Читать книгу Madame Gilbert's Cannibal - Bennet Copplestone - Страница 4

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It is fortunate that Madame Gilbert had already indulged her indecent sense of humour. Had she exploded at this tragic moment I should have been robbed of my story. I am sure from what I know of Roger Gatepath that he would have thrust her shrieking from his room, and written her off for ever as unworthy to be associated with the ancient and still exalted House of Toppys. She shook, gurgled desperately for an instant, and then composed her features to a becoming gravity. It was a masterly effort for one with her vivid imagination. She has told me that before her, plain to see, she visualised the heir of the Barony of Topsham, a broad, grinning, coffee-coloured face rising above the crimson and ermine robes of a peer of England. In one hand he held the patent of his barony, in the other a stabbing spear. It was a vision gorgeous.... Yet with this figure of fun before her inward eyes she choked down her laughter. It was an heroic effort.

Roger Gatepath lay back in his chair, rent and exhausted by professional suffering. Madame whipped out her case and offered one of those favourite Russian cigarettes from which even the Bolshevists could not bereave her. Gatepath grabbed and smoked. He would have grabbed and smoked opium, hashish, anything which could for an instant unravel the tangled skein of care.

"You are a great woman, Madame," he murmured; "not even your cigarettes are in the least like anyone else's. Please give me another."

"Now," said Madame briskly, when the calm of deep narcotic satisfaction had smoothed out the lawyer's face, "I want to hear lots more. I am intrigued, and your story has got no farther than a thunderous beginning."

"It has gone no farther, as yet," said he, "and can go no farther until the half-caste savage of the Torres Straits learns of his monstrous heirship."

"So you travelled fifteen thousand miles in the crisis of war, when all men and women within reach of a newspaper thrilled with alternate hope and fear, just to look once at the Twenty-Eighth Baron Topsham and then to return. Months of hardship going out, and months more of hardship coming back. Just to look once without speaking. You are a remarkable man, Mr. Gatepath. I should, at least, have made his intimate acquaintance. He may be less of a savage Cannibal than he looks."

"I went to the hut of the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys," explained the lawyer. "It is, I am informed, a high-class hut, thatched on walls and roof with leaves of sago palm. No aristocrat of the South Seas had ever a finer or more luxurious residence. Yet it is a hut of one room in which the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys, her two daughters, and her son—known to the world of his little island as 'Willatopy'—live, eat, and sleep, the four of them indifferent to the most primitive dictates of decency. At the back is constructed a cookhouse. Neither edifice boasts a chimney. The Family have resided for years in this loathsome hovel unattended by the humblest of menials. The Right Honourable Lord Topsham"—driven by his legal conscience, Gatepath never withheld from the Heir his lawful title—"The Right Honourable Lord Topsham has not even a black footboy."

Madame gurgled. "He has small occasion for a valet, I expect."

Gatepath groaned. "A bootlace about his middle, and a few feathers stuck in his frizzy hair, seemed to constitute his entire toilet."

"It is evident," observed Madame, "that the late beachcomber, the Hon. William Toppys, was a very thorough artist. Having determined upon the simple life, he never looked back. His wife remained a native, his son and daughters were brought up in exact accordance with native model. We can dismiss the one living and sleeping room and the absence of menials as in no sense derogatory to the dignity of Toppys. Have you no worse to tell of the Family than that?"

Gatepath wriggled uneasily. "His Lordship," muttered he, after a blushing pause—Madame was privileged to see a lawyer blush—"did me the honour to prod me with his spear, in the middle of my back."

"Wherefor this outrage?"

"I ventured to inform his honourable mother, who stood outside the hut, that the day was fine."

"And he misdoubted your intentions?" Madame let herself go for a moment and laughed, that rippling laugh which plays on the hearts of her victims like flame on wax. "A widow, I have heard, is in little respect in the South Seas, and the Heir of Toppys drew cold iron in defence of his mother, so scandalously accosted by a forward stranger. Come, come, Mr. Gatepath, this incident suggests no savagery. It may indicate that the heart of the boy is white after all."

