Читать книгу The Iron Stair - Eliza Margaret Humphreys - Страница 6

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AUBREY FITZJOHN DERRINGHAM accepted another invitation to the Daniel Schultzes' in the hopes of again meeting Joshua Myers. It was to a Sunday luncheon, and Mrs. Schultze was posing as a devoted mother for the benefit of an effete Dukelet, whom she had purloined for the occasion.

The usual luxury, the usual perfection of food and service gave the usual advertisement of successful Jewish finance. The Dukelet, a youth of twenty-two, who was an impoverished and fatherless orphan, seemed to have fallen an easy prey to the beautiful Miriam. He had appraised her charms as scarcely secondary to Gertie Ellerslie, of musical comedy fame, but her conversation as vastly inferior. The girl was too well educated for flippancy; her slang had a touch of epigram.

Aubrey Derringham shelved his young Grace by his usual cool method of appropriation. He learnt that Myers was expected to drop in either to lunch, or after.

"He nearly always comes to us on Sundays," said Miriam. "How did you get on?" she added.

"He is interesting," said Aubrey, "and very clever. I should think he had a career before him."

"Oh—that of course!" said his cousin. "K. C. and then—Judgeship. It's all on the cards. Are you interested in politics, Mr. Derringham?"

"I can't say I am."

"But your brother is in the House. I read a speech of his not long ago."

"He'd be flattered I'm sure," said Aubrey. "It's more than I've ever done. Politics are only another word for self-seeking. No politician can afford a larger outlook on national demands than his party permits. Besides—they make you feel that life is a mere table of statistics, and men and women mere decimal fragments of parliamentary arithmetic."

The girl laughed. "It sounds clever, but it's rather cruel. I am an Imperialist at heart, and I like to think the legislators of the country do their best for its honour and welfare."

"We all like to think that," he agreed. "But very few of us believe it. Ah, there is your cousin!"

The Dukelet seized the opportunity, and took the seat his temporary rival had vacated.

"Fancy your talking to a political Johnnie," he remarked facetiously, and his eyes followed Aubrey in wide amazement. "Why—it's a man he's left you for!"

"Don't crush me," said Miriam. "And don't fancy I mind being left—for such a man."

"Who is he?" asked the youth. "Looks——"

"Jewish? You'd better say it. I know it was in your mind. He is a cousin of mine, and on the way to achieve great things." She rose, "Mother's going down now. Will you come?"

"May I sit next you?"

"If you wish. But I warn you 'the political Johnnie' will be on the other side."

She threw him a glance which he translated as the "glad eye," and said a word to Myers and to Aubrey which placed them next each other and near herself.

It was a very brilliant luncheon, for Mrs. Schultze was a very clever woman and dispensed popularity, as well as attracted it. Finance was, of course, represented in its heaviest and most enterprising aspect; the very courses breathed out "shekels," but plutocratic importance was so much the trend of the age that even the young Dukelet was ready to promise his name to a Board of Directors.

Aubrey Derringham found the rising barrister an even more delightful companion than at their last meeting. On that occasion his pride had been overshadowed by an unsuccessful case. To-day he was brimming over with the importance of a brilliant achievement on some technical point that promised an infinitude of "briefs." It was not easy to bring him down to the level of prison life, its rigours, and its deeply hidden mysteries. But Aubrey had come for a purpose, and worked for it manfully.

It surprised him a little when after one of his questions, Myers showed a sudden change of front. He took the subject right out of his questioner's hands, went into it, summed up wrongs and rights, errors and possibilities. Then—it was as if he laid it flat and clean on the table before him, and said, "Now, do you mind telling me why you want to know all this?"

Aubrey was rather taken aback. The question was so direct, the brilliant eyes so penetrating.

"'Pon my word," he said, "I hardly know. I happened to take up a book on prison life the other day, and I remembered that I had never seen such a place."

"It's a queer museum of human curiosities. Not a pleasant place, believe me. There's something rather—terrifying, in being confronted by the criminal side of existence. The endeavour to place your fellow-man before your mental vision as an expert in deeds your own mind scarcely conceives as committable. Every tree has a crooked branch. That of life can't expect to be exclusive."

"Do you think reformation possible? I mean is the type the result of environment, or the effects of a wrong system?"

"Both. The upbringing and the sordid misery of one class turn it into a monster fighting for its rights; demanding equal share in the world's good things. It can't argue, it can't reason. It has only a brutal hatred of the better class, a brutal envy of the ease and comfort it doesn't possess; and that it could never do anything but abuse if it did possess. We have had vast cyclonic upheavals; towns and cities destroyed in a moment of nature's fury. I sometimes wish she would turn her attention to our criminal class and their habitat. Sweep them aside, avalanche them, burn them on one gigantic pyre, and leave the world free and clean, and able to breathe peace and good will to a new race."

