Читать книгу The Man Without Nerves - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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Towards three o’clock in the afternoon of that same day Mr. James Huitt, who sat in solitary splendour in a stiffly upholstered but expensively furnished private room at the back of his bank in Aldwych, received a visitor. He looked at the plain visiting card brought in by one of his clerks with a faint sense of recognition.

“Mr. Tyssen,” he said reflectively, “I wonder if that is not the name of Mrs. Foulds’ new lodger. Not a client, is he, Merton?”

“Not that I know of, sir.”

“Did he give you any idea as to his business?”

“None at all, sir, except that he begged for a word or two alone with you on a private matter.”

The bank manager shrugged his shoulders resignedly. The fact remained, however, that after eight years’ experience one of the pleasures of his life was still receiving visitors. He was proud of his position of manager of an important branch of a world-famed bank. He liked impressing people and, although there were some who refused to be impressed, there were many who accepted him at his own valuation. He decided to see his caller.

“Show him in,” he directed.

A young man of wholesome but somewhat ordinary appearance and indifferently dressed was in due course shown in. His complexion was freckled and he was—in the language of schoolboys—pug-nosed. His ears were inclined to stand out and his hair, which was of no definite colour, was badly brushed. He was over six feet in height but loosely built. There was nothing about him calculated to impress. Mr. Huitt, however, as was his custom with visitors, was stonily civil.

“Mr. Tyssen,” he said, repeating his name. “You have come to stay in the neighbourhood of Sandywayes, I believe?”

“That’s right, sir,” the young man acknowledged eagerly. “I am a writer by profession and I have been looking for a quiet spot like Sandywayes for some time. I am at work on a novel.”

“Indeed.”

“Before I took to fiction,” Tyssen continued, “I was on the staff of the Daily Reporter. I still send them occasional contributions. In fact, it is on their business that I have come to see you this morning.”

The bank manager remained silent. He had no special affection for journalists.

“I took the liberty of sending in my private card,” the young man proceeded, “because my connection with the paper is no longer official. I am much obliged to you for seeing me, sir.”

Mr. Huitt did not at once connect the drama of the morning with the nervous youth who sat on one of the hard leather chairs, twirling his hat in his hand. He nodded in somewhat puzzled fashion.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“In the first place,” was the prompt reply, “I want you to be so good as to tell me, sir, whether this is the handwriting of a client of yours?”

Mr. Huitt adjusted his glasses, glanced at the envelope which the other had just passed across the table—casually enough at first and then more steadily. Something of the suaveness of his manner seemed to have passed. His small face had become set in more rigid lines. If one of his regular customers had been present at that moment, he would not have ventured to allude to the matter of an overdraft.

“Yes,” the bank manager acknowledged. “I should say there is no doubt that this is the handwriting of Mr. Samuel Jesson. How did it come into your possession?”

The young man ignored the question.

“You have heard what has happened to him, I suppose?”

“I heard the news in the railway carriage, coming up to town,” Huitt admitted. “He was found dead in a garage, I understand. Have you any particulars?”

“I can tell you all about it, sir,” Tyssen declared. “Mr. Jesson was found shot through the heart in the garage this morning when Mr. Martin’s chauffeur went in to borrow a tin of petrol. The police think that he must have been there the greater part of the night.”

“The local police?”

“The sergeant from the police station. A revolver with one barrel discharged was found by his side—a revolver which every one seems to know that he possessed and which was, in fact, kept in the garage. There was also a letter to his wife.”

“That looks bad,” Mr. Huitt sighed.

“I can tell you what was in the letter,” the caller continued eagerly. “There were only about a couple of sentences. It simply said that owing to impending financial trouble, he had decided to take his own life. He asks her forgiveness and gives a few particulars as to his property.”

“There is no doubt, then, about his having committed suicide?” the bank manager asked, with his eyes fixed upon his visitor.

“Not the slightest,” was the confident reply. “Nevertheless, Mr. Huitt, I gather that there is considerable feeling in the City upon the subject.”

“What sort of feeling?”

“Well, my late sub-editor, for instance, was a great friend of Mr. Jesson’s, and he does not for a moment believe that he was in any financial straits. We newspaper men and fiction writers, you know, sir, are always on the lookout for a story, and I can’t help wondering whether there isn’t a mystery behind this affair.”

“What sort of mystery?” Mr. Huitt enquired in his even, precise tone.

Tyssen scratched his chin. His rather uneasy eyes seemed disturbed by the steely glimmer from behind the bank manager’s spectacles.

“Whether, for instance, he was being blackmailed or anything of that sort.”

Mr. Huitt’s tone became a trifle harder.

“The object of your visit to me, Mr. Tyssen,” he said, “remains obscure.”

The young man coughed.

“You, sir,” he went on, “as his banker, are without a doubt able to solve the question as to whether Mr. Jesson was or was not in financial difficulties.”

“Your apprehension is quite correct,” Mr. Huitt admitted. “I am in a position to solve that question. And then?”

The young man was becoming more and more embarrassed. He took his courage into both hands, however.

“Well, the long and the short of it is, sir,” he brought out, “I thought you might give me a hint as to how things stood with your client. Supposing, for instance, you were in a position to tell me that his financial losses were imaginary and that he was a wealthy man, then I have the beginnings of a story for the paper and a very good background for my own novel.”