"He prodded me in the back, he pursued me to my boat, and would doubtless have killed and eaten my body had I not fled with incredible speed. I have never run so fast since I won the hundred yards sprint for Cambridge at the Queen's Club."

"You and the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys must have been deeply absorbed in the beauties of the weather when the Cannibal with his spear broke in upon the pretty conversation."

"On my honour I did but speak with her for a minute. She is light of colour and of a countenance not disagreeable. Her English is not fluent, yet she speaks it with intelligence and has the language of social courtesy. Her accent too is not unpleasant, she softens the hard English consonants, and gives full tone value to the rich English vowels."

"It seems to have been a very fine day, and taken a lot of talking about," said Madame drily.

"I wanted to discover why the Hon. William Toppys had married the woman, and why he made so certain of the proofs of his marriage."

"Quite so. And while engaged upon your researches, discovered that the Hon. William Toppys was not so very mad after all?"

"No," declared the lawyer stoutly. "He was a mad and wicked criminal to marry her. But I could realise that some twenty years earlier, in the first bloom of her pale brown beauty, the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys was worth the sacrifice of any man's moral scruples. I could, as a youngster, have loved her myself. But then I should never have made the hideous, the ghastly blunder of marrying her—except in native fashion."

"We progress," said Madame, laughing again. "The mother of the Cannibal has found favour in your sight, and the Cannibal ran you down to the boat lest you should find favour in hers. And how long, pray, was this island idyll in the playing?"

"I was less than half-an-hour on the island."

"So you came, saw, and conquered all within half-an-hour. And then there broke in the heir of Toppys with his most intrusive spear. It was exceedingly tactless of him. A widow, especially a South Sea widow, would not have tarried long in the wooing. I can understand now that your feelings towards the heir must be tempestuous. A journey of fifteen thousand miles, a talk for less than half-an-hour with a pale brown widow of fascinating accent and aspect. Then the crushing arrival of the too jealous son, the rending asunder of scarce joined hearts, the flight to the boat without a moment of farewell, and—fifteen thousand weary miles of return. In your place, Mr. Gatepath, I should whole-heartedly loathe that doubly inconvenient son."

"You are pleased to be witty at my expense, Madame Gilbert," grumbled Gatepath. "And we wander sadly from the purpose of the interview with which you have honoured me this morning. That was to talk about the Cannibal, and not about the Cannibal's mother."

"Proceed," said Madame, lying back in her chair, and lighting yet another cigarette. "I am dying to make his further acquaintance."

"You are an astute woman, Madame Gilbert, and will already have grasped that the Trustees of the settled estates of the Barony of Topsham—of whom I am the legal adviser—are in a position profoundly embarrassing. They don't know what the devil to do, and I don't know what the devil of advice to give. Our strictly legal duty is beyond doubt. We should notify the heir of his succession, and take the necessary steps to have him seised of his ancestral lands and revenues. They are not great although they represent a fair competence, even in these days of exorbitant estate duties. There are wealthy members of the Family of Toppys engaged in business pursuits, but they, though deeply interested, are not at present in the direct line of succession. Some eight months have passed since Lord Topsham died, and no steps have been taken to acquaint the Twenty-Eighth Baron of his—of his damnable ill-fortune. We ought to have moved long since, we must move soon, yet how, and in what direction, can we move? I went to the Torres Straits to spy out the land and to consider a course of action. I have returned baffled. The Trustees are baffled. The Family of Toppys is baffled. We cannot delay much longer. The Family of Toppys is of the highest distinction, the Barony of Topsham is a part of the National history. A failure on the part of the Trustees to produce an heir cannot pass unnoticed. There are in my profession many unscrupulous practitioners, hedge lawyers, who would greedily wallow in the chance of hunting up an heir and securing his interest and business for themselves. The Trustees cannot permit this; Gatepaths cannot permit this. It were better that my firm should act for a cannibal lordship than that he should be the helpless prey of a legal pirate. And yet if Gatepaths did what is their undoubted duty—namely, notified the heir and represented him—they would infallibly lose the valuable, the very valuable, connections of all the other members of the family. We are in a horrid quandary. We cannot let slip from among our clients the Baron of Topsham, and we cannot let slip the other members, some of them very wealthy, of the House of Toppys. But how to keep both passes understanding. I have mentioned the risk, and it is no small risk, lest some hedge lawyer should get his nose upon the trail of His Cannibal Lordship of the Torres Straits. There is another risk which will become more insistent with every month of delay. The Twenty-Eighth Baron is nineteen years old, an age of full virile maturity in the South Sea. He may marry any day some native woman, and raise, with the utmost celerity, a crop of savage heirs to his body. If, at the instigation of his mother, he follows the detestable practice of his late father, the marriage will be legal by our law, and the spawn of it legitimate. Should this further disaster have time to mature—and nothing is more certain of consummation in a minimum of time—the coffee-coloured Cannibal line of Toppys will be impregnably entrenched. Nothing but a special Act of Parliament could bomb it out, and in these days of revolutionary socialism, the House of Commons would never pass a Disabling Act. The ribald cynicism of many Members would lead them to enjoy the gross humiliation of the Upper Chamber. We can look for no help from Parliament; we must look to our own brains and hands. I have gone to the Torres Straits and failed. It does not follow that Madame Gilbert would also fail."

