Kitabı oku: «The House 'Round the Corner», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XI
PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE
James Walker, the younger, took thought while his cob paced the eight miles between Elmdale and Nuttonby. In the result, he changed his plans if not his intent. Pulling up outside the office of Holloway & Dobb, he signaled a clerk who peered out at him through a dust-laden window. It is a singular fact that more dust gathers on the windows of offices occupied by respectable country solicitors than on the windows of all other professional men collectively.
"Would you mind asking Mr. Dobb to come and see me for a minute on important business?" he said when the clerk came out.
After befitting delay, Mr. Dobb appeared. He was portly and bespectacled, and not inclined to hurry. Moreover, he did not make a practice of holding consultations with clients in the street. It needed a man of county rank to prefer such a request, and Mr. Dobb, Commissioner for Oaths, and leading solicitor in Nuttonby, was very much astonished when he heard that "young Walker, the auctioneer," had invited him to step outside.
"Well, what is it?" he inquired stiffly, standing in the doorway, and clearly resolved not to budge another inch.
"Sorry to trouble you, sir," said Walker humbly, "but I can't leave this pony when so near his stable. He'd take off on his own account."
Dobb, though slightly mollified by an eminently reasonable explanation, did not offer to cross the pavement, so Walker, after glancing up and down the street to make sure that no passer-by could overhear, continued in a low tone:
"I've just come from the Grange, Elmdale, and saw Miss Meg Garth there. She passed a remark which seemed to imply that her father is still living, and got very angry when I told her that he was dead and buried two years ago."
Mr. Dobb descended from the doorway quickly enough then. Resting a fat hand on the rail of the dash-board, he looked up into Walker's red face. The scrutiny was not friendly. He was sure that the junior member of the firm of Walker & Son had been drinking.
"Do you know what you are talking about?" he said, sternly.
Walker leaned down, until his ferret eyes peered closely into those of the angry solicitor.
"That's why I'm here, sir," he said, with the utmost deference of manner. "Of course, I'm aware that you represent the family – at any rate, with regard to the Elmdale property – and when Miss Meg herself said that her father was alive, and flew into a rage when I ventured to correct her, what was I to think? I admit I was knocked all of a heap, and may have put things rather bluntly, but there cannot be the slightest doubt as to what she meant. More than that, her cousin, Mr. Robert Armathwaite, bore out her statement, and got so mad with me for stickin' to it that Mr. Garth had committed suicide, that we almost came to blows."
Walker was quite sober – the solicitor had no doubt on that score now. Perhaps vague memories stirred in the shrewd, legal mind, and recalled certain curious discrepancies he had noted in events already passing into the limbo of forgetfulness. He, too, looked to right and left, lest some keen-eared citizen should have crept up unobserved.
"Can't you take your trap to the stable and come back here?" he asked, thereby admitting that Walker's breach of decorum was condoned.
"That's really what I had in mind, sir. I was afraid you might have left the office before I was at liberty, as I have a few matters to attend to when I reach our own place, and I didn't want to intrude by callin' at your house."
Dobb was watching him critically, and was evidently becoming more puzzled each moment.
"I need hardly tell you that you are bringing a very serious charge against someone," he said at last.
"No, that I'm not!" cried Walker emphatically. "I'm just telling you the plain facts. It's not my business to bring charges. I thought, in reality, that I was doing someone a good turn by comin' straight to you; but, if you don't agree, Mr. Dobb – "
"No, no, I didn't mean my remark in that sense," explained the solicitor hastily, not without a disagreeable feeling that this perky young auctioneer seemed to know exactly what he was about. "I only wanted you to understand that grave issues may be bound up with an extraordinary story of this nature. Look here! I'm busy now. Will you be free at six o'clock?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, come to my house, and we'll discuss matters fully. You say you saw and spoke to Miss Meg herself?"
"Oh, yes, sir! No mistake. I've known her all my life."
"Very well, then. Don't be later than six. I have some people coming to dinner at seven."
Walker saluted with the switch he carried instead of a whip, clicked his tongue at the cob, and rattled away down the High Street. Dobb looked after him dubiously. He had been friendly with the Garths, and James Walker, junior, was almost the last person in Nuttonby he would have entrusted with any scandal or secret which affected them. However, in another hour, he would endeavor to gauge the true value of Walker's information. It might be a cock and bull yarn, in which case it would be a pleasure to sit on Walker heavily. Meanwhile, he would avail himself of the opportunity to go through certain papers in his possession, and come to the forthcoming interview primed with the facts.
