Читать книгу A Tail of Gold - David Hennessey - Страница 5

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SMART left the club in company with the Hon. Ebenezer Gammage of the Upper House, and an honorary member of the Cabinet. This gentleman was also managing director of a company which had offices in the same palatial building as the Major.

They had known each other for several years and were mutually interested in sundry mining ventures; few of which, however, had proved very remunerative to Gammage. The heavy calls of a silver mining company floated by Smart had recently been a heavy drain upon him, and he had told the Major that morning that he intended to forfeit his shares.

Smart took the opportunity, as they walked to the railway-station, to advise him to hold on; but Gammage shook his head.

'I'm thankful it's a "No Liability" company,' said he. 'I'm not going to throw any more good money after bad. I'm sorry to have to forfeit, Major,' he continued in a more friendly tone, 'you must have lost a lot of money yourself by the dashed thing, and I'd like to help you; but you know my opinion of the "Silver Streak" is that it's nothing better than a pot-hole, and I don't intend to chuck any more of my good sovereigns into it.'

'Very well,' replied the Major without any display of ill-feeling. 'But you can do nothing now until after Christmas. This is Tuesday, and to-morrow's Christmas Day; there'll be nothing doing before Friday, and the Stock Exchange will not open until Monday. I shall be in town for an hour or two on Friday morning, and will look you up. There may be news from the mine by then.'

They walked down Swanston Street to the Central, and together boarded an incoming train: they lived only a section apart, on the Suburban line.

On reaching his station Smart rose to leave, and as he did so drew out his watch and noticed that it was ten-thirty-five. As he closed the carriage door, and stood by it for a moment, Gammage gave him what Smart thought was a peculiar look, and asked: 'Are you going to your office to-morrow?'

'Not likely,' replied the Major. 'Christmas Day; no mail and probably ninety in the shade. No, sir! I shall attend morning service and afterward be found at home, with roast goose and plum pudding, in the bosom of my family. Good-night!'

They laughed as the train moved on; but the Major's mind was ill at ease as he turned his steps homeward. He had been nettled by Will Monckton's proposed story. He was not quite sure whether the lieutenant intended his remarks to be personal; and some of the others evidently took it that way. Monckton was a confounded upstart, with his swagger about having been in active service. 'I'd like to put all these beggarly South Africans into a bag,' muttered the Major, 'and sink them in the Bay. Anyhow, the rotters haven't much chance of promotion; we can block them there. And so Monckton bumped up against a fellow with a fetish in South Africa and nearly lost his life. Pity he did not quite lose it, it would have saved a lot of trouble; and now the beggar's bumped up against me!'

The Major might have been heard to chuckle after this, but he did not chuckle long.

'Hang it all!' he exclaimed, sotto voce, 'how I hate Christmas! For three years now it's always brought trouble, and this one is no better. There's that Tasmanian option to pay or forfeit next week, and if Gammage draws out of the "Silver Streak" and there's no change in the formation, I shall have to carry the dashed mine myself, or let the whole thing go; most of the others are slackers. Then there is that strike at the Cyanide Works, and the bank manager, of course, wants to see me about my account—the idiots always want to see you at the most inconvenient time. It's like my luck! I shouldn't wonder if something else happens. That wretched old fetish doggerel has been swinging to and fro across my brain all day—

'"Ay, though he's buried in a cave

And trodden down with stones

And years have rotted off his flesh

The world shall see his bones."

'That's a pleasant rhyme for a man with half a score of dead people to his credit to have swinging through his brain on Christmas Eve. I must have heard it fifty times to-night at the club. But it isn't true. Her bones will never be discovered, and if they are, who cares? There are scores of skeletons buried in old shafts and drives upon Australian gold fields, that will never be discovered until the Day of Judgment. Ah! the Day of Judgment! Isn't that a most inopportune thing to think about on Christmas Eve?'

But the thoughts which so strangely passed through the mind of Boswell Smart on this particular Christmas Eve, were brushed away later on by a glass of whisky and the laughter of the girls and boys of his family. It was the ghost of something which belonged to the dead past; but the years were so many that it had almost ceased to matter. The ghost had grown familiar and ancient, so that it had lost much of its fearsomeness; as such things will, when many other things have piled themselves above them.

