Kitabı oku: «The House 'Round the Corner», sayfa 8
CHAPTER VIII
WHEREIN PERCY WHITTAKER PROVES HIMSELF A MAN OF ACTION
The rather bizarre question startled the girl out of her melancholy thoughts. She looked at Whittaker as though she had completely forgotten his presence.
"The post," she repeated. "There is no post out of Elmdale this evening. Miggles passed through the village hours ago."
"Miggles?"
"He's the postman. We either see him ourselves or leave letters at Thompson's, the grocer's, before four o'clock."
"Then neither letter nor telegram can be dispatched to-night?"
"Yes. If you care to pay mileage to Bellerby, and the message is handed in before eight, Thompson will send a boy with a telegram."
Whittaker glanced at his watch. The hour was half-past six.
"How far is Bellerby?" he said. "Tell me in terms of the clock, not in miles, which, as a method of reckoning in Yorkshire, conveys a sense of infinity."
"A boy can bicycle there in half an hour."
"Then, footsore as I am, I shall hie me to Thompson's."
"Why not write your telegram here, and Betty will take it."
"No, thanks. I'll see to it myself. Then, if it doesn't reach Edie to-night, I can place a hand on my heart and vow I did all man could do, and failed."
"You are not forgetting that I have written to her?"
"No. Don't you see? A letter from you complicates matters even more. If she hears from Meg, and not a word is said about Percy, she'll wonder what has become of little me. I suppose Thompson's shop is not 'a nice bit' removed from the village?"
"It is opposite the Fox and Hounds Inn. You can walk there in two minutes."
Armathwaite, who had risen, and was staring through the window during this brief colloquy, was struck by the quietly pertinacious note in Whittaker's voice. Moreover, he was listening carefully, since there was some faint trace of an accent which had a familiar sound in his ears. He waited, until the younger man had gone out and was walking gingerly down the garden path; progress downhill must have been a torture to sore toes, yet Whittaker was strangely determined to send that unnecessary telegram in person – unnecessary, that is, in view of the fact that a message dispatched next morning would have served the same purpose. Why? Armathwaite found that life bristled with interrogatives just then.
Turning to look at Marguérite, he said:
"Your friend doesn't like me."
She did not attempt to fence with him. Somehow, when her eyes met his, a new strength leaped in her heart.
"Percy flatters himself on the ease with which he follows the line of least resistance, but in reality he is a somewhat shallow and transparent person," she answered.
"There is a transparency of shallowness which occasionally hides a certain depth of mud."
"Oh, he means no harm! His widowed sister, Mrs. Suarez, is a great stickler for the conventions, and she has infected him with her notions. She is the 'Edie' he speaks of. My chum is a younger sister, Christabel."
"Suarez? An unusual name in England."
"She married a Calcutta merchant. The Whittakers are Anglo-Indians."
Armathwaite smiled. He knew now whence came that slightly sibilant accent. Whittaker was a blonde Eurasian, a species so rare that it was not surprising that even a close observer should have failed to detect the "touch of the tar-brush" at first sight. From that instant Armathwaite regarded him from an entirely new view-point. The Briton who has lived many years in the East holds firmly to the dogmatic principle that in the blend of two races the Eurasian is dowered with the virtues of neither and the vices of both. More than ever did he regret the qualms of the conventional Mrs. Suarez which had brought Percy Whittaker to Elmdale that day.
"I'm sorry he deems it advisable to distrust me," he went on. "How long have you been acquainted with the family?"
"Ever since I went to school with Christabel at Brighton. She often came here during the summer holidays; and I used to visit her at Whitsuntide."
"They are aware of your change of name, of course?"
"Yes. How could it be otherwise?"
"A thoughtless question indeed. The notion was flitting through my mind that no one in Elmdale knew of it, or the fact was bound to have been made public at the inquest. The doctor who gave evidence – was he your regular medical attendant?"