"But there are innocent victims of the system. Would you give them no chance of repenting?"

"The innocent victim is branded to his life's end by the searing iron of error. The principle of a system is its own worst enemy. It can't afford to condemn what it discovers to be inefficient."

"You'll think I'm unusually pertinacious," said Aubrey. "But I'd like to ask one more question. If you, or some legal official equally responsible, knew that a man was suffering unjustly, knew that this system would have an injurious effect upon his life, would you try to—well, to help him? I mean would it be against your conscience to do it?"

"There you have me," said Myers seriously. "Speaking as an upholder of the majesty of the Law, I could not disobey its orders. Speaking as a man compassionating a fellow-man, I would do my very utmost; even at attendant risks! It's a very serious matter you know, Mr. Derringham——"

"What are you two discussing so gravely?" interrupted Miriam's voice. "You might be conspirators by your appearance! Mr. Derringham, you've been offered orange salad for the past two minutes. If you don't want it, pass it on."

Aubrey apologized, and helped himself to the delicacy in question. After which Miriam demanded his attention, and kept it till her mother gave the signal for departure.

"Come up and smoke on the balcony, it's quite private," she called out. "And it will be more companionable than the sheep-and-goat business."

The invitation meant a general movement for such of the guests as were remaining. Aubrey and Myers were among them. The astute barrister had begun to ask himself what could be the reason for the young man's extraordinary interest in criminal matters. To-day's discussion on prisons, and prison life, following up their previous discussion on Geoffrey Gale's conviction, seemed to hint at something beyond casual interest. Yet Aubrey Derringham had only gone to the Law Courts on chance. He had no personal interest in the forgery case; not even an acquaintance with any of the parties concerned in it.

It seemed odd, but the very oddity attracted Myers. He began to wonder whether Aubrey Derringham had ever done anything that might have brought him into such a position as Geoffrey Gale's? Was there some mystery in the background of his own life?

Queer things lurked behind the respectability of those exclusive chambers in the Albany. Odd stories had circulated; now and then a scandal had leaked out. Sybarite manhood hugged queer company to itself in the seclusion of bachelor freedom. Art had strange ideals, and its followers were not always what the outside veneer pretended. Could it be that his new friend was hovering on the brink of an exploding episode, or inculpated by reason of moral weakness in the meshes of some ghastly secret?

Myers looked at the pale, clear-cut face, the indolent eyes, the air of ease and good breeding so distinctive of Aubrey Derringham. All and each gave denial to any imagining connected with the wild comedies of aristocratic life. Aubrey's own confession had been that of the onlooker, impelled by curiosity, and withheld by indolence. He had lived in the world, watched and shared some of its stage play, but neither fierce grief nor hungry passion had developed the emotional side of his nature. And he was thirty years of age. Thirty—and more interested in a boy's blundering crime than in any woman's charm or loveliness.

Queer. But yet interesting. The fact of its queerness made it that, and Joshua Myers found himself inclined to watch results. This unusual sympathy with purely impersonal matters was a study in that book of human characteristics which daily opened fresh leaves to his ambitious soul.

The wild comedy of life! What revelations it brought, what secrets it held. What untold, and untellable, interest. And each of these meant a stepping-stone to that career he had mapped out. Each was a rung on the ladder of success. His busy mind ascended to imagined heights even as he smoked cigarettes with Aubrey Derringham, and listened to the banalities of the little Duke with whom Miriam Schultze was flirting outrageously.

* * * * * *

The result of Myers' frank revelations showed itself later when Aubrey Derringham found himself the possessor of a letter to the Governor of Portland Prison. Only when he received the permit to go over the huge citadel safeguarding British subjects did he question himself as to its significance. Why visit such a place? Why peer into the inner sanctuary of legal mystery typified by legal penalties? It would not raise his estimate of his fellow-man, it would only introduce him to a certain section of society "under a cloud," and environed by conditions that to the free and law-abiding citizen were incredible hardships.

He discussed the matter with Chaffey, but received little encouragement. As a reformed character the queer valet shunned everything connected with police espionage.

"It'll look different to you, sir," he allowed. "P'raps you'll be surprised at the accommodation, and feedin', and rules. I've heard visitors say we were too well treated; and it was no wonder we tried to get back. Silly talk, sir! No one 'ud ever want to go back, unless life was made too hard for him after he got out."

"I think I'll go to Portland," said Aubrey. "I shall motor down to Weymouth, and put up at a hotel, and go over the prison next morning."