Every Thursday evening, at half-past five, the proprietor, editor, and manager of the Nuttonby Gazette– a journalistic trinity comprised in one fussy little man named Banks – looked in at Walker and Son's office for the "copy" of the week's advertisements, Mr. Banks being then on his way back to the printing-works after tea. Thus, he killed two birds with one stone, since the Walkers not only controlled a good deal of miscellaneous advertising, but, moving about the countryside as they did in the course of their business, often gave him news paragraphs not otherwise available.
Young Walker, of course, was prepared for this visit. Indeed, it loomed large in the scheme he had embarked on. Hurrying home, he changed into a suit of clothes calculated to impress Gwendoline Dobb, the solicitor's only unmarried daughter, if he met her, and then strolled to the High Street sanctum of the firm. Not a word did he say to his father as to happenings at Elmdale. The old man was altogether too cautious, he thought, and would assuredly tell him to shut his mouth, which was the last thing he meant to do where Meg Garth and her "bounder of a cousin" were concerned.
Thus, when Banks hurried in, and asked the usual question: "Anything fresh, gentlemen?" Walker, senior, was by no means prepared for the thunderbolt which his son was about to launch.
The older man told the journalist that Lady Hutton was giving a special prize for honey at the next agricultural show; that hay had been a bumper crop in the district; and that mangel wurzel was distinctly falling out of favor, items of an interest to Nuttonby readers that far transcended the clash of empires in the Balkans. Banks was going, when the son said quietly:
"By the way, you might like to mention that a Mr. Robert Armathwaite, a relative of the former occupants, has rented the Grange, Elmdale, probably for a period of twelve months."
"A relative of the Garths, Jim – I didn't know that!" exclaimed his father.
"It's right enough. Meg Garth herself told me."
"Meg Garth! Is she here?"
"She's at the Grange. Tom Bland told me she was there, so, after calling about those cattle at Bellerby to-day, I drove on to Elmdale and saw her."
"Well, of all the surprising things! Then, Mr. Armathwaite must have known about the house when he came in yesterday?"
Yesterday! While the three men were gazing at each other in the Walkers' office, Armathwaite and Marguérite Ogilvey were escorting Percy Whittaker down the moor road, and even wily James Walker, junior, little guessed what a whirlwind had enwrapped the new tenant of the Grange since, as the older Walker had put it, "he came in yesterday."
"No, I'm jiggered if he did!" cried the younger man viciously. "Armathwaite had never heard the name of the place before we mentioned it. I'll swear that in any court of law in the land."
"And I'd bear you out," agreed his father. "Not that I can see any reason why it should come into court. He paid up promptly, and we have nothing to bother about until the next quarter is due."
"I'm not so sure of that," was the well-calculated answer.
"What are you driving at, Jim?"
"This. He's no more Meg Garth's cousin than I am. There's some queer game bein' played, and I'm a Dutchman if there isn't a row about it. I tell you, Meg Garth is there, alone, and, when I met her, she calmly informed me that her father was alive. She nearly jumped down my throat because I said he wasn't, and that fellow, Armathwaite, took her part. The Jacksons, too, mother and daughter, are mixed up in it somehow. If Stephen Garth is living, who is the man that was found hanged in the Grange two years ago, and why is he buried in Bellerby churchyard in Stephen Garth's name?"
"I say, Jim, you should be careful what you're saying."
Walker, senior, was troubled. He, like Dobb, fancied that strong liquor was inducing this fantasy, yet his son seldom erred in that respect; to-day his manner and appearance gave no other signs of intemperance.
"I'm tellin' you just what took place. Who should know Meg Garth if I didn't? She called Armathwaite 'Bob,' and he called her 'Meg,' and they were as thick as thieves; but they left me in no doubt as to old Garth bein' still on the map. In fact, we had a regular row about it."
"By Jove!" cried Banks, moistening his thin lips with his tongue. "This promises to be a sensation with a vengeance. Have you told the police?"
"No. It's not my business."
