Chapter II (2)

"Am I? Well, that is likely enough, and as a sportsman you won't object to allow for it in our arrangements." He slipped the door-key into his breeches pocket and, still holding the pistol in his right hand, leaned forward and laid his left on the base of the candlestick. "You start from that end of the room, and I from this by the fireplace. Are you ready? Here, take one of the foils too. After I have blown the candle out you will remain at your end and count twenty, in silence, of course. I will do the same at my end, and then we begin."

"Don't be a fool, man! This is no duel; it is murder, and foolish murder."

Squire Carthew puffed out the candle. Then the guard of the foil rattled softly upon the mahogany as he closed his hand upon it. "Count twenty, please."

I leave the reader to picture my situation. There, in the silence and the darkness with these two--one of them drunk--prowling to kill. In all my experience I can recall nothing so entirely discomfortable. I had no defence but the folds of a window curtain. I could not stir without inviting a thrust or a pistol shot, or both. And I may remark here, that there is a degree of terror which resembles physical sickness. _Experto credite._

I heard the men kick off their shoes; and after that for many seconds--though I strained my ears, you may be sure--I heard nothing.

Then a hand brushed upon the woodwork of the recess and even rested for a moment against the curtain, within six inches of my nose. It was Leggat I could be sworn. I drew back as his fingers felt the stuff of the curtain and passed on groping; I even heard the soft crack of his elbow-joint as he gripped the foil again, which for the moment he must have tucked under his armpit.

And with that it flashed on me what he was after--the roll of notes lying on the floor, between the table and the fireplace, barely a foot beyond the table's edge and perhaps four yards from my hiding place. I knew the spot exactly. Squire Carthew had almost touched the packet with his foot as he stooped to blow out the candle.

I dropped on hands and knees behind my curtain, pushed it softly aside and began to crawl. I could hear nothing now but my own heart drumming. For the next few moments, if I made no sound, it was unlikely either that Leggat would steal back upon me or that the squire could reach me without encountering Leggat. My hand touched the table-leg, and the touch of it, coming unexpectedly, almost made me cry out. A moment later I felt more easy. Once beneath the table I was comparatively safe. But I must get my hand on these notes, and after pausing a second I steered towards the fireplace, poked out my head and shoulders beyond the table, and smoothed my palm across the floor until my fingers touched the packet and closed upon it.

At that moment, in the darkness, to the left, a foil rattled against a chair. The sound was a slight one, but it betrayed Leggat's whereabouts, and, with a gasp of triumph, Carthew came running upon him from the right.

I ducked my head, but before I could slip back he had blundered right across my shoulders, which reached, perhaps, to his knees. He went over me with an oath and a crash, and as he struck the floor his pistol exploded.

I drew back with the smoke of it in my mouth and nostrils--and listened. Not a sound came from Leggat's corner, not a groan from the body stretched within reach. The man was dead, for certain; and we others had no time to lose.

A thud in the corridor outside called me to my senses. "Robert Leggat," I cried, "this is a black night's job for you! Lay down that pistol, find your shoes, and run!"

At this distance of time I would give something to know how it took him--this voice calling his true name out of the darkness and across Carthew's body.

"My God! Who is that?" he asked, and I could hear his teeth chattering.

Before I had need to answer, he broke from his corner and flung up the window, but recollected himself, and ran for his shoes. He had scarcely found them when there came that rush upon the stairs for which I had been listening, and a woman's voice screamed, "The Mistress! They've murdered the mistress!"

In my heart I blessed Mrs. Carthew--poor soul--for having swooned so conveniently outside the door. By this time Leggat was clambering across the window sill. What sort of drop lay below it? I saw the black mass of his body framed there for a moment against a sky almost as black, and watched as he lowered himself, and disappeared. I listened for the thud of a fall; but none came, and running to see what had befallen him, I caught another glimpse of him as he stole past a lit skylight in a long flat roof scarcely six feet below.

Here was luck beyond my hoping. The crowd in the passage was still occupied with Mrs. Carthew, but at length someone tried the handle of the door. This was my cue. I clambered out after Leggat--who by this time had disappeared--drew down the window-sash cautiously and wriggled across the leads of the roof, pausing only at the skylight to peer down into an empty room, where a score of wooden-seated chairs stood in disarray by a long table--the deserted auction-room, doubtless. At the far end of this roof a chimney-stack rose gaunt against the night; and flattening myself against the side of it, I waited for the dull crash which told that the crowd had broken in the door.