"He was an intimate friend rather than a doctor. He knew dad so well that he would scout the idea of suicide. Perhaps that explains his hesitating statement to the coroner. Oh, Mr. Armathwaite, what does it all mean? Was ever girl plunged into such a sea of trouble? What am I to do?"
"Don't you think you ought to send for your mother?"
"If she were here now she could only say what I am saying – that my father is alive and in the best of health."
"Forgive me if I seem to be cross-examining you, but I am groping blindly towards some theory which shall satisfy two conditions wholly irreconcilable at present. Your mother and you went away from Elmdale, leaving your father here. Do you remember the exact reason given for your departure?"
"One day dad asked me to read some passages from a French treatise on Basque songs. It was rather technical stuff, and I stumbled over the translation, so he said I was losing my French, and that mother and I should go to Paris for a few weeks, and do a round of theaters. Of course, I was delighted – what girl wouldn't be? I couldn't pack quickly enough. When Paris emptied, towards the end of June, we went to Quimper, in Brittany. And there was another excuse, too. About that time we received news of the legacy, and dad thought we should get accustomed to the change of name more readily in a foreign country."
"How long did you remain abroad?"
"Nearly three months. But dad joined us within a fortnight of our departure from England. He only remained at home to finish a book and clear up the lawyer's business about the money."
"After your return, what happened?"
"We had a month in London. Then my people took a house in Cornwall, near the village of Warleggan, a place tucked in beneath the moors, just as Elmdale is. Dad explained that he wanted to study the miracle plays at first hand, because the remnants of the language possessed by the old inhabitants were more helpful than grammars and Oxford translations."
"Your mother raised no difficulties about the change of residence?"
"Not the least. In a way, it was rather agreeable, both to mother and me. Here we saw very few people. In Warleggan, where dad's pen-name, now his own legally, gave him some social standing, the county families called. We were richer, too, and could afford to entertain, which we never did while in Elmdale."
Armathwaite passed a hand over his mouth and chin in a gesture of sheer bewilderment.
"I still hold strongly to the opinion that you should send for Mrs. Ogilvey," he said, striving to cloak the motive underlying the suggestion, since he was assured now that the half-forgotten tragedy of the Grange would speedily burst into a new and sinister prominence in far-off Warleggan. "If she were here she could direct my efforts to choke off inquirers. We may be acting quite mistakenly. She knows everything – I am convinced of that – and her appearance would, in itself, serve to put matters on a more normal basis."
Marguérite sprang to her feet. Her fine eyes blazed with uncontrollable excitement, and her voice held a ring of defiance.
"If my mother ought to come, why not my father?" she cried vehemently. "I know what you are thinking, but dare not say. You believe my father is a murderer? Is that it? You imagine that a man who would not wilfully harm a fly is capable of committing a dreadful crime and shielding himself under the assumption that he took his own life?"
"Isn't that rather unjust of you?" said Armathwaite.
"I'm not considering the justice or injustice of my words now. I am defending one whom I love. I – "
She choked, and buried her face in her hands. Bitterly aware that he was only adding to her woes, he nerved himself for the ungracious task.
"You are trying, like myself, to explain a set of extraordinary circumstances," he said. "Woman-like, you do not scruple to place on my shoulders the burden of your own vague suspicions. I am not so greatly concerned as you seem to imagine because of the possibility that your father may have killed someone. Unhappily, I myself have killed several men, in fair fight, and in the service of my country, but there is no blood-guiltiness on my conscience. Before I venture to describe any man as a murderer, I want to know whom he killed, and why."
He made this amazing statement with the calm air of a sportsman contrasting the "bags" of rival grouse moors. Even in her bitter distress the girl was constrained to gaze at him in wonderment.
"You think that the taking of human life may be justifiable?" she gasped.
"Naturally. If not, why do we honor great soldiers with pensions and peerages?"
"But that is in warfare, when nations are struggling for what they conceive to be their rights."