"I'm not so sure of that. Why, man, Stephen Garth left a letter for the coroner. Dr. Scaife was inclined to question the cause of death, but Mr. Hill closed him up like an oyster. Don't you see what it means? If Stephen Garth is living now, some unknown man was murdered in the Grange. He could neither have killed himself nor died from natural causes, since no one in their senses would have tried to conceal his death by letting it appear that they themselves were dead."
Mr. Banks expressed himself awkwardly, but his deduction was not at fault, and left his hearers under no doubt as to its significance. His eyes glistened. He could see the circulation of the Nuttonby Gazette rising by thousands during the next few weeks, and at a time, too, when people were generally too busy to read newspapers, or buy extra copies for dispatch to friends in other parts of the country. What a thrice happy chance that this thing should have come to light on a Thursday evening! There was nothing in it yet that he dared telegraph to the morning newspapers in York and Leeds, but, by skillful manipulation, he could make plenty of it for his own sheet.
"But it simply can't be true!" bleated Walker, senior, in a voice that quavered with sheer distress.
"What isn't true?" demanded his son. "You don't doubt what I'm tellin' you, do you? Ask Tom Bland if Meg Garth isn't in Elmdale. He saw her, and she nodded at him through a window, but, when he asked about her, that pup, Armathwaite, swore she wasn't there, and that Bland had seen some other young lady. He couldn't take that line with me, because he was out when I called, and Meg and I were at it, hammer and tongs, when he came in."
"At what, hammer and tongs?" gasped his father distractedly.
"Arguin' about old Garth, she sayin' he was alive and well, and makin' out I was lyin' when I said he was dead."
"Excuse me, gentlemen, I must be off," said Banks, and the man who was still sore from the grip of Armathwaite's hands and the thrust of Armathwaite's boot knew that the first direct assault on the stronghold of Meg Garth's pride had begun.
"Look here, young fellow," said Walker, senior, recovering his wits with an effort, "you've set in motion more mischief than you reckon on. I wish to goodness you hadn't blurted out everything before Banks. You know what he is. He'll make a mountain out of a molehill."
"I've found no molehill at Elmdale – don't you believe it," came the angry retort. "Why, you ought to have seen my face when Meg sprang that tale on me about her father. I just laughed at it. 'Tell that to the marines,' I said. By jing, it's no make-believe, though. Between you and me, it's as clear as a whistle that Stephen Garth committed a murder, and humbugged the whole countryside into thinkin' he had killed himself. Just throw your mind back a bit, and you'll see how the pieces of the puzzle fit. Mother and daughter get out of the way; servants are discharged; the man is brought to the house over the moor from Leyburn, just as old Garth escaped and Meg returned, for I'll swear she never came through Nuttonby station. Dr. Scaife was the only man who half guessed at the truth, but fussy Hill squelched him, all because of the letter. Then, neither Holloway & Dobb, nor ourselves were given a free hand to deal with the house. Mrs. Garth didn't mean to part with it – twig? Of course, Garth daren't show his nose there, but, when he pegs out in reality, the other two can come back. It's all plain as a white gate when you see through it, and, when we get hold of Armathwaite's connection with it, we'll know every move in the game. He's in it, somehow, and up to the neck, too. You want to blame me for speakin' before Banks, but you've forgotten that Tom Bland told me this afternoon he had seen Miss Meg, and that lots of people knew I was there later. If she goes round tellin' folk her father isn't dead it would soon come out that she and I quarreled about it. Where would I be then? When you're not quite so rattled you'll admit that I was bound to speak, and that I've chosen just the right way to do it. If the police want me now as a witness they'll have to come to me, and that's a jolly sight better than that I should go to them. Do, for goodness' sake, give me credit for a little common sense!"
And, having an eye on the clock, Walker, junior, bounced out, apparently in high dudgeon; but really well pleased with his own Machiavellian skill. Indeed, judged solely from a standard of evil-doing, he had been most successful. He knew well that Banks would go straight to the local superintendent of police, ostensibly for further information, but in reality to carry the great news, and set in motion the official mill which would grind out additional installments. But Walker's masterstroke lay with Dobb, who, in a sense, represented Mrs. Garth and her daughter. If Dobb could be brought to appreciate the gravity of the girl's statements anent her father – and his reception of Walker's story showed that he was prepared to treat it seriously – he would either write to Meg, asking her to visit Nuttonby, or go himself to Elmdale. In either event, she would be crushed into the dust. The elderly and trustworthy solicitor's testimony would carry weight. She could no longer deny that Stephen Garth was reputedly in his grave; she would be faced with the alternative that her father was an adroit criminal of the worst type, because public opinion invariably condemns a smug rogue far more heavily than the ne'er-do-well, who seems to be branded for the gallows from birth.