"Will you be wanting me, sir?"

"Can the car be trusted?"

"Certainly, sir. And you'll pass heaps of towns with motor works. No fear of a breakdown."

"All right, then I'll dispense with your services. I suppose," he added carelessly, "you've not heard where that poor young fellow has been sent?"

"Not to Portland, sir."

Aubrey started slightly. "Why did you say that?"

"Beg pardon, sir, no offence. I just happened to hear he was still at the Scrubs, and you're goin' further afield."

"He's been there a month, hasn't he?"

"Yes, sir. Might I take the liberty of adding another bit of information, sir? The curate brother has gone to a parish in South Devon. And he's goin' to be married to the young lady, Miss Jessop, in a few months."

"You've found out that!"

"It came round to me, sir, in a manner o' speaking. I have friends in Manchester, sir."

"I understand. . . You don't happen to know the name of that Devonshire parish, I suppose?"

"I could find out, sir. I rather fancy the uncle put it into one o' them ere Christian papers, as prints sermons, and has queer advertisements."

Aubrey laughed. "It seems that the Non-comformist conscience isn't above a pardonable pride in worldly achievements, or indifferent to secular advantage!"

"You'd like to know the parish, sir?"

"I should. Also, if by your indirect methods you could find out what Miss Jessop is like, and whether this—marriage, is one of inclination it might add to the interest of the story."

"Story, sir?"

"You advised embryo authorship as a reason for my curiosity respecting government offices. It seems to me there is a very fair opening chapter, dating from my visit to the Law Courts. How does it strike you, Chaffey?"

"I never can make out, sir, whether you're laughing, or in earnest. Writing books isn't easy, I should say. I'd leave it to them as has to do it for a living, if I was you, sir."

"Perhaps you're right. Still it isn't every author who gets hold of a human document. Truth is stranger than fiction, you know."

"Stranger, sir, perhaps, but not so pleasant to read about."

"Go and put the car in order," said his master. "And get me a road map. I'll start this afternoon and come back to-morrow night. Take a holiday, Chaffey. You deserve it."

"Thank you, sir. But my life here seems all holiday. There's nothing to tempt me away, sir, unless you'd like me to run up to—Manchester?"

"Why Manchester?"

"I thought, sir, that the young lady, and her intended marriage, had some interest for you?"

"The young lady represents a big black hat, and a loose wave of fair hair. That's all I've seen of her."

"Exactly, sir. But there's more interest in what one doesn't see, than in what one does. Leastwise where women is concerned."

"You're a rip, Chaffey! I shall have to remonstrate seriously with you."

"No, sir. The sex has no attractions for me. I wouldn't exchange your service, sir, not for anything in petticoats."

"Flattering to the sex. But I don't want to put you to the test, Chaffey."

The valet paused at the door. His face was imperturbable as ever.

"Am I to go to Manchester, sir? You didn't say?"

"Go—where you like, man! If it pleases you to play amateur detective, one place is as good as another."

"Not exactly, sir. But having started the matter in London, it seems a pity to drop it. I think I did find a—a object of interest for you, sir, at last."

"Confound you! I'm inclined to wish you hadn't."

"I'm sorry for that, sir. But if I may be excused for reminding you, you sort of put it to me, sir, to do something to rouse you to real things."

"Well, this is real enough. And I suppose having started an interest I must prove whether it will continue interesting?"

"I think it will, sir. I'll go and see to the car myself, if you don't want anything more?"

"All right."

"There's road maps in the writing table drawer, sir, left hand. Weymouth's about a hundred and twenty-eight miles. What time shall the car come round, sir?"

"About two-thirty," answered his master carelessly, as he opened the drawer indicated.

The door closed, and he remained standing there staring at the lines and names of the route indicated. He folded the map again, and for a moment stood looking round his room; its harmonious proportions, its artistic colouring, its generous company of books which filled the low shelves around the walls.

He took a turn up and down, asking himself if he was not a fool to desert such comfort and such company? For in his mind a conviction was growing that the object in life he had so long desired might become more imperative in its demands than at first seemed possible. Yet it struck him as in keeping with his various idiosyncrasies that he should taken up the case of a stranger as more important than the social eccentricities of personal friends.

"Any one would think I was mad," he said, bringing his walk and his reflections to an abrupt halt. "Well—don't scientists say we're all that, on one point or other. I suppose, if I really wished to sift this matter out, I'd go to those relatives of the boy, in Manchester, and find out if there was any animus against him, or any hope of clearing up the mystery? As it is I'm investigating His Majesty's strongholds of crime on a plausible excuse, and with a view to discovering whether the punishment is deserving of the offence!"