I had made better speed, you understand, but for the risk of overtaking Leggat and being recognised. As it was, I had set the worst of all terrors barking at his heels, and by and by--it may have been after three minutes' wait--I chuckled at the sound of a horse's hoofs in the stable-yard below me. It was too dark for me to catch sight of the rider as he mounted; but he made for the lower gate of the yard and, once past it, broke into a gallop. As its echoes died away, I began my search for the ladder by which Leggat had descended; found it, as I had expected, in the form of a stout water-pipe; and having reached the ground without mishap, brushed and smoothed my clothes and sauntered up the stable-yard to the hotel archway.

At the foot of the stairs there, I was almost bowled over by the Boots, who came flying down three stairs at a stride. "The Doctor!" he shouted: "the Doctor!" He tore past me and out into the street.

I entered the coffee-room and rang the bell.

I suppose that I rang it at intervals for something like half-an-hour before the waitress found me yawning before the exhausted fire.

"Sale over yet?" I asked pleasantly.

"Sale over? Sale ov--?" She set down the lamp and gasped. "Do you tell me that you've slept through it all?"

"All what, my dear?"

Out it all came in a flood. "The Squire's shot himself! In the Blue Room over your very head--locked the door and shot himself clean through the brains! Poor gentleman, he felt his position, though he did drink so fierce. And now he's gone, and Mrs. Carthew no sooner out of one swoon than into another."

"Bless my soul!" cried I. "Now you speak of it, I _did_ hear something like a pistol shot; but that must have been half-an-hour ago."

"It's a wonder," she said tragically, "his blood didn't drip on you through the ceiling."

It was useless (she agreed with me) to expect Mr. Addison to attend to my business that night. Indeed, though he was doubtless somewhere in the crowd, she could not recall having seen him. It would also be useless, and worse, to seek an interview with Susie, who was attending to her poor mistress.

"Very well," I said. "Then since I can see neither the parson nor the girl, I must make shift with the lawyer. No, my dear, you need not stare at me like that, I don't put my money on my back, like some of your gentry; but while I keep enough in my pocket there's no law in England against my employing as good an attorney as poor Mr. Carthew--or, if I choose, the very same man."

"What? Mr. Retallack?"

I nodded. "That's it--Mr. Retallack. I take it he came to attend the auction, and is upstairs at this moment."

"Why, yes; it was he that gave orders to break in the door and found the body. He began putting questions to Mrs. Carthew, but the poor soul wasn't fit to answer. And then he and Mr. James tackled Susie, who swore she knew nothing of the business until she heard the shot--as we all did--and, running out, found her mistress stretched in the passage: and now she's attending to her in the bedroom with the doctor. So the lawyer's at a standstill."

"Mr. James Carthew? Is _he_ here too?"

"Yes: he's living at his town house this week, but he came here to-night--for the sale, I suppose. He's upstairs now, and his wife along with him; she heard the news cried up the street and came running down all agog with her bonnet on top of her nightcap. But I mustn't stay talking."

"No, indeed you must not," said I. "Here, tell me where you keep your tinder-box.... Now, while I light the candles, do you run upstairs and tell Mr. Retallack privately that a person wishes to speak with him in the coffee-room on an important matter and one connected with to-night's business."

The girl, hungry to be back at the scene of horror, lost no time. I had scarcely time to light the four candles on the chimney-piece when the baize door opened and I found myself bowing to a white-haired little gentleman with a kindly, flustered face. He was plainly suffering from nervous excitement in a high degree, and in the act of bowing attempted to rearrange his shirt-frill with an undecided hand.

"Good evening, Mr. Retallack."

"You sent for me----" he began, and broke off, obviously dismayed by my rough clothes and not altogether liking the look of his customer.

I offered him a chair; he looked at it doubtfully, but shook his head. "My business is of moment," said I, "and of some urgency. That must excuse me for summoning you just now, since as a matter of fact it has less to do with the unhappy pair upstairs than with what I take to be the cause of it. I mean the sale of the Welland estate."

He spread out his hands. "At such a time!" he protested.

"I am glad to find, sir, that you feel so deeply, since it proves you to be a real friend of the family. But as a lawyer you will not let emotion obscure your good sense, or miss a chance of saving Welland for the poor lady and orphan child upstairs merely because it happens to present itself at an untoward moment."

He eyed me, fumbling with the seals at his fob. His mind was by no means clear, but professional instinct seemed to warn him that my words were important.

"I do not know you, sir," he quavered; "but if you are here with any plan of saving Welland, I must tell you sadly that you waste time. I have thought of a hundred plans, sir, but have found none workable. It has destroyed my rest for months--for, with all his failings, I was sincerely attached to young Mr. Carthew, and no less sincerely to his unhappy lady. I warned him a hundred times: but the debts exist, the mortgagees foreclose, and Welland must go."