Yet, by operation of the law that it is the unexpected that happens, James Walker, the second, was fated not to retire for a night's well-earned and much-needed repose with a mind wholly freed from anxiety.
This came about in a peculiar way. By Mrs. Garth's request, soon after her departure from Elmdale, the solicitor invariably addressed her as Mrs. Ogilvey. At last, the notion got embedded in Mr. Dobb's mind that she had undoubtedly quarreled with her husband long before the latter committed suicide, and that the outcome of Garth's death was her speedy remarriage! From his recollection of her, she was certainly not the sort of woman whom he would credit with such a callous proceeding, but no man can spend a lifetime in a lawyer's office without gaining an insight into strange by-ways of human nature. The profession necessitates a close knowledge of the hidden lives and recondite actions of scores of one's fellow-creatures. Mr. Dobb knew a vicar who had committed bigamy, and a county magistrate who had been a petty thief for years before he was caught. That Mrs. Garth should marry again within a few weeks of her husband's burial might indeed be strange, but it sank into a commonplace category in comparison with other queer events he could name.
Behold, then, young James arriving at The Beeches – a charming old house situated on the outskirts of Nuttonby; the "nut," as was becoming, was attired in a nut-brown suit, black shoes, a brown Homburg hat, socks and tie to match a shirt with heliotrope stripes, and yellow gloves.
He had passed in at the gate in full view of a couple of girls of his acquaintance, and knew that they were glancing over a yew hedge when the front door opened and he was admitted. He was shown into a library, where Mr. Dobb awaited him. The lawyer motioned him to a chair.
"Now, Mr. Walker," he said curtly, "would you mind telling me exactly what happened at Elmdale this afternoon?"
James sat down. Unfortunately, the furniture provided a placid harmony in oak, so the seat of the chair was hard, even though it shone with the subdued polish of a hundred years of careful use and elbow grease applied by many generations of vigorous housemaids.
"With your permission, sir, I – er – think I'd better begin – er – a little earlier."
"What's the matter? Isn't that chair comfortable?"
Mr. Dobb was clerk to the magistrates in the Nuttonby Petty Sessions; his pet abhorrence was a fidgety witness, and Walker was obviously ill at ease.
"The fact is, sir, I'm a bit saddle-galled. If you don't mind – "
"Certainly. Take that easy chair. What occurred 'a little earlier' which you think I ought to know?"
Walker had been disagreeably reminded of Armathwaite, but he kept a venomous tongue well under control. He told the lawyer the circumstances under which Armathwaite, confessedly a complete stranger, had entered into the tenancy of the Grange, and described the journey to Elmdale, together with the curious behavior of the Jackson family. He was scrupulously accurate in his account of the cause and extent of his visit that day, even going so far as to admit that there was "a sort of a scuffle" between Armathwaite and himself.
Mr. Dobb listened in silence. At the end, he fixed a singularly penetrating glance on the narrator.
"In plain English, I suppose," he said, "this man, Armathwaite, bundled you out neck and crop?"
"No, sir. Not exactly that. But I couldn't fight him in Miss Meg's presence."
"Yet, from what you have told me, I gather that Mr. Armathwaite is a gentleman?"
"He has all the airs of one," said Walker.
"And he must have thought you had behaved discourteously to his cousin before he would use actual violence towards you!"
"Nothing of the sort, sir. Miss Meg jumped down my throat for no reason whatever. Of course, Mr. Armathwaite hadn't heard the beginning of it, and may have imagined I was to blame, but I wasn't."
"Perhaps there is an explanation that may be news to you. You are not aware, I take it, that Mrs. Garth is now Mrs. Ogilvey?"
"By jing!" cried Walker, rather forgetting himself, "that's the name Tom Bland tried to tell me, but he couldn't rightly get his tongue round it."