Mr. James Huitt glanced again at the card which lay upon the table.

“Mr. Tyssen,” he said deliberately, “I have always understood that gentlemen of your profession allowed themselves considerable latitude, but I take the liberty of telling you, sir, that I think your question addressed to me concerning the affairs of my late client is both impertinent and improper. I beg you will convey that expression of my opinion to your sub-editor.”

“I am very sorry, sir,” the young man apologised ruefully. “Very sorry indeed. I didn’t mean to give any offence. We have to be up to all sorts of queer tricks in the newspaper job, you know.”

“So it appears.”

Tyssen rubbed his head.

“It didn’t seem to me,” he went on, “that there was very much harm in asking you something which the whole world will know in a day or so.”

“I will take it for granted,” Mr. Huitt said, “that the exigencies of your profession are responsible for your untimely visit. I will tell you as much as this, therefore. At the coroner’s inquest to-morrow afternoon, I shall answer publicly any questions asked me as to Mr. Jesson’s financial position. Until then, not a word concerning his affairs will pass my lips, except to his relatives. Permit me to wish you good afternoon.”

Tyssen recovered his hat, which had slipped from his fingers, and rose clumsily to his feet.

“Sorry if I have annoyed you, sir,” he apologised once more. “I suppose there is some reason for keeping things so dark. You couldn’t even give me a hint, could you?”

Mr. Huitt, who had already rung the bell, looked up at his clerk’s entrance.

“Show this gentleman out, Merton,” he directed.

For some minutes after the departure of his disappointed visitor, the bank manager sat motionless in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the opposite wall. He was not a man given to idle thought and one could have imagined that by means of some secret gift he was looking down the long aisle of busy clerks, working on the other side, watching beyond them, perhaps, the crowd who came and went through the heavy swing doors. Presently, without change of expression, his fingers strayed towards the bell, which he firmly pressed. Merton made prompt appearance.

“Bring me a copy,” his chief instructed, “of Mr. Samuel Jesson’s account with us. I shall require it absolutely up-to-date for the inquest to-morrow.”

“Certainty, sir.”

The young man hurried out. He was gone about ten minutes. When he returned, Huitt, who was certainly not given to wasting his time, was still seated in precisely the same attitude, his eyes fixed upon exactly the same spot. His clerk laid the figures before him.

“You will remember, sir,” the former ventured, “that only yesterday afternoon Mr. Jesson rang up and enquired the exact state of his balance. We gave him the correct figures but he only laughed at us. He was to have come in this morning.”

“I remember perfectly,” Mr. Huitt acknowledged. “In fact, I had an appointment with Mr. Jesson at eleven o’clock. A very sad affair, Merton.”

“Terrible, sir.”

“To lose a client in such a fashion is a great shock.”

“A bit mysterious too, sir,” the young man ventured.

Mr. Huitt sighed.

“To us it may seem so, Merton,” his chief assented. “Somehow or other, though, I always felt that there was something sinister about those large cash withdrawals.”

“You are thinking of blackmail, sir?”

The bank manager’s grave expression might have been taken for assent. He made no reply, however. It was not a matter for discussion with an employee.

At five minutes before the time for the departure of the return train that evening, Mr. James Huitt, as was his almost invariable custom, took his place in the right-hand corner seat of the Club Car for Sandywayes. Mr. Timothy Sarson was already installed, with a handful of evening papers. Mr. Cresset arrived a few minutes afterwards and Roland Martin, not content with his narrow escape of the morning, entered the carriage only when the train was on the point of leaving. Greetings between the four men were quite perfunctory, although the strain of the morning had disappeared. They expected to see one another, and secretly, although their feelings of friendship might not have been deep, they would have been disappointed to have found any one missing. It would have been a link broken in the chain of their daily life.

“You have heard about the inquest to-morrow, Mr. Huitt?” Timothy Sarson asked.

“I received a subpœna at the bank,” was the quiet reply. “It is to be held, I gather, at the village hall at three o’clock.”

“There’s a great deal of curiosity in the City,” Mr. Cresset remarked, “with regard to poor Sam Jesson’s disclosure of financial losses.”

“The City is always curious,” the bank manager observed.

“I saw his brokers this morning,” Cresset continued. “Poor old Burrows—he’s the head of the firm, almost past it now, though—he couldn’t make head or tail of it. Said he should have put Jesson down for a wealthy man. Certainly he has never made any losses on what he bought from them.”

“Mr. Burrows would have been well advised to have refrained from commenting upon the matter until after the inquest,” Mr. Huitt said stiffly.

“Can’t see that it matters a bit, myself, between friends, you know,” the other remonstrated. “When a man takes his life and admits that he has done it because he has lost money, he is generally telling the truth.”

“Shall you come up to town to-morrow morning, Huitt?” Roland Martin asked.

“I shall come up at the usual hour,” the bank manager confided. “I have arranged with my deputy to take my place from one o’clock.”

“I’ll motor you up to the hall if you like,” Martin suggested. “It’s rather a long pull to the top of the village.”

“That would be exceedingly kind of you,” was the courteous acknowledgment.

“About a quarter to three at the tennis courts. The whole affair will be quite formal, except for your evidence.”

“So I understand,” Huitt acquiesced, seeking refuge in his evening newspaper.