Читать книгу The Black Abbot - Edgar Wallace - Страница 14

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When Gilder had this message he knew that the girl had told her brother; and although he had his fair share of moral courage, it needed a conscious effort on his part to answer the summons.

“Gilder, what is this story of you buying Red Farm?” asked Arthur sharply.

“Why should I not buy Red Farm?” replied Gilder coolly.

“There is no reason in the world why you shouldn’t,” said Arthur, after a moment’s thought; “but it is rather curious you never told me.”

“I thought you might object,” said Gilder. “Business men hate their workaday associates living anywhere near them. It was stupid of me not to tell you. I’ve been living in a cottage at Chelfordbury for three months—was that in itself objectionable? You will forgive me for saying so, but although I have always regarded you with the respect that is due to an employer, I have never quite looked upon you as my feudal lord!”

Arthur grinned for a second.

“Once or twice I thought of coming over to see you,” Gilder went on, “but I’ve always had what I think to be a natural reluctance to intrude myself in a social capacity upon my chief. If you had ever invited me to come and stay a week-end at your place I would have come, and you would have known all about my presence in the neighbourhood. As it was, I felt very much in the position of a servant enjoying himself in his own independent way and feeling no need to consult his employer as to how he should employ his spare time—and money.”

“And money,” repeated Arthur. “I didn’t know you were so well off, Gilder.”

Mr. Gilder inclined his head.

“I have already hinted to you that I have made considerable sums. There, again, it has never seemed necessary that I should keep you acquainted with my bank balance.”

“You have had a moderate salary,” said Arthur significantly. “Not a generous amount, I agree; certainly not an amount from which a man could save a sum sufficient to buy and rebuild Red Farm and maintain it.”

For answer Gilder put his hand in his pocket and, taking out a little Russian-leather note case, laid it on the table. The name in gold letters upon the cover was that of a bookmaker who carried one of his employer’s biggest accounts. With this firm Arthur had lost his largest bets, for Truman’s had offered him facilities which other houses had denied to him.

“Truman?” He frowned. “What has that to do with it? Have you been backing horses?”

Gilder shook his head.

“No,” he said simply. “I am Truman.”

Arthur Gwyn gaped at him. Truman! The bookmaker to whom for weeks in succession he had been paying thousands upon thousands of pounds!

“Then the money you have—is my money!” he gasped.

“Your money?” said the other quietly. “If Truman’s had not taken it, some other bookmaker would have done so. When you won you were paid—have you any complaints?”

“My money!” muttered Arthur.

Gilder replaced the book in his pocket.

“You remember five years ago complaining to me that you couldn’t find bookmakers who would take big bets by telegram within a few minutes of the race? That little talk gave me an idea. I knew you lost steadily, that you were one of those—unfortunate people——”

“Say ‘fools’—that was the word on your lips.”

“ ‘Mug’ was the word,” said Mr. Gilder, with great calmness. “I knew you were one of those people who couldn’t stop betting. So Truman’s came into existence. Their book of rules was sent to you, featuring the important concession that you could wire big sums of money up to within a few minutes of a race. Do you know how much you’ve lost in the last five years?”

Arthur was pale with fury, but, mastering himself, shook his head.

“You have lost sixty-three thousand pounds to Truman alone,” said the other slowly. “And I have won it!”

The colour came and went in Arthur Gwyn’s face. He knew all the time that his rage and resentment were unreasonable. Hitherto Truman had been a name on a telegraph form, an address somewhere in the West End to which his unprofitable telegrams were sent. Who they were he neither knew nor cared; they might have been people infinitely more objectionable than Gilder.

But there was a suggestion of duplicity in the man’s confession. Arthur Gwyn felt that he had been tricked by a servant he trusted, and he was helpless in face of sixty-three thousand facts, all of which balanced on the side of the hard-faced man before him.

“You are not Rathburn & Co., I suppose?” he asked, mentioning another bookmaking firm that had drawn heavily upon his resources.

To his amazement, Gilder nodded.

“I am Rathburn & Company. I am also Burton & Smith. I am, in fact, the three bookmakers to whom you have been losing money at the rate of thirty thousand a year for the past five years. There is no sense in looking like that, Gwyn. I have been guilty of no crime. On the few occasions when you have won money, you have been paid. Your losses would not have been so distasteful if they had been made to an unknown man. I took the risk—my luck against yours. When I started, I staked my little fortune—three thousand pounds, won through the years by scrimping and saving. If you had been lucky, I should have been ruined.”

“Instead of which you were lucky—and I am ruined,” said Arthur Gwyn huskily. He was shaken from his accustomed calm. “You are quite right, though it is a little—bewildering.”

He looked curiously at the inscrutable face of his managing clerk, striving to readjust his estimate of a man whom he had looked upon as little more than a superior servant. Then the humour of the position struck him and he laughed.

“If I’m not careful I shall be sorry for myself, and I should hate that, Gilder! So you’re a rich man, eh? What are you going to do with your money?”

Gilder’s eyes did not leave his face.

“I am going to settle down in the country,” he said, “and I am going to marry.”

“Splendid!” There was a note of irony in Arthur Gwyn’s tone. “And who is the fortunate lady?”

It was a long time before the other replied. He stared open-eyed at his sometime master, and then, very deliberately and slowly:

“It is my desire and intention to marry Miss Leslie Gwyn,” he said.

Not a muscle of Arthur Gwyn’s face moved; his colour did not change. But into his eyes came a glare which was malign and devilish. For a second the imperturbable Gilder was scared. Had he gone too far? Both men were learning something that day. Gilder had a momentary view of something that was very ugly and menacing, and then the curtains were drawn and the inner self of Arthur Gwyn vanished in an enigmatic smile.

“That is very interesting and very—enterprising of you, Gilder! Unfortunately, I have other plans.”

He rose leisurely from his chair, walked round the desk and confronted the other, his hands thrust into his pockets.

“What are you prepared to pay for the privilege of being my brother-in-law?” he bantered.

Fabrian Gilder took up the challenge.

“The return of half your betting losses for the past five years,” he said.

Arthur shook his head.

“Not enough,” he smiled.

“The cancellation of four bills,” said Gilder deliberately, “drawn and accepted by Lord Chelford, the acceptance in each case being forged by you.”

Arthur Gwyn staggered back to his desk, his face white and drawn, and Gilder pursued the advantage.

“You didn’t think it was an accident that I suggested you should get Chelford to back a bill for you, did you? Seventy-five thousand pounds isn’t enough for you, eh? I’ll give you this alternative: five years in Dartmoor!”