"Sometimes. The hardest tussle I was ever engaged in dealt with no more sacred trust than the safe-guarding of half a dozen bullocks. Certain fierce-whiskered scoundrels swore by the Prophet that they would rieve those cattle, and perhaps a rifle or two, with a collection of women's ornaments as a side line, while I was equally resolved that the lawful possessors thereof should not be harried. Fifteen men died in five minutes before the matter was settled in accordance with my wishes, and I accounted for three of them. I am not boasting of the achievement. It was a disagreeable necessity. I tell you of it now merely to dissipate any notion you may have formed as to my squeamishness in looking unpleasant facts squarely in the face. A man died here two years ago, and it would be sheer folly to pretend that your father knew nothing about it. I believe you will find that the dead man not only wore Mr. Garth's clothes, but bore such a close facial and physical resemblance to him that people who had known him half a lifetime were deceived. Then, there is the letter read by the coroner. I take it for granted that it was in your father's handwriting. If these things are true, and common sense tells me that we ought to go on that assumption, and on no other, Mr. Garth will surely be called upon to explain why he endeavored to hoodwink the authorities. If he comes here within the next few days he will certainly be arrested. That is why I ask you to send for your mother. Everything points to the belief that she knows why you left Elmdale. I reject the legacy theory in toto. By a strange coincidence, your parents may have had some money left to them by will about that time. If so, they merely took advantage of the fortunate chance which enabled them to explain the change of name without any violent wrenching of the probabilities. One word more to define my own position in this matter. I don't care tuppence whether or not your father killed anyone, or why. My sole concern is for you. I am responsible for the whole wretched muddle. Had I not gratified an impish taste for ferreting out mysteries, I would have allowed Betty Jackson to smuggle you out of the house yesterday. Had I obeyed the conventions – those shackles on the wayward-minded devised by generations of careful mammas – I would have bundled you off last night, or, if common charity forbade, sent you away at daybreak. Then, nothing would have happened, except that I should be burdened with a secret, no new thing in my life. Now, will you send for Mrs. Ogilvey?"
"No," came the instant reply.
"Despite Mr. Percy Whittaker's warning, will you trust me so far as to explain your reason for refusing?"
"What do you mean by 'Percy Whittaker's warning'? I have told you nothing of what he said."
"I understand the type of man. He could no more refrain from suggesting that I was actuated by some underhanded motive than a flea-ridden dog from scratching."
"Please, don't pick a quarrel with Percy on my account," she pleaded tearfully.
"On your account I shall suffer Percy, even though he bray me in a mortar."
"Well, then, I'm – I'm sorry if I turned on you a little while ago. I apologize. You are really the only one I can appeal to for help at this moment. It was just because I felt the truth of all that you have said that I tried to force the same confession from you. Heaven help me, I am compelled to believe that my poor father got himself involved in some dreadful crime. It will all come out now. If the police get hold of him he will be put in prison. I must save him. Never did daughter love a father more than I love mine, and I'll sacrifice everything, reputation, happiness, even life itself, for his sake. And that is why my mother must not come here. I shall remain, and she will stay in Cornwall so as to safeguard him, if need be. You have no idea what an innocent he is in worldly affairs. If – if he had to escape – to get away from some foreign country – he could never manage it without her assistance. Don't you see, the decision must rest with me? I'll write to mother, and tell her what we know, and arrange some plan with her whereby dad will be able to avoid arrest. Oh, I can't make things clearer, but you are so kind and nice that you will understand – and help! Say you'll help, and I'll not cry any more – but be brave – and confident!"
While uttering that broken appeal she had come near, and a timid hand now rested on his shoulder. He looked down into her swimming eyes and saw there the perfect faith of a child. Never was man more tempted to take a woman in his arms and kiss away her fears than was Robert Armathwaite at that instant, but he recoiled from the notion as though a snake had reared its basilisk head from out of a bed of sweet-scented flowers. Nevertheless, he placed his hands on her shoulders, and now his left arm was entwined with her right arm, and they stood there in unconsciously lover-like pose.