"Wait a bit," quoth Madame. "I must know a lot more and see a lot more before I take any hand in this business. I confess frankly that my sympathies lean towards the Cannibal. He, the undoubted heir of an ancient family, is without friends in a far island. He is the son of his father, and, despite his skin, must be half white in blood. He may be more than half white in heart and brain. What have you against him except the rich Melanesian infusion in his veins? Nothing except the exquisite simplicity of his dress—you said, I recall, that he wore a bootlace about his middle and adorned his frizzy hair with feathers. Your visit was on the edge of the Southern summer at a season when even you or I would gladly travel light in clothing. I feel that a feather headdress and a petticoat of stripped banana leaves would become me mightily. Our Mother Eve was red golden like me and must have shone gloriously in a fig-leaf apron. If the Twenty-Eighth Baron Topsham were really a savage cannibal, in fact as well as by birth, I might perhaps share your wrath and agitation. But at present I am frankly on his side. His appearance in the House of Lords would be startling, but the old dears would be the better for a shock. So would London society. I confess that I look forward to his succession with intense amusement. It would be perfectly lovely, une bizarrerie superbe."

"You will excuse my inability to appreciate your levity," growled Gatepath.

"That is why you are baffled by this little domestic problem," said Madame. "If you and the portentous Family of Toppys had enough of humour to take yourselves less seriously, you would perceive that all the world will laugh when the disclosure comes. It is more agreeable to laugh with the world than to be laughed at by it. You think that your retainers, male and female, discreetly solemn in your presence, are desolated by the misfortunes of the family. Believe me when I tell you that they are howling with derision. Your men-servants and your maid-servants within your gates are roaring together over the Family humiliation. Your ox and your ass, and your old family coach-horse are gaping at you. Your chauffeur, educated maybe in a modern Radical school of motoring, is inclined by your misfortunes towards belief in a righteous Providence. Even your Rolls-Royce forgets its aristocratic ghostly calm and gurgles. Make up your ancient Toppys' minds, Mr. Gatepath, that no man or woman in this modern world cares a depreciated tuppence for the woes of an historic peerage. You and your Family of Toppys suffer from distorted vision. Laugh, man, laugh, and recover some sense of perspective. Put yourself outside this museum of mouldy antiquities, of which you are the hereditary legal adviser, and regard them for a moment from a point of detachment. Have you got that? Now laugh."

But the gloom upon the countenance of Gatepath remained unbroken. It was less the embarrassments of Toppys that obsessed him than the predicament into which his firm had drifted. If he stood by the Heir he lost the business of Toppys; if he stood by the Family he resigned the Heir to some intrusive perspicuous supplanter. The firm would get left either way. It is not surprising that Roger Gatepath and humour had become strangers.

The conspirators sat speechless for the space of two minutes, which is a long, long time of silence between Western people. It was Madame, of course, who broke the pause of contemplation.

"Who will benefit?" asked she suddenly.

"I don't understand," muttered Gatepath.