"Who are the mortgagees?"

"A joint-stock company in London, sir, which lives upon this form of usury. Men with bowels of brass. It was against my strongest warning that Mr. Harry went to them."

"The amount?"

"Thirty-four thousand pounds."

"Will the estate sell for that figure?"

"Scarcely, at a forced sale; unless some purchaser took a special fancy to it or had some special reason for acquiring it."

"Suppose, now, that I offer thirty-four thousand to buy the estate by private contract. Would such an offer be accepted?"

"Indubitably. The mortgagees could offer no objection, even if they wished; for they would be paid; but, in fact, they scarcely hope for so much. You will excuse me, however----"

"In a moment, Mr. Retallack. Still, supposing that I offer thirty-four thousand, a deposit on the purchase money would be required. Can you name the sum?"

"Unless the purchaser were well known in this neighbourhood ten per cent. would be asked, or three thousand four hundred."

"Leaving me a hundred," I said musingly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing: a bad habit I have of talking to myself. Will you pardon a question of some abruptness? You are acquainted, no doubt, with the present Mrs. James Carthew?"

"Slightly." He looked at me in some puzzlement. "She was Mr. James's housekeeper."

"So I have heard. Is she a woman of strong mind? with an influence upon her husband?"

Mr. Retallack positively smiled.

"You may be sure he would never have married her without it. Oh, there's no doubt about the strength of her mind!"

"Middle-aged, I believe? With one child, and not likely to have another?"

"It astonished us all when this one was born. Indeed, people do say--but I mustn't repeat tattle."

"No, indeed. But a man like James Carthew, with a large entail at stake, might be forgiven----" I did not finish my sentence, but stepped to the bell and rang it.

"Excuse me, sir," said Mr. Retallack; "you began by promising--at least by holding out some hope--that Welland might be preserved for Mrs. Harry Carthew and her son. But so far you have told me nothing except that you wish to purchase it yourself."

"I think, rather, that you must have jumped to that conclusion. My dear sir, do I _look_ like a man able to purchase Welland? No, no; I am merely the agent of a friend who is unhappily prevented from treating in person. My dear"--I turned to the waitress who entered at this moment--"would you mind running upstairs and telling Mr. and Mrs. James Carthew that Mr. Addison has ridden home, leaving a packet of notes behind him; and that the person in possession of that packet wishes to see them both--be particular to say 'both'--in private."

"Sir, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Retallack, as the maid shut the door. I turned to find him eyeing me between suspicion and alarm. "Either you have not been frank with me, or you must be ignorant that James Carthew has been no brotherly brother of poor Harry. He is the last man before whom I should care to discuss the purchase of Welland. I have, indeed, more than once suspected him of being in collusion with the Mr. Addison you mention, and, in part, responsible for the disaster into which, as I maintain, that reverend gentleman has hurried my poor friend. If there be any question of James Carthew's purchasing Welland (and I will confess the fear of this has been troubling me) I must decline to listen to it until fate compels me. To-night, with Harry Carthew lying dead in the room above, I will not hear it so much as suggested."

"Then, my excellent Mr. Retallack, do not start suggesting it. Ah, here they are!" said I, pleasantly, as the door opened, and, as I expected, my bald-headed man appeared on the threshold, and was followed by a grim-looking female in a fearsome head-dress compounded of bonnet and nightcap. "Sir," I began, addressing James Carthew with much affability, "it is through our common friend, Mr. Addison, that I venture to commend myself to you and to your good lady."

"And who may you be?" Mrs. James demanded, with sufficient bluntness.

"You may put me down as Captain Richard Steele, madam, of the _Spectator_, not the _Tatler_; and I have sent for you in a hurry, for which I must apologise, because our friend, Mr. Addison, has ridden from Tregarrick to-night on urgent private business, and I am here to carry out certain intentions of his with regard to a bundle of notes which he left in my keeping."

"I don't know you, sir; and I don't know your game," struck in James Carthew roughly; "but if the notes are mine, as I suspect, I beg to state that I never intended----"

"Quite so," I took him up amiably. "You do good by stealth and blush to find it known. But, in view of the sad event upstairs, there can be no harm in my stating before so discreet a lawyer as Mr. Retallack what I had from Mr. Addison's own lips--that these notes were intended by you for the deposit-money on the purchase of Welland."

