Читать книгу The Indian Bangle - Fergus Hume - Страница 12

Towards the first week in July two young men were seated in a smoking-carriage on the midday express from Paddington to Reading. They were alone in the compartment, and at the moment there existed between them that peculiar silence of sympathy which can be only the outcome of a perfect friendship. The Jonathan of the pair was slim, tall, and dark, with a military uprightness of bearing, and a somewhat haughty expression on his clean-shaven face. His David was younger in years, but considerably greater in size, and like his namesake of Judah, was ruddy and of a fair countenance. The one was an eager, anxious, highly-strung Celt, with his Irish impulse and impetuosity trained into well-nigh complete obedience by years of experience; the other a phlegmatic Saxon, of small brain and much muscle. Jonathan's nineteenth-century name was Laurence Mallow. David answered to the title of Lord Aldean. They had been tutor and pupil respectively, and they were still fast friends. The elder possessing the stronger and more imperious will, continued to control the younger.

Mallow was not popular, nor did he wish to be so. He chose to be feared rather than loved. He was brilliantly clever, and, therefore, had many admirers; on the other hand, his intolerance of stupidity lost him many friends, so that to his expressed satisfaction he moved more or less isolated amid a crowd of fair-spoken, back-biting acquaintances. And yet perhaps it was a knowledge of the guarded manner in which he was received that made him cling the more to the solitary friend he possessed. People thought and people said that there was but little about good-natured, thick-headed Aldean to attract the brilliant young Irishman. There were those who went so far as to hint that the boy's title and wealth explained all that, albeit Mallow was well-nigh aggressively independent.

Left an orphan with comparatively little money at an early age, he had won prizes and taken scholarships at a great public school, and had maintained himself at Oxford by these early efforts. He left the University with a full brain and empty pockets, and he had undertaken the tutorship of Aldean to gain breathing-time while he cast around him for choice of a career. When Aldean came of age, Mallow left him, a fair enough scholar and an admirable athlete, and went himself to London. He became a journalist and a power with his pen. He attached himself to a weekly publication of high aim and small circulation, conducted by a genius who had failed to profit by his pen because he could not write obviously enough for the taste of the general public.

Mallow became one of the props of this journal. When it failed, by reason of its too lofty aims, he went to India to write letters about the incomprehensible East, for a newspaper. A while after he returned, and published a novel which was much condemned and widely circulated. At the present time, having netted a few hundreds out of the book, he was going down to Casterwell to stay with Aldean, and to renew his friendship with Olive Bellairs, whom he loved ardently, though--knowing full well that she was engaged to a certain Mr. Carson--hopelessly, in his own peculiar, wrong-headed way.

Aldean, who was now twenty-four, and as good-naturedly stupid as ever, was in truth more akin to Goliath than to David. He was a gigantic son of Anak, considerably over six feet in height, and as wide as a church door. He was sparing of his words, and he usually assented to whatever was said to him as the safest way out of an argument. But in spite of his lack of conversation, and the rareness with which he gave expression to such ideas as he possessed, he had a fund of shrewd common sense, which, in his position, was worth far more to him than genius would have been. It was with all his heart and soul that he admired Mallow, and the very naiveté with which he would express his admiration endeared him to the young Irishman. Habitually Mallow's tongue was razor-like in its acerbity, but Aldean--though he took full advantage of the friendship between them, and spoke pretty plainly when he judged his lordship deserved correction--he invariably spared where he would have spared none else. They had indeed established their friendship on a very durable basis, by the extremely simple process of shutting their eyes to one another's faults and opening them very wide to one another's virtues. The young Irishman had his brilliant flashes of silence. It was on these occasions that he found Aldean so agreeable a companion--in fact, the boy was as a pet dog to Mallow; agreeable company, and not given to criticism.

"Aldean!"

"Eh yes, what?" asked his lordship, looking up from Ally Sloper.

"Have you read the account of this Athelstane Place murder?"

"Yes--fellow killed with a knitting-needle, isn't it?"

"Yes, thrust into the heart--devilish queer case. The Morning Planet seems to think the unfortunate beggar came from India."

"Who told the 'M.P.' so?"

"No one, apparently; it is a theory based on the fact that the man's clothes smelled of sandal-wood."

"Bosh! there's plenty of sandal-wood in England."

"No doubt; but Englishmen are not by way of scenting their clothes with it. I shouldn't be surprised to find that the Planet was right. At all events it's some sort of clue."

Aldean shook his head. "I thought you said it was a theory?"

"So it is; but a theory may develop into a clue," retorted Mallow, lighting another cigarette. "If only I had the time, there is nothing I would like better than to follow up a case like this."

"Well, surely you have the time?"

"I have not; I am giving you what spare moments I have."

"You are--now. But at Casterwell Miss Bellairs, I guess, will see a good deal more of you than I shall. The moth and the candle, eh?"

"Not at all, Aldean; your simile is quite inapt. I am not a moth, neither can Miss Bellairs be compared to a candle. She is not the kind of girl to scorch any poor butterfly that flutters round her."

"All right, old chap, you needn't take one quite so seriously. But as you do, I may as well be serious too. Do you know I am thinking of getting married?"

"No; that's news to me. And whom do you intend to honour so far, may I ask?"

"Miss Ostergaard, if she concurs." Aldean heaved a huge sigh. "By George! she's a ripping girl."

"Certainly, you might do worse," replied Laurence, musingly. "She's a very good girl, and clever too. Does she reciprocate?"

"I don't know; she laughs at me."

"That may be just her method of showing her affection. She will be hard to please if she is not satisfied with a titled Hercules like you."