"I'm glad you said that, little girl," he said quietly. "I shall not disappoint you, depend on that. If we have to break every statute therein made and provided, we'll save your father from the consequences of his own blundering or wrong-doing. Now, leave everything to me. If strangers, other than the police, ask you questions, refer them to your 'cousin.' Remember, you know nothing and can tell nothing as to bygone events, while you can say, if a demand is made for your father's present address, that I have advised you not to supply it. We must not appear to be actually defying the authorities. Our rôle is one of blank ignorance, combined with a pardonable curiosity to discover what all the fuss is about. I must not figure as a hindrance to inquiry, but merely as a distant relative who objects to your being bothered by a matter of which you, at least, have no knowledge. Now, one thing more – I want to see your father's handwriting. Will you give me the envelope which contained his letter?"
"Better still," said Marguérite, drying her eyes with a scrap of lace which was supposed to be a pocket-handkerchief, "I'll give you the letter itself. You'll find it a highly incriminating document."
To reach the letter, which she had tucked into a waistbelt, she had to withdraw the other hand from Armathwaite's shoulder. He had no excuse to hold her any longer in that protecting way, and his own hands fell. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he became aware that Percy Whittaker was gazing at them through the window.
His first impulse was to tell his companion of this covert espionage, for it was nothing less. The two were talking in the drawing-room, so Whittaker had purposely walked past the porch in order to look in at them. Then he decided that the girl had worries in plenty without embroiling her with one who was admittedly an admirer, so he indulged in a little bit of acting on his own account.
When she produced the letter, he turned his back on the window, ostensibly to obtain a better light, and, at the same time, drew slightly to one side. The handwriting was scholarly but curiously legible, betraying the habit of a dabbler in strange words who printed rather than wrote, lest some playful compositor should invent a new and confounding philology.
The text certainly afforded a weird commentary on the circumstances which laid at the writer's door responsibility for an audacious crime. It ran:
"My Darling Meg, – Chester has been a bookish city since the days of Julius Cæsar. I have small doubt, if one dug deep in its foundations, one would come across an original manuscript in J. C.'s own fist. I would impose a lighter task, however. Rummage one or two old bookshops, and get me Wentworth Webster's 'Basque Legends,' published in London in 1877 and 1879. I am hungering for it. Find it quickly, and come home. I need your sharp eyes. – Yours ever,
"Dad."
Marguérite watched Armathwaite's face while he read.
"Enough to hang anybody, isn't it?" she cried, with dolorous effort to speak in lighter vein.
"May I retain this? I shall take good care of it."
"Keep it as a souvenir. The identical book is lying on the library table."
Yet her mobile face clouded again, since it could not be denied that her father knew well that the book was in the Elmdale house, and was deliberately ignoring its existence there.
Armathwaite affected to look through the window.
"Hullo!" he said. "Whittaker has come back."
Whittaker, standing sideways, seemingly discovered them simultaneously. He came in.
"Thompson speaks a language of his own," he drawled; "but the dispatch of a boy on a bicycle, and the resultant charge of three shillings, gave color to my belief that he understood the meaning of 'telegram.' Otherwise, his remarks were gibberish."
"Percy," said Marguérite gravely, "Mr. Armathwaite and I have had a serious talk while you were out. He advised me to send for my mother, but, for various reasons, I have decided to fight this battle myself, with your aid, and Mr. Armathwaite's, of course."
Whittaker hesitated perceptibly before he spoke again. Like all neurotics, he had to flog himself into decision.
"I fully expected something of the sort, Meg," he said at last. "As I don't approve of the present state of affairs, I took it on myself to ask Edie to wire Mrs. Ogilvey, bidding her travel north by the next train."
"You didn't dare!" breathed the girl, whose very lips whitened with consternation.
"Oh, yes, I dared all right! A fellow must assert himself occasionally, you know. I can see plainly that you intend remaining in Elmdale till the mystery you have tumbled into is cleared up. In that case, your mother is the right person to take hold of the situation. You'll be vexed with me, no doubt, and tell me that I had no business to interfere, but I've thought this thing out, and I'm backing my judgment against yours. In a week, or less, you'll thank me. See if you don't."