However, Smart could not shake off the feeling that something else was going to happen. He had hoped all that day to get an important telegram from the mine manager of the Silver Streak, and after some thought he decided that if it came he would let Gammage forfeit his shares. It would be all the better for himself and the remaining shareholders if things turned out as he hoped and expected. The wire might have been taken in by the caretaker.

So he determined to slip quietly into town early next morning. No one would be about. He was not sure but that it might even then be lying on the table of his office.

Miners, mining speculators, and mining gamblers are all to be found in Australia. It was to the last class that Smart belonged. It seemed to have been born in him, for, although he had never lifted pick or shovel in his life for serious labour, he had the mining mania to his finger tips. Ordinary mining men left business alone during holidays; but not he. The lure of gold enticed him back to his office at unwonted hours. He was always expecting some great news. So, on Christmas morning, he left by an early train for Melbourne, without telling any one of his destination. His wife understood that he was going for a morning walk and would meet the family at church, and as he was not a man to question she said nothing more about it.

Few Melbourne people visit the city proper before noon on holidays. The advent of the motor-car has somewhat altered things, but at the time of this story, the principal streets of the city presented an appearance of absolute desertion in the early hours of Sunday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day. Bright sunlight shone upon broad roadways and wide pavements, flanked by gaily furnished shop windows and all the panoply of modern retail trade; but save for a solitary policeman or caretaker, whole blocks gave no indication of the tens of thousands of busy feet which, on other days, trod those pavements.

Somehow the Major felt almost ashamed of himself as his heavy tread broke the silence of Collins Street. Not one of the hundreds of well-dressed citizens he was wont to meet at ten in the morning was there. The shop windows were mostly without shutters or blinds, and it was as though every one of them was an open mouth saying: 'What dost thou here, Major?'

He looked up and down the deserted street before opening, with a Yale key, the big door of the huge building in which he had his offices. Pushing it gently back he entered quickly, closed the door again, stood in the marble vestibule, and listened.

He could hardly have explained why he did not wish to be seen. Surely he had a right to enter his own offices at any time. There were dozens of them in that great building; but he seemed to be the only person about, and everything was silent as the tomb.

The caretaker and his wife lived on the topmost floor; but they were away for Christmas, and the lifts had been left upon the ground floor.

The Major, who was not used to much exertion, mounted the white marble staircase with deliberation. The morning was warm, and he removed his tall silk hat, to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, as he paused upon each landing and listened.

The silence seemed strange to him, for on ordinary days the great building was as busy as a hive of bees; but, save the noise he himself made, not a sound was to be heard.

Reaching the floor where his own offices and those of Ebenezer Gammage were situated, he took some keys from his pocket, and was about to open the door of his private room; but instead, he unlocked the outer office, usually occupied by a clerk and messenger.

Everything had been left in order, swept and dusted. Some opened letters were on the table; he glanced at them, they were only circulars and accounts. The telegram he had come for was not there; so, with a careless glance around, he walked over to the inner office door, upon which was written in gold letters, 'Private, Major Boswell Smart.' He lit a cigar before unlocking the door.

After turning the handle he put the keys back in his pocket, thinking the while that the telegram might have been slipped by the caretaker under the outer door; then he passed in.

But, upon the threshold he stopped...looked...tried to speak. The exclamation froze upon his lips. At last it came. 'My God! What's this?'

Confronting him, leaning back in a large leather-covered armchair, was a white-faced figure. And as he looked, cold sweat broke out upon his forehead and the blood went surging back to his heart. A woman, between thirty and forty years of age, confronted him. One who had been comely in life but now, stiff and cold, sat there with dark lines under the eyes, stone dead.

Callous as he was, a nameless horror filled his mind, as he fell, rather than sat, upon a chair. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, however, and hurried into the outer office. He remembered that he had left the outside door upon the latch: but not a sound was to be heard in the great building. He locked the door, and returned to the inner room.

The corpse was totally unknown to him. The head had fallen back upon the leather covering of the chair: the glazed, open eyes were almost black: the hair dark: the face full and round, and well-nourished. The dress was plain, but of good material; one ungloved hand displayed three rings, two of them costly, the other a plain gold wedding ring. She was not tall, for sitting in the chair, her feet were off the ground.

The horrified man looked around, to see if this mysterious visitor had brought bag or parcel, or anything by which she might be identified; there was nothing to be seen. How she had come there, and where she had come from, and what had caused her death, were thoughts that hurried rapidly through the Major's affrighted mind. Was it another victim to prove still further the existence of his insatiable fetish?