"I am not good to play with," said Madame, rather sternly. "Not even Dawson, not even his great Chief, may play tricks with Madame Gilbert. And they know it. Come, Mr. Gatepath. You did not summon me here to tell a pleasing story of the embarrassments of the Toppys Family. At the back of your mind you had a plan. You purposed to ask me to pull chestnuts out of a fire which is too hot for the fingers of Trustees and Gatepaths. You are acting in the interests of someone who conceals himself. Who is it? Who will become the heir of Topsham should Madame Gilbert be persuaded to kidnap or assassinate the inconvenient Twenty-Eighth Baron? Who proposes to make himself the Twenty-Ninth in succession to that noble line?"

Gatepath shuddered at her plain speaking. But he had the sense to see that with Madame all cards must be placed upon the table. Already she knew enough to be dangerous. If she went forth in anger then there might be, there certainly would be, the very Devil to pay.

"The next heir," said he, shortly, "is Sir John Toppys, Baronet of Wigan."

"And who is Sir John Toppys who has chosen so very unattractive a spot as the seat of his baronetcy?"

"He is first cousin of the late Lord. Their common grandfather was the Twenty-Fifth Baron. Sir John will infallibly succeed if the senior line fails. I agree that Wigan is as lacking in residential amenities as Dundee or Motherwell, but it has been a very mine of golden wealth to the junior branch of Toppys. Coal and iron, Madame, are more productive than diamonds. Sir John Toppys was rich before the war; now he has advanced to wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. His great services to the State have been plenteously rewarded in spite of the exactions of the disgraceful excess profits duty. At his works, guns have been made in thousands, and shells in millions. He and those like him have as surely won the war as have our heroic soldiers and sailors—who, it must be confessed, have received less adequate rewards. The wealth and position of Sir John Toppys are such that he could command a peerage from any British Government. But to him, a true Toppys of the ancient line—though of a junior branch—a newly gilt title would have no value. Is he not at this moment heir presumptive of the Twenty-Eighth Baron—he of the Torres Straits—and can one feel surprise that he resents and detests the shameful marriage of the Hon. William Toppys, by means of which his branch of the Family has been supplanted? I am legal adviser to Sir John Toppys, and between these close walls, Madame, I may say that he would stick at nothing to secure—the removal—of the—obstruction."

"You and Sir John Toppys are a pretty pair," quoth Madame. "For sheer lawlessness, even in time of war, I have come upon nothing which can compare with you. You deliberately conspire to compass the—the removal—of the Heir of Topsham, and you do not apparently give heed to the risks which both of you are running. You think in your foolishness that if I were bribed by the gold of Wigan to carry through the enterprise, the pretty neck of Madame Gilbert would be alone imperilled. Permit me to scatter your illusions. Should Madame Gilbert hang for her mercenary zeal in the interests of a white succession Sir John Toppys and Roger Gatepath would stand beside her upon the drop. We should be an engaging party," murmured Madame, contemplating the vision with enjoyment. "Madame Gilbert in the centre by honour of her sex and her superior infamy, Roger to her left, John on her right. At the word 'Go'—or whatever is tastefully appropriate to the ceremony—the hangman would pull the lever, and the three culprits would disappear into what is termed prophetically The Pit. At the inquest—I always think that an inquest after a legal hanging is a superb touch of British humour—evidence would be given to prove that the triple execution had been well and truly carried out, and that death was instantaneous. We should all three be buried in quicklime within the precincts of the jail." Madame smacked her lips. "No, Mr. Gatepath, not even for this gratifying conclusion to our joint enterprise am I going to place Sir John Toppys—for a brief interval before his execution—in the seat of Willatopy."

More than once during this horrible deliverance Roger Gatepath had essayed to stop her, but Madame refused to be interrupted. It pleased her to describe vividly the last act in the lawless drama, and she indulged her whim. Madame loves talk almost as much as she loves action. But there is this difference. In action she is swift, precise, and shattering. In speech she is diffuse and interminable. Yet there are many less agreeable occupations than to sit opposite to that royal beauty and to listen respectfully to her babble.

