still further oblige me with writing materials, I will leave a note for Mr. Ashley, asking him to give me an early appointment."

Jervis produced the necessary tools, and Mr. Tracy wrote the little note.

"I have told him how attentive you have been," he said to the valet, "and perhaps you will allow me----"

Another guinea changed hands, and Jervis was profuse in his expressions of gratitude; none the less he seemed a shade uneasy.

"Of course, anything that I have said," he began, but Mr. Tracy cut him short.

"Absolutely between ourselves, I assure you; ab-so-lutely between ourselves," and, with a sagacious nod of the head, the old fellow began to take his departure. At the door he hesitated a moment, for a card tray caught his eye. "Some of these young men are terrible sticklers for etiquette," he said, scrutinising it closely; "perhaps I ought to add my card to these," and while fumbling in his pocket for his card-case he contrived to get a glimpse of Mrs. Sinclair's card, which Jervis had brought up the day before the tragedy. He had not time to see the number of the house, but The Vale, South Kensington, was quite enough for his immediate needs, and as he turned into Piccadilly Circus he gave utterance to a little sound, half grunt, half chuckle, expressive of the utmost satisfaction.

"It's cost me two guineas and a wholly unnecessary suit of clothes, but I shall be very much astonished if it doesn't prove a good investment. Still, if it doesn't, the estate can bear it. 'Pon my word, if my name weren't Tracy, I should think it must be Slater!"

Well pleased with himself, he climbed on to the top of a Putney omnibus, and employed the time occupied in the journey to South Kensington Station in arranging his mental notes. He had already heard enough to verify the impression gleaned from Ralph that Melville was an inveterate gambler, and that was quite enough to explain Sir Geoffrey's hitherto incomprehensible action in disinheriting his younger nephew.

"It only shows how even an experienced old lawyer like myself can be taken in by a plausible young rascal," he thought with much humility. "I dare say he is a waster, who tired Sir Geoffrey out. It will be interesting to try to ascertain presently how much he did have out of the old man in the last year or two. Three hundred and fifty pounds in six weeks isn't bad to begin with, and I don't think there can be any doubt of his having had that."

Assuming Ralph's story to be accurate in every particular, there yet remained one point which puzzled Mr. Tracy. If Sir Geoffrey had resented Melville's fraud in the matter of the alleged loan to his brother so hotly as to be within an ace of prosecuting him for getting money under false pretences, why had he relented so suddenly and given unquestioning hospitality to an extravagant gambler and swindler whom, even prior to the last fraud, he had formally discarded and renounced? What was the method which Melville's ingenuity had devised to overcome Sir Geoffrey's expressed determination? At present, Mr. Tracy could not conjecture, but already he knew enough to make him want to know more, and in journeying, as he was now doing, to see what manner of place The Vale, South Kensington, might be, he was acting on reason rather than impulse, albeit the reason was hard to define precisely.

At the station he descended from the omnibus and walked into the Fulham Road, finding it necessary to ask more than once where The Vale was to be found; it is, indeed, not an easy spot to discover, although the ground occupied by the several houses and their gardens is so considerable. Just as he had lighted upon the archway forming the entrance to the place, an empty carriage emerged, and Mr. Tracy asked the coachman if he knew which was Mrs. Sinclair's house.

"Number five," the man replied. "I was to have driven her out to-day, but she's ill and can't go."

"Are you her coachman?"

"Oh, no," the man said. "Mrs. Sinclair doesn't keep a carriage, but hires pretty often from our place."

"Thank you," said Mr. Tracy; "perhaps I had better postpone my visit to another day," and, noting with admiration the shady lawns and bright gardens lurking so unexpectedly in this busy part of the town, he turned again into the street, after making sure that he could find the place again without difficulty. A dairy on the other side of the road, looking delightfully clean and cool with its green and white tiles, polished marble counters, and gleaming milk cans, invited him, and sitting down at a little table he ordered a large glass of milk and soda, and drew the girl behind the counter into a gossipy conversation.

"Yes, it's a sweetly pretty place," she said, referring to The Vale, "and nice people live there; carriage people mostly. We serve them all."

"Do you know Mrs. Sinclair?" Mr. Tracy asked. "I was calling upon her to-day, but am told she isn't well."

"I'm sorry," said the girl. "Oh, yes, I know her very well. She is so nice and civil-spoken, and always so beautifully dressed. Don't you think she's very good-looking? Not pretty, you know, but handsome and distinguished looking."

"I haven't seen her for some years," Mr. Tracy answered, "but still I daresay she hasn't changed much. Women can always remain any age they please."

The girl smiled, as in duty bound.

"I always envy Mrs. Sinclair," she said. "She has everything a woman can possibly want--except, perhaps, a husband."

So there was no Mr. Sinclair. Possibly Jervis was right, and Melville hoped to make good the want in this lady's scheme of things.

"Do you think a rich widow's is really the happiest lot of all?" Mr. Tracy enquired.

"Depends upon the husband, I should say," the girl replied; "but Mrs. Sinclair is going to have a husband again."

"Is she?" said Mr. Tracy. "Gad, I'm glad I got wind of the fact before seeing her. Women never forgive you if you don't know that sort of thing, do they? Who's the happy man?"

"Well, he's not much of a man," the girl replied, with some disdain, "but he's got a title, and heaps and heaps of money, so perhaps the other doesn't matter, specially to a lady who has been married before. You can't expect to be in love twice in one life, can you?" and she heaved a prodigious sigh as she thought of her own first ardent passion, still burning brightly.

"Not much of a man, isn't he?" said Mr. Tracy, amused. "What sort of a title has he by way of compensation?"

"I don't know exactly what he is," she answered, "but his wife will be My Lady, anyhow. She's engaged to Sir Ross Buchanan. Do you know him?"

"I know of him, of course," the lawyer said, "but I never met him. He's one of the richest men in the three kingdoms."

"Is he?" said the girl, with awe and admiration. "Well, there's no end to some people's good luck."

Mr. Tracy paid for his refreshment, and awaited an omnibus which should take him to the less savoury purlieus of the law.

"A remarkably good day's work," he said. "I must devise some excuse for calling upon the fascinating widow, if only out of curiosity. Anyhow, it isn't matrimony that she is contemplating with Melville Ashley. Sir Ross Buchanan stops the way."

But if his enquiries that day opened his eyes to the possibility of Melville having less ground of complaint against Sir Geoffrey than he had hitherto supposed, his investigation into the financial transactions that had taken place between them surprised him still more that night. He went carefully through Sir Geoffrey's bank books, and comparing the entries therein with the counterfoils of the cheques and the neatly docketed receipts in Sir Geoffrey's writing table drawers, worked out a little sum in addition that astonished him beyond expression. The cheques to tradesmen marked "a/c M.A.," the details in the various accounts, and the individual cheques made payable to Melville, amounted to a total quite appalling to so simple-minded a man as this old-fashioned solicitor. If he had been inclined at first to think that Ralph exaggerated in his description of Melville's extravagance, he now had evidence more than sufficient to prove that such was not the case. No terms were too strong to condemn Melville's wanton and wicked waste of money; no further reason was required to explain why he had been disinherited by his too long-suffering uncle and guardian.

Mr. Tracy sat up late that night revolving the whole matter in his mind, and when at last he went to bed it was with the firm determination of having a personal interview with Mrs. Sinclair on the very first opportunity.