"Probably. But don't you see the bearing this important fact has on to-day's proceedings? I have reason to believe that Mrs. Garth and her daughter disagreed with Mr. Garth before his death. At any rate, she seems to have married again within a very short time, and Miss Meg may have fancied that you were trying purposely to insult and annoy her by referring to a bygone tragedy. The mere presence of this Mr. Armathwaite, who is wholly unknown here, lends color to that assumption. He may be a 'cousin' by the second marriage. It is even conceivable that Mrs. Ogilvey, as Mrs. Garth now is, did not wish her second husband's relatives to know of the way in which her first husband met his death. The fact that Mr. Armathwaite rented the Grange can be regarded as nothing more than an ordinary coincidence. Isn't it possible, Mr. Walker, that you blundered very seriously in thrusting yourself into Miss Meg's presence, and forcing an unpalatable revelation on her?"
Walker's red face positively blanched. For one instant his nerve failed him.
"I never thought of that," he muttered, in dire confusion.
"It strikes me as a perfectly tenable theory," said Dobb, rising, and thereby showing that the interview was at an end. "You took me rather by surprise when you called me out of my office this afternoon, but I have given the matter some calm reflection in the interim, and have come to the conclusion that you found in Elmdale what is vulgarly known as a mare's nest."
Walker stood up, too. He realized that he was being dismissed with ignominy, and resented it. Thumping an oak table with his clenched fist, he cried passionately:
"Not me! You'll see in a day or two, Mr. Dobb, who's makin' the mistake. If I'm wrong I'll eat humble pie, but I'm not eatin' any now, thank you. I came to you, meanin' to do a good turn to all parties – "
"Restrain yourself, please," broke in the solicitor, speaking with cold dignity. "What kind of 'good turn' is it that rakes up bygone troubles, and spreads scandalous gossip?"
"You've missed my point entirely, Mr. Dobb," protested Walker. "I thought that you, being a friend of the Garths, could drop a quiet hint to Miss Meg not to talk about her dead-and-gone father as though he might arrive here by the next train – that's all."
"But it is not all. If it were, your attitude would be understandable, even praiseworthy. What you are saying indirectly is that Mr. Stephen Garth is alive, and that some unknown person lies in Bellerby churchyard."
Thus cornered, Walker floundered badly.
"I'm not able to argue with you, sir, and that's the truth," he said. "Neither do I want to be drawn into a squabble of this sort. Of course, I know nothing of any second marriage; but, even if I did, Miss Meg isn't a little girl, who might have forgotten her real father. Look here! I stick to my notion, and that's the long and the short of it. There's a mystery at Elmdale, and it's bound to come out, no matter what difference of opinion there may be between you and me."
A parlormaid entered with a telegram.
"Excuse me one moment," said Mr. Dobb; "that is, unless you wish to go!" he added.
Walker was constrained to put on a bold front before the servant.
"I can wait another couple of minutes," he said off-handedly. The lawyer smiled; but, for his own purposes, he did not wish to quarrel outright with his visitor. He opened the buff envelope, and read, and not even the experience of a lifetime served to mask the incredulous dismay which leaped to his face.
For the message ran:
"Have reason to believe that a gentleman passing under the name of Robert Armathwaite is in or near Nuttonby. Kindly make guarded inquiries and wire result. – Sigmatic."
Now, "Sigmatic" was the code address of a department of the India Office in which Mr. Dobb's eldest son held a responsible position. That phrase, "passing under the name of," suggested many possibilities to the legal mind. Moreover, the fact that a Government department was interested, and that the ordinary official channel for investigation was not employed, gave him furiously to think. In any event, he had been saved from the exceeding unwisdom of treating James Walker too cavalierly.
"I'll just answer this, as the messenger is waiting," he said pleasantly. "If you're not in a hurry, Mr. Walker, sit down again. I'll send in a decanter of sherry and some cigarettes. Help yourself, will you?"
He went out. James Walker grinned, and plunged his clenched fists into his trousers pockets.
"That telegram knocked old Dobb into a cocked hat," he mused. "Wonder what was in it? Something to do with the Garths, I'll bet! Keep a steady hand on the reins, Jimmy, my boy, and you'll finish with the best of 'em yet!"