"You entirely misread our intentions," said Gatepath severely, when Madame at last allowed him to get a word in. "Do you suppose that Gatepaths, do you suppose that Sir John Toppys, Baronet of—er—Wigan, do you suppose that the Trustees of the settled estates of Topsham, would countenance the assassination of the lawful heir to an English peerage?"

"I do," said Madame calmly. "What is more, I am quite sure of it."

Gatepath collapsed. A great many people in their day have tried to humbug Madame Gilbert. All have failed and collapsed as did Roger Gatepath.

Then in her masterful fashion, at the moment when vague talk must cease or anticipate vigorous action, Madame took charge of the destinies of Toppys.

"You went out to the Torres Straits, Mr. Gatepath, and not to waste time over polite verbiage, you made an ass of yourself. You philandered with the pretty pale-skinned Widow Toppys. She responded to your advances. It is of no use for you to shake your head. I know men, men of your susceptible age, and I know widows. I am one myself. Am I not always sweetly responsive to your fascinating middle-aged sex? You aroused the jealousy of Willatopy, and he, a wise and dutiful son—who also appears to understand, widows—put you to rout with his spear. Never again dare you appear on the Island of Willatopy. Your head would infallibly decorate his baronial residence, and your body would be served up in ceremonious cutlets. If Willatopy is a Cannibal—which I take leave at present to doubt—he will devour his enemies as part of a religious ritual; not for food. He would offer your head to his mistress as a gage d'amour, for no man is of any account in the South Seas as a lover until he has at least one bleeding head to show for his affection. The Island of Willatopy is closed to you; no more will you exchange sweet nothings about the weather with the fair and frail Widow Toppys. But to me all is open. If you and your accomplice the Wigan Baronet are willing to pay my expenses on a scale adequate to a profiteer in war material, I will set sail for the island home of the Twenty-Eighth Baronet. If he is half white in sentiment, and not altogether a woolly savage, I will mould him with these subtle fingers. I will be his shelter from hedge lawyers bent upon thrusting him untimely into the dreary old House of Lords. If, as may happen, the Heir of Topsham is definitely and finally impossible I will do my best to move him—willing or unwilling—to some retreat where he may be less easy of discovery by your rival practitioners than in his present conspicuous residence. I gather that the missionary registers of Thursday Island blazon his address and telephone number. I will do nothing seriously unlawful, nothing, that is, which could be proved against me to my incarceration. A spice of adventurous illegality adds zest to an enterprise. But I won't go to the scaffold or the prison for all the mouldy Toppyses who were ever hatched through the centuries. And though I accept nothing but limited liability, I will make a much more fruitful job of my island voyage than you did of yours. The widow will have no attractions for me, and if the Baron of Topsham and Madame Gilbert should become—épris—so much the easier will my task be made. Many men," murmured Madame sadly, "have given me their honest (or dishonest) hearts, and most of them have paid heavily for my apparent acceptance of the gift. There, Mr. Gatepath, it is more than you or that bold bad Baronet of Wigan deserves; but I have made you a fair sporting offer. I will go to the Torres Straits, though how in the world I am to get a passage is for the moment beyond me. All steamers are packed; those voyagers only who have urgent business have a chance of a berth; an unemployed widow bound upon a delicate, undescribable mission would be a poor C 3 in the waiting list."

"Do not let that worry you," cried Gatepath. "I am beyond all things delighted by your offer. Sir John Toppys will be delighted. The Family of Toppys will be delighted. It is no small thing, Madame, to gain the regard and influence of the ancient and honourable House of Toppys. I accept your offer joyfully, and you need not calculate your expenses. The gold of Wigan will be poured into your lap. And as for the steamer passage, what care Gatepaths for passenger restrictions now that the Admiralty have released the Humming Top! She is refitting at this moment at Cowes. You shall sail at your ease in her."

"And what, please, is the Humming Top?" enquired Madame patiently.

"She is a turbine-engined yacht, built by Dennys of Dumbarton, and a perfect seaboat. A thousand tons, Madame, Thames measurement, and fitted like a summer palace. Not too small for comfort, and not too big for the coral reefs of Torres. She is a sea home worthy even of Madame Gilbert."

"That is the first really sensible speech that you have made to-day," said Madame.