Читать книгу The Princess Galva - David Whitelaw - Страница 10

Jasper Jarman was a self-made man, and, like many another self-made man, had a very exalted opinion of his own handiwork.

During his early career Jasper had fought a bitter battle with the world; by thirty-five he had conquered it, and now in the evening of his days he was very averse to relinquishing any of the moral spoils of his victory. To thwart Jasper Jarman was to rouse to their uttermost those fighting instincts that had given him the name of "Stone-wall Jarman" in his younger days.

Another trait common to self-made men was possessed by Jasper, he was an early riser. On the morning following his arrival at Adderbury Cottage he was abroad by seven, pacing up and down the trim box-bordered walk that ran round two sides of the house. He walked with an assertive tread, his large square-toed boots crunching the gravel rhythmically. His hands were lightly clasped behind his back, and with chest thrown well out he was inhaling the scented airs that rose from the dew-drenched garden. A blackbird strutted about the little lawn, and a close observer would have noticed a certain resemblance in the manners of man and bird.

From a little diamond-paned window a blind was drawn aside a few inches and an eye peeped cautiously forth upon the world. As the pompous figure of Mr. Jasper Jarman rounded the corner of the house and came into view, the blind was quickly dropped back into its place.

Five minutes later Edward Povey emerged from the front door, his unbuttoned waistcoat and his vaguely tied cravat giving the lie direct to the studied indifference of his walk.

His surprise at coming face to face with Mr. Jasper Jarman was quite an admirable piece of acting.

"Good-morning, Uncle Jasper; up with the lark, eh! the early bird, you know. Slept well, I hope?"

"Ah, Edward, my boy, good-morning—slept like a top, thanks; capital room Charlotte's given us. I'm afraid we've turned you out."

"Oh not at all, uncle, pray don't mention it."

"Faces east, though; your aunt finds the morning sun rather trying. She's going to turn the room out to-day and shift the bed to the other wall."

"Turn out the room, uncle?"

"Yes, my boy; capital woman your aunt, never idle a moment, always up and doing. You won't know this house after she's been here a month."

Edward thought it far more probable that it was the house that wouldn't know him by then, but, too taken aback to reply, he merely passed his handkerchief over his dry lips and waited for Jasper to continue.

The old man paused in his walk and ran his eye critically over some standard rose trees, that, each in its little island of mould, studded the lawn.

"Yes, my boy, you'll find we're not drones. We're busy bees, your aunt and me; what she does to the house I do to the garden. I'm never happy unless I'm pottering about with a trowel. I'll have this place," he waved his arm comprehensively, "shipshape in no time. I'll have those roses up and put 'em in a row under the window, they're wasted where they are, and we'll re-turf the lawn and make it big enough for croquet."

Jasper looked at Edward Povey for approbation. "Or even tennis," said the latter, who felt he must say something. Then he sat down on a rustic garden seat and nervously rolled himself a cigarette. Jasper, leaning a fat elbow upon the stone sundial, went on.

"A nice little place all the same, yes, a nice little place. Better than Clapham, eh, Edward?"

"Much better, uncle Jasper."

"The firm seems to have found out your worth at last. Well, I'm glad of it. Your aunt is always telling me that Charlotte married a fool—no, don't get angry, that's only her way of putting it. Been here long?"

"Not very long, uncle. You see, I've only got on lately. I discovered a scheme whereby my firm could save a small fortune in postage, and they rewarded me liberally. Then they found out I could correspond and speak in French and Spanish, so they rewarded me again. Oh! They've done me very well, I—— There's the gong for breakfast; we'll go in."

The meal was hardly a pleasant one. Aunt Eliza, whose temper the battle with the morning sun had not improved, munched her toast in silence. She was one of those individuals who appear to undergo a refrigerating process during the night hours and to awake frost-bitten. During the day she would gradually thaw. The process was sometimes rapid, but more often than not the midday dinner passed before Mrs. Jasper Jarman was even commonly polite. She had never been known to smile before eleven.

At eight-thirty Edward prepared to leave the house, presumably for the business offices of Messrs. Kyser, Schultz & Company, in Eastcheap. He was glad to escape from the charged atmosphere of the Adderbury Cottage dining-room, but he hated to leave Charlotte alone to play his game for him. To let Uncle Jasper suspect that he was not still in the service of the firm would of course be fatal. As he stood in the hall drawing on his gloves he noticed that the postman had left in the box a blue envelope. Making sure he was alone, he drew it out. It was, of course, addressed to Mr. Kyser, and Edward was about to place it unopened in his pocket, when his uncle's voice came from the stairs above—

"That for me, Edward?"

"No, uncle; it's—mine."