"Addison had no right----"

"Of course, if I misread his directions, you can refer to him to correct me--when he returns. As it is, I heard it from him most plainly that--thanks to you--Welland was to be rescued and preserved for Mr. Harry Carthew's child. Mr. Retallack tells me that thirty-four thousand pounds is the sum needed, and that, of this, ten per cent., or three thousand four hundred, will be accepted as deposit money. It happens that I have but a short time to spend in Tregarrick, and therefore I have ventured to summon you and madam to bear witness that I hand this sum over to the person competent to receive it." And with this I took the notes from my breast-pocket and began to count them out carefully upon the table.

"This fellow is drunk," said Mr. James Carthew, addressing the lawyer. "The notes are mine, as I can prove. They were entrusted by me to Mr. Addison----"

"Who, it appears, has surrendered them," said Mr. Retallack drily. "Did Mr. Addison give you a receipt?"

"They are mine, and were entrusted to him for a private purpose. This fellow can have come by them in no honest way. Impound them if you will; I can wait for Addison's testimony. But as for intending to make a present of Welland to that brat of Harry's----"

"Not directly to him," I interrupted, having done with my counting, and folding away two notes for fifty pounds apiece in my pocket. "On second thoughts, Mr. Retallack shall make out the conveyance to me, and I will assign a lease retaining the present tenant in possession at a nominal rent of, let me say, five shillings a year. I am sorry to give him so much trouble at this late hour, but it is important that I leave Tregarrick without avoidable delay."

"I can well believe that," James Carthew began. But the lawyer who, without a notion of my drift, was now playing up to me very prettily, interrupted him again.

"This is very well, sir," said he, addressing me; "very well, indeed. But if, as you say, you are leaving Tregarrick, at what date may we expect the purchase to be completed?"

"Why, that I must leave to you and Mr. James Carthew."

"To me, sir?" thundered Mr. James, every vein on his bald head swelling. "To _me_! Are you mad, as well as drunk? When I tell you, Mr. Retallack----"

I glanced up with a smile and caught his wife's eye. And to my dying day I shall respect that woman. From first to last she had listened without the wink of an eyelash; but now she spoke up firmly.

"If I were you, James, I wouldn't be a fool. The best use you can make of your breath is to ask Mr. Retallack to leave the room."

The lawyer, at a nod from me, withdrew.

"Now," said she, as the door closed, "speak up and tell me what's the matter."

"The matter, madam," I answered, "is Addison. He's an escaped convict, and no more a clergyman than--excuse me--you are."

I declare that, still, not an eyelash of her quivered: but her ass of a husband broke in--

"I don't believe it! I won't believe it! Tell us how you came by the notes."

"James, I beg you not to be a fool. Has he cut and run?" she asked.

"He has."

"You can find him?"

"No," said I, "and I don't want to. But I can get a message conveyed that will probably reach and warn him--if he has not thought of it already--to send a letter to the Bishop formally resigning his living."

Then Mrs. James Carthew made a totally unexpected and, as I still hold, a really humorous remark.

"Drat the fellow!" she said. "And he preached an Assize Sermon too!"

But once again her ass of a mate broke in.

"What, in the devil's name, are you parleying about, Maria? Addison or no Addison, you don't suppose I'm to be blackmailed into buying Welland for that young whelp!"

"Just as you please," said I. "If you prefer the money being raised for him on the entail, so be it."

"On the entail?" He opened and shut his mouth like a fish.

"Yes, sir; on the entail--_his parents not having employed Mr. Addison to marry them_."

But at this point Mrs. James, without deigning me another look, tucked the poor fool under her arm and carried him off.

I left Tregarrick two days later with a hundred pounds in my pocket: for the odd notes seemed to me a fair commission on a very satisfactory job. Now, as I look back on my adventure, I detect several curious points in it. The first is, that I have never set eyes on Susie Martin: the second, that I never had another interview with Mr. or Mrs. James Carthew: the third, that neither then nor since have I ever had a word of thanks from the lady and child to whom I rendered this signal service. The one, so far as I know, never saw me: the other saw me only for that instant when he dropped me a penny for a trick. To both, I am known only as Captain Richard Steele, and whoever inhabits Welland pays five shillings out of one pocket into another for his tenancy, and will continue to do so. But, perhaps, what the reader will most wonder at, is that I--Gabriel Foot--having my hand on three thousand five hundred pounds, and a clear run for it, should have yielded up all but a hundred for a widow and orphan, who never heard of my existing. Well, perhaps, the secret is that Leggat intended to yield it, and I pride myself on being a better man than Leggat. In short, I have, within limits, a conscience.

RAIN OF DOLLARS