Читать книгу Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery - Farjeon Benjamin Leopold - Страница 12

But Dick's nature was too elastic for morbid reflections such as these to hold possession of him for any length of time.

"Come, come, old man," ran again the tenor of his musings, "this sort of thing won't do, you know. What's the use of crying for the moon? Leave that to children. Now where did I leave off? Ah-where Mr. Reginald was a regular visitor at Aunt Rob's house. All that time the name of Boyd was not mentioned by Florence or her parents. Nor did it pass my lips.

"I took service with Mr. Samuel Boyd in order to obtain a clue to his son's suppression of his name. Before I had been with him a week I gauged his character. Devoid of the least sign of generous sentiment, crafty, tricky, mean, overbearing to those in his power, fawning to those above his station from whom he hoped to obtain some advantage-such is the character of this odious man, whose son was then winning, or had won, his way into Florence's heart. If there is any truth in the adage, 'Like father, like son,' what a fate is in store for her! Fervently do I trust that this is not so, though there are tricks of inheritance from which it is impossible to escape.

"Not once did I see Mr. Reginald in his father's house, nor did Mr. Boyd make the slightest reference to him. Had Mr. Boyd any other residence in which he and his son were in the habit of meeting? No-he lived in Catchpole Square, had his meals there, slept there, transacted his business there. Yet his son was in London, within easy distance of him. It was obvious that they were not on friendly terms. I set my wits to work to ascertain the cause, but cautious as I was, I found myself baffled at every turn. Convinced that Mr. Boyd would turn me out of the house the moment his suspicions were aroused, the task I had undertaken proved more difficult than I had anticipated. If I kept secret watch upon him he kept secret watch upon me. That he had no confidence in me is not strange, for he has no confidence in any man. And the cunning tricks he played! He would leave me alone and go downstairs and slam the street door, to make me believe that he had left the house. Then, though not another sound had reached my ears, he would suddenly enter the room, treading like a cat, and with a sly smile on his lips, and his cunning eyes would wander around to assure himself that not an article had been shifted or removed.

"I remained with him three months, and discovered-nothing. During the first two months I did not tell them at home where I was employed, and they teazed me about making a secret of it. A week or so before I left Mr. Boyd's service I fired a shot straight at Mr. Reginald. It was on a Sunday, and we were sitting together, chatting as usual, when I said suddenly, 'I don't see, Aunt Rob, why I should continue to make a mystery of the work I am doing. I am clerk to Mr. Samuel Boyd, of Catchpole Square.' Mr. Reginald flushed up, but I took no notice, and went on to say that I had resolved not to stay much longer in the place-that the pay was miserable, that the kind of business done there was disreputable and execrable, and that Samuel Boyd was one of the trickiest and cunningest fellows in all London; in fact, I gave him the worst of characters, and my only excuse is that he thoroughly deserved it. 'That's another situation thrown up,' said Aunt Rob. 'Oh, Dick, Dick, a rolling stone gathers no moss.' 'Would you advise me to stop with such a man, and gather dirt?' I asked. 'No, I would not,' she answered emphatically. 'That Samuel Boyd must be an out-and-out rascal.' 'He is,' I said. 'You would hardly believe the things I've seen in his office, the pitiless ruin he brings upon people.' Mr. Reginald said never a word; the flush died out of his face, and it turned white. I looked at Florence-no sign upon her face that she knew anything of the man we were speaking of. Here was proof positive that Mr. Reginald had introduced himself under false colours.

"As all Mr. Boyd's other clerks had done, I left at a moment's notice, but I did not give him the opportunity of discharging me. I discharged him. He had played me one of his usual tricks, pretending to leave the house and sneaking in noiselessly behind my back and looking over my shoulder. It happened that, with my thoughts on Florence and Mr. Reginald, I had idly scribbled his name on a piece of paper, Mr. Reginald Boyd. Before I could put the paper away he had seen it. 'Ah,' he said, without any show of passion, 'I have found you out at last, you scoundrel!' 'Scoundrel yourself,' I cried. 'Mr. Samuel Boyd, I discharge you. I've had about enough of you.' 'I've had more than enough of you,' he snarled. 'You came here to spy upon me, did you? You and your Mr. Reginald are confederates, are you, and you wormed yourself into my service in pursuance of some plot against me. I'll prosecute the pair of you for conspiracy.' 'You are a fool as well as a knave, Mr. Samuel Boyd,' I said, laughing in his face. 'As for prosecuting me, shall I fetch a policeman, or will you go for one? I shall have something to tell him that will get into the papers. It will make fine reading.' He turned white at this. 'Go,' he said, throwing open the door. And I went, without asking for the five days' pay due to me, to which, perhaps, I was not entitled as I left him without giving him notice.

"Now, Dick, old man, what is to be done? The straight thing is to speak first to Mr. Reginald himself, and that I'll do before I'm many days older."

Here Dick's meditations came to an end. There were no indications that the fog was clearing, but his service with Samuel Boyd had made him familiar with the neighbourhood, and he threaded his way towards Catchpole Square without much difficulty. He had not met a soul on the road; the streets were quite deserted. "A man could almost fancy," he thought, "that he was walking through the vaults of death." In Shore Street-the backs of the houses in which faced the fronts of the houses in Catchpole Square-he stumbled against a human being who caught him by the arm.

"Who are you when you're at home?" demanded the man. "Here-let's have a look at you. I've had a large dose of shadders to-night; it's a relief to get hold of bone and muscle."

He pulled out his bull's-eye lamp and held it up to Dick's face, who laughingly said, "Well, what do you make of my face? You're cleverer than I am, Applebee, if you can distinguish features on such a night as this."

"Why, if it ain't Mr. Dick Remington!" cried Constable Applebee. "Beg your pardon, sir, but I've been that put out to-night that I can't be sure of anything. If anybody was to say to me, 'Applebee, that head on your shoulders don't belong to you,' I'd half believe him, I would indeed, sir. What with shadders that wouldn't give you a civil answer when you spoke to 'em, and that you could walk right through, and taking hold of flesh and blood that slipped through your fingers like a ghost, to say nothing of the fog, which is a pretty large order-well, if all that ain't enough to worry a night policeman, I'd like to know what is."