"Oh, I don't think she bothers in the least about the title," said his lordship, dolefully, "she is quite a radical, a--a--what do you call it--Anarchist, you know. Dr. Drabble has been converting her. He's a proselytising beast, that Drabble."

"Oh, that's all rubbish. 'In the spring a young girl's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love'--not anarchy."

"But it isn't spring," said the literal Aldean, "and Miss Ostergaard isn't the girl to marry for rank."

"Then make love to her properly, and she'll marry you for love."

"I wish I could; but I'm not a clever chap like you, Mallow."

"My dear boy, I'm not clever; on the contrary, I'm a fool--a perfect fool, for do I not love Miss Bellairs like an idiot, when all the while I know well she is going to marry this Carson man from India?"

"So she is; that's queer," said Aldean, reflectively.

"Queer! how do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing, old man. I am thinking of this murder case; and the fact of both men coming from India struck me, that's all. You see Carson's just on his way home now."

"Is he? I didn't know that," said Mallow, alertly.

"Yes; Miss Slarge--you know, the Babylonian, mark-of-the-beast woman--told me that her sister in Bombay had written Carson was on his way home by the P. and O. liner Pharaoh."

"The Pharaoh arrived some time back," said Mallow, gloomily. "He must be at Casterwell by this time."

"He was not there two days ago when I ran up to town."

"Well, it must be quite two weeks since the Pharaoh arrived. What an ardent lover the chap must be. I wish I stood in his shoes, that's all. I wouldn't let the grass grow under them on the way to my 'own true love'--not that Miss Bellairs can strictly be said to stand in that relation to a man she has never set eyes upon. The very fact that she has to marry him should be sufficient to make her hate him."

"By Jove! What a rum go it would be if Carson turned out to be the man murdered in Athelstane Place!"

Mallow stared. "What on earth put such a wild idea into your head?" he said.

"I don't know; nor do I know why you should be so ready to call it wild. The man who was killed came from India--as you say----"

"I don't say so. It is the theory of the Morning Planet."

"It is just possible that it might be Carson, seeing that he hasn't turned up at Casterwell," continued Aldean, not heeding Mallow's interruption.

"Really, Jim, I didn't credit you with such a vivid imagination."

"Oh, of course it's merely an idea, Mallow. But what strikes me is that if Carson arrived two weeks ago, he certainly ought to have put in an appearance at Casterwell before this, if only out of curiosity to see his future wife."

"My dear fellow, Carson may need a kit before he calls on Miss Bellairs. He surely would wish to create a good impression, and I don't suppose he would present himself in sandal-wood scented clothes."

"I never said he would. But even so, that wouldn't take him a fortnight."

Mallow leaned back and pinched his chin reflectively. He had no great faith in his friend's prognostications, still he could not help being struck by the suggestion coupling Carson with the victim of Athelstane Place. It was certainly queer that this man from India should be two weeks in England without fulfilling the very object for which his journey had been made. He had arrived in the Pharaoh on the 24th of June the murder had been committed on the 26th, yet so far he had not presented himself at Casterwell. The prime facts certainly coincided. It was very odd; Mallow could not deny that.

"But the idea is incredible," he said aloud. "Hundreds of men arrive from India every week; besides, Carson never was in England in his life--Miss Bellairs told me so. Why should he be murdered immediately on his arrival--where was the motive? You have found a mare's nest, Jim."

"I dare say," replied Aldean, stolidly: "it's a bare idea."

"A very wild and a very absurd one, my boy. There is nothing to connect the sandal-wood man (as you call him) with Carson."

"Perhaps not, Mallow. But if Carson does not turn up soon I shall begin to think that my idea is not so ridiculous as you say."

"If he does not turn up," repeated Mallow with emphasis, "that's just it, but he will turn up if it is only to take from me the only girl I ever really cared about--a trite saying no doubt, but a true one in this case."

"Every fellow says the same thing," said Aldean, as the train slowed down into Reading Station. "Here we are."

Casterwell lies--as every one knows or should know, seeing that it is one of the prettiest villages in the home counties--amongst the Berkshire hills, some ten miles from Reading. Lord Aldean's cart was waiting for himself and his friend. Mallow walked leisurely out of the station into the sunshine, and watched the porter transfer his portmanteau to Aldean's groom. Whilst he was standing on the edge of the pavement a plump little man, rosy in face and neat in dress, stopped short before him. He carried a black bag, but dropped this to hold out a friendly hand to Mallow.

"Well, well," he chirped, just like an amiable robin; "and who would have thought of seeing you here, Mr. Mallow? You're here on business, I presume?"

"I have come down to stay with Lord Aldean at Casterwell, Mr. Dimbal," replied Mallow, graciously.

"Miss Bellairs' busi---- Ah, here is his lordship. How d'ye do, my lord? On the road to Casterwell, eh? I'm going there myself."

"To see Miss Bellairs, did you say?" asked Mallow, impatiently. "There's nothing wrong, I hope?"

"Good gracious, no. Why should there be anything wrong?"

"Why, indeed," said Aldean, laughing. "Lawyers and wrong never go together."

"Ha, ha! very good, my lord; but we are a much-maligned profession. No, Mr. Mallow, nothing is wrong with Miss Bellairs. On the contrary, everything is very right. I bring her the good news that Mr. Carson has arrived."

"Oh," said Mallow, with a glance at Aldean, "have you seen him?"

"Yes, he called yesterday at my office, and to-morrow he comes to Casterwell to see his future wife. Well, well; good-day, good-day, I see my fly, I must be off. Good-day, Mr. Mallow; my lord, good-day," and the little lawyer bustled off.

"So Carson isn't the sandal-wood man, after all," observed Aldean.

"No, God forgive me! I wish he were," replied Mallow, and frowned.