Suddenly, with wide open eyes, the Major started. He had made a discovery...an extraordinary discovery! It was not a chair of his office that the corpse was seated on; but one of a suite which adorned the more sumptuously furnished private office of the Hon. Ebenezer Gammage.

The mystery deepened! He had previously supposed that the woman had come into his office alive; but how could this have been, in view of Gammage's chair? At this he went over, and felt the hand of the corpse; the fingers were cold and rigid. She must have been dead since yesterday.

For ten fearful minutes Smart sat there, trying to think what he ought to do: 'Ring up the police; go for a doctor; see if any one else was in the building; or leave everything as it was, say nothing, and get back home as quickly as possible.'

Just then the cathedral bells commenced to ring, flooding the hot still air of the city with their call to worship. The chimes rose and fell, and reverberated through the streets, which now echoed to the tread of a few passing feet. It was too late to leave the building in the expectation of no one seeing him. He would have to wait until the church services had begun.

Then a great idea came to him. He knew nothing about this woman. She had died in one of Ebenezer Gammage's chairs. He would return the chair and its contents to Ebenezer Gammage's private office, and say nothing about it.

'Let Gammage see to it!'

Upon this, several other thoughts presented themselves: Gammage had come into the club late the previous night. Where had he been, and what had he been doing? Why had he asked him whether he was going to his office on Christmas morning?

Ah! Why indeed?

A dangerous light shone in the Major's eyes: 'Gammage knows something about this thing,' he thought, 'he may have put the woman in here himself; she was sitting in one of his chairs when she died.' Then he smiled; he had a duplicate key which opened his neighbour's private office. He would put the chair, with its occupant, back again!

With a sigh of profound relief Smart opened his door and looked out into the wide corridor, and listened...no one was to be seen...nothing to be heard.

The Major stole quickly out on tip-toe and unlocked the door of his neighbour's board room, and, as noiselessly as possible, wheeled in the chair with the dead woman, and placed it hurriedly at the foot of the large directors' table. Then he stealthily closed the door and slipped back into his own room.

It was with a sense of supreme satisfaction that he looked around as he closed the door, for just then he heard a sound from below.

Some one else had entered the building; he was only just in time. He listened at his door. Silence again! It must have been some one on another flat!

As may be surmised, the events of this fearful half-hour had left the Major considerably shaken, and his hand trembled as he poured himself out a glass of whisky, obtained from a private cupboard. 'At any rate,' he thought, 'I've got rid of the corpse, and Gammage can do what he likes with it. It was in his chair!'

He lit his cigar again, and sat at his desk, for he did not wish to leave the building until after eleven, when people generally would be in church. Presently, close by a cedar bookcase, near where the easy-chair had stood, he saw something lying upon the carpet. It appeared to be a letter. He picked it up hastily, and with trembling fingers tore it open. It had been dropped there by the dead woman. Smart read it with ashy face, and then dropped into his chair, staring at it with dim eyes, as he held it in his hand.

He knew now who the dead woman was, and tried to speak her name; but his lips were palsied with dismay. His mind was, for the moment, unbalanced, and imagination played tricks with him. He babbled of a dead captain in the North, who had been his partner.

Presently he recovered himself somewhat, and muttered thickly: 'Another dead! It's all mine!' He drank more of the whisky, which seemed to revive him, and then whispered hoarsely: 'She must have come here to tell me of her husband's death, and climbing the stairs, have died of heart failure. What an awful thing! and I've put her in Gammage's board room. There'll be the devil of a row, and heaven only knows what will be the end of it; but I can't bring her back, for there are people in the building.'

'I must get out of this or I shall smother!'

As he stood once more in the quiet street, and the glare of the hot sunlight struck his face, he closed his eyes to recover himself; but as he did so dead faces stared upon him, and every one of them was the face of her whom he had left in the silence of Ebenezer Gammage's board room.

'I shall go mad,' he thought, as he opened his eyes, 'unless I brace myself up...And this is Christmas Day!'

He hurried to the railway-station. But as he did so, again and again, like some haunting terror, from his subconscious memory, the doleful strain repeated itself—

'Ay, though he's buried in a cave

And trodden down with stones

And years have rotted off his flesh

The world shall see his bones.'