"I shall never forgive you while I have breath in my body," she said, speaking with a slow laboriousness that revealed the tension of her feelings far more than the mere words.
"I was sure you'd say that, and must put up with it for the time being. Anyhow, the thing is beyond our control now, and you know Edie well enough to guess that she'll do as I tell her."
"What did you tell her? I have a right to ask."
"I kept a copy of the message," he said with seeming nonchalance. "I'll read it: 'Meg greatly disturbed by rumors concerning death which occurred in Grange two years ago. Telegraph her mother at once, and recommend immediate journey to Elmdale.' Unless I'm greatly mistaken, that will bring Mrs. Ogilvey here without delay, especially when Edie adds her own comments."
Marguérite sank into a chair. Her sky had fallen. She was too unnerved now to find relief even in tears. She continued to glower at Whittaker as though he had become some fearsome and abhorrent object. Evidently, however, he had steeled himself against some such attitude on her part.
"Don't forget there's two to one in this argument, Meg," he said, sitting down and producing a cigarette. "Since Mr. Armathwaite has elected to be your champion after a very brief acquaintance, I must point out that, by your own admission, he recommended the same thing. The only difference is that while he talked I acted."
For a little time there was silence. Whittaker, brazening the thing out, lighted the cigarette. Armathwaite, unable to indulge the impulse which suggested the one effective way in which this decadent half-breed could be restrained from future interference, could not trust himself to speak. As for the girl, she seemed to be tongue-tied, but her laboring breath gave eloquent testimony of surcharged emotions.
Finally, wishing to ease the strain, Armathwaite glanced at his watch. The time was a few minutes after seven.
"I'm going into the village," he said. "I believe the dinner hour is 7:30, but I may not return till much later, so you might kindly tell Betty that I shall forage for myself when I come in."
"Don't leave me, Bob," came the despairing cry. "I can't bear to be left alone to-night."
"Very well," he said, yielding instantly to that heart-felt appeal. "I'll entrust my business to a deputy. Look for me in ten minutes."
He went out. The two in the room heard the front door close, and followed his firm tread as he strode to the gate. Then Marguérite rose, and flung wide a window, and her sorrow-laden eyes dwelt unseeing on the far horizon. She stood there, motionless, until Whittaker stirred fretfully.
"Look here, Meg," he began, but was promptly stricken into silence again. Starting at the sound of his voice as though she had heard a serpent's hiss, the girl hurried away without a word, obviously making for the solitude of her own apartment.
He lighted another cigarette.
"By gad!" he cackled to himself, apparently extracting amusement from a situation in which the majority of men would have found small cause for humor, "I've stopped those two from billing and cooing, or my name ain't Percy. I can't stomach that big chap, and that's a fact. He's just the sort of fellow a girl might lose her head over, but I've put a spoke in his wheel by bringing ma on the scene. Now I must sit tight, and play naughty little boy in the corner till she arrives. After that, I'll make it my business to shunt pa into some climate better suited for his particular complaint. Maybe I shan't figure so badly in Meg's estimation when she realizes that I did some hard thinking while the other johnny was making eyes at her. I've been looking for some sort of an explosion in this quarter ever since I read of the suicide of Stephen Garth at the Grange, Elmdale. I thought then there was something fishy going on, and I was jolly well not mistaken. If I hadn't been such a dashed fool as to tramp over that confounded moor I'd have been here hours sooner. But all's well that ends well, and this affair shan't slip out of my grip if I can help it."
He had chosen a strange way in which to woo a maid, but there is no accounting for the vagaries of a warped mind, and Percy Whittaker was a true degenerate, one of those physically weak and mentally perverted beings
"In whose cold blood no spark of honor bides."
Yet, even his sluggish pulses could be stirred. The house which had witnessed strange scenes played by stronger actors might be trusted to deal sternly with this popinjay. He got his first taste of its quality before he was an hour older.
