Читать книгу The Black Abbot - Edgar Wallace - Страница 13

Table of Contents

“My sister?” said Arthur quickly. He looked from Gilder to Mary Wenner. “Come and see me later,” he said in a lower voice. “Gilder, show Miss Wenner out through the side door.”

Gilder opened the private door and followed the girl into the corridor.

“Where are you living?” he asked.

There was such a note of authority in his voice that for the moment the girl was taken off her guard.

“57 Cranston Mansions. Why?” she asked, with a certain archness that indicated resentment but invited a further offence.

“Because I want to see you,” said Gilder. “Can I come round to your flat some evening?”

Miss Wenner was shocked a little at this. There were moments when her sense of propriety was easily outraged. She was curious too; so far from resenting his commanding address, she rather liked it.

“Yes, any evening you wish, if you will let me know that you are coming. I will ask a young lady friend to keep me company.”

Gilder’s hard lips curled.

“Unless you particularly want a chaperon, don’t get one,” he said. “I have much to say to you that I don’t want anybody else to hear.”

He accompanied her to the elevator and on the way extracted a promise to receive him alone. Miss Wenner was almost as curious to know the object of that visit as Mr. Gilder was to discover what was behind the amazing statement he had heard. He passed the closed door of Arthur’s room and heard voices. He would have given a lot for an excuse to interrupt brother and sister, but something told him that it would be wiser if he kept out of his employer’s way until he was absolutely certain that the girl had not betrayed the very carefully hidden transaction which had made him the proprietor of Red Farm.

“You’re a little goose to come up to town without money,” said Arthur, as he skinned three notes from his pocketbook. “Here is enough to keep you happy for the rest of your life.”

“Would fifteen pounds do that?” she laughed, and was going, when she remembered....

Arthur listened in amazement to the news she had to give.

“Gilder has bought a house at Chelfordbury? Impossible!” he said. “He would have told me. Why the dickens does he want a house?—besides, he has no money.”

“Hasn’t he?” she asked, in surprise.

Arthur scratched his chin irritably.

“I suppose the beggar has; but a house at Chelfordbury—that is extraordinary! I wasn’t even aware that he knew the place.”

“He is the man who has been staying at Ravensrill Cottage all the summer,” she said.

“The fisherman!” He whistled. “What a close bird he is! Of course,” he went on quickly, “there is nothing wrong in a man wanting to live at Chelfordbury, and there’s no reason in life why he shouldn’t buy a house. But what a sly old fox!”

He was troubled; she saw that he was trying to hide it behind a flippancy that was transparent to her.

“I knew, of course, that somebody had rented the fisherman’s cottage, as they call it, and to think that he’s been down all these months and never once given himself away!”

“He has a car, if he’s the same man who was living at the cottage,” she nodded. “Dick Alford is furious!”

Arthur chuckled.

“Poor old Dick!” he said good-humouredly. “He loathes this residential idea, and when I put forward a scheme to cut up one of his northern estates into residential properties, he nearly bit my head off. Harry would have done it like a shot, and I hope, my dear, when you’re married you’ll persuade him ...”

He waited expectantly.

“Yes—when I am married,” she said, and her tone made him glance at her keenly. But he was wise enough to skim over that subject.

“Dick, of course, is a fool,” he said, with good-natured contempt. “He has a blind faith in the future of agriculture in this country, and grudges every acre that’s taken out of cultivation. And yet, if you were to put up a scheme to build huge blocks of cottages to relieve the slum congestion, or something equally quixotic and unprofitable, he would jump at the idea. I can well understand that the mere thought of a successful lawyer’s clerk setting himself up as a country gentleman would make Dick foam at the mouth!”

“He wasn’t foaming when I left him,” she said drily.

“When you left him?” He was quick to take a point.

“Yes, he came down to the station with me.” And she could not account for her momentary feeling of embarrassment.

He was still searching her face, and then, laying his hands on her shoulders, he shook her gently.

“Old girl,” he said, “keep your mind off the Second Son! He’s a good-looking fellow, and side by side with his brother there’s no question of choice! But he’s a second son, which means that he’s next door to being broke. And you can’t live on good looks or——”

She raised her eyes slowly to his.

“What do you mean—I can’t live on good looks?” she said deliberately. “Why do you emphasize the fact that Dick Alford is poor? Amn’t I an heiress?”

He did not speak, and then, with a little laugh, dropped his hands.

“Why, of course, chick!” he said lightly. “Only—well, I want you to do something for yourself. Make a name in the country. It will be something to have the position which Harry can offer you. Dick is quite a good fellow—one of the best, although he doesn’t get on very well with me. But there’s nothing to it with him, Leslie. You might as well marry some poverty-stricken gentleman farmer——”

He stopped under the steady gaze that met him.

“ ‘Poverty-stricken’ again, Arthur—without suggesting that I would rather marry Dick Alford, I wonder why the question of his poverty interests you so much. If you had called him a commoner and a nobody, I could have understood, but you insist upon the question of my possible fiancé’s wealth, and that seems strange to me.”

He laughed long and loudly, but his merriment seemed, to her sensitive ear, lacking in sincerity.

“You ought to be a lawyer, Leslie! Upon my word, I’ve a good mind to have you coached for an examination! You’d look simply topping in a wig and gown! And now, my little girl, you must run away, because I’ve a tremendous lot of work.”

He put his arm round her shoulders and walked with her to the door, and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the whine of the elevator carrying her down. Closing the door behind him, he rang the bell, and, to the clerk who came:

“Ask Mr. Gilder to come in, will you, please?”