Mr. Jasper Jarman was descending the stairs, and, acting upon impulse, Edward inserted his thumb beneath the flap and slit open the envelope. The action was quite unpremeditated, but he thought it might look suspicious to place it in his pocket unopened when he had given Uncle Jasper to believe it was his own. He seemed to have an idea that his uncle would ask to see it.

Edward glanced at the clock, and, with a hurried good-bye, flew down the garden path, the open envelope still in his hand. On turning a bend of the road that hid him from view, he looked long and searchingly at it. It had been forwarded to Adderbury Cottage from Mr. Kyser's town house in Grosvenor Square, and Edward thought it strange that that should be so. Surely his housekeeper in town knew that her master was not at the cottage. Altogether Kyser's departure was rather suspicious. Edward had heard Mr. Schultz speaking to his partner the day he had left, had even heard them bid each other good-night, and now, as he thought of it, he remembered Schultz making an appointment for the next day. Looking at the affair squarely, it came home to Edward that Kyser's departure was hurried, not to say suspicious, and was even unknown to his housekeeper and his partner.

Suppose the owner of Adderbury Cottage had committed some crime, the police might even now be there after him. Self-preservation told Edward that he should read the contents of the envelope he held in his hand. Any information that showed light upon the situation it was clearly to his interest to know.

By this time he was walking rapidly down Clay Hill leading to the village of Bushey. He passed through the straggling High Street, past the old church, and descended the further hill into Watford. He was still holding in his hand the letter. At eleven o'clock he entered the smoking-room of the Rose and Crown, and having ordered a small Bass, drew a sheet of paper from the envelope that had been forwarded to Mr. Kyser from his town house in Grosvenor Square.

"19, WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET,

"NEW YORK CITY,

"U.S.A.

"To Sydney Kyser, Esq.

"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,

"You will be surprised to hear from me again after so long a lapse, but many things—ill-health among them—have prevented my travelling to England, although I have promised myself the trip many times in the past few years. And now I feel that I shall never take it, and that the doctor here, who gives me two weeks to live, speaks the truth. Well, I've had a good innings, and, as they say over here, 'there's no kick coming.' I leave only one regret, and it is with regard to this that I venture to write to you. If you would do a dying man a kindness, and at the same time right a wrong, the chance is now yours. My state of health will not allow of my writing my request in full—and I ask you to promise nothing until you know all. This you can do by calling upon Mr. Abraham Nixon, 5A, St. Mary Axe, in the City of London.

"This gentleman will tell you a story so remarkable that it may seem to you incredible.

"But it is true every word of it. You will then act as you see fit. But I conjure you, by our past friendship, to do as Mr. Nixon asks.

"Your bona fide will consist of the crest torn from the head of this notepaper, which please send in to Mr. Nixon with these words written on it in red ink—

'MR. SYDNEY re GALVA'

"If you follow these instructions to the letter, Mr. Nixon will at once put you in complete possession of all the facts of the case.

"With my last breath I shall pray for you and the success of the mission.

"Yours, "HUBERT BAXENDALE.

"P.S.—You will see that Mr. Nixon will know you as Mr. Sydney. Not knowing whether you would like to undertake what I ask in your own name, I thought it wiser that in this matter you should be known simply as 'Mr. Sydney.'

"H. B."

Edward read the letter through many times before he finally folded it and replaced it in its envelope. Then he sat for a long time thinking on what he had read. There was no way of corresponding with Mr. Kyser for a month, and by that time the wrong that the letter spoke of might be past the righting.

Would it not be better if he were to act, as it were, for Mr. Kyser, and, under the name of Sydney, gather what information he could from Mr. Nixon? He would then be able to judge more clearly what it were best to do.

Of course, in his own mind, Edward knew well that to act as he suggested to himself was taking a most unwarrantable liberty with another's affairs; but he was hardly himself. The excitement of the last few days had had anything but a salutary effect upon his moral balance; he had been living in a hot-bed of lies, and his discriminating powers of right and wrong had deteriorated sadly.

Who could say but that in this letter was a way out of the hideous mess he had made of things up at Adderbury Cottage? There was nothing against his going to St. Mary Axe. The letter plainly showed that Mr. Kyser and Mr. Nixon were unacquainted. There would be nothing to tell him from the real Mr. Sydney. It would at least fill in the time during which he must remain away from the cottage.

Edward Povey called the waiter and borrowed a time-table. He consulted this, then made his way to the writing-room, where he found a bottle of red ink. From the head of Mr. Baxendale's letter he tore the crest and heading, and across it he wrote the words mentioned in the letter. This he folded and placed in his pocket-book.

At half-past three the same afternoon Mr. Edward Povey, alias, for the moment, Mr. Sydney, pushed open the swing doors of Mr. Abraham Nixon's office in St. Mary Axe—and came to grips with Romance.