Читать книгу The Man Called Gilray - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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Few men connected with the press would find it easy to say how they arrive there, and Philip Temple was no exception to the rule. He had drifted into it naturally, for journalism was a gift, and called for no special training. A story or two written at Cambridge, an article here and there, and, before he knew where he was, Temple had joined the ranks of the free lances.

Within two years of the completion of his university career he was in a good position on the 'Southern Daily Herald.' The work was not hard, the pay was good and Temple had means of his own. He might have been quite comfortable without doing anything, but he liked his profession, and took a pride in it.

Two years before things had been different altogether. Then he looked like losing everything for a time. He certainly lost Elsie Gordon, who became Lady Silverdale about that time, and here, therefore, was the tragedy and great unhappiness of Philip Temple's life. The young people had been sincerely attached to one another, their marriage was practically arranged when Sir John Gordon's smash came, and Lord Silverdale came forward to save the situation.

There were people who did not hesitate to say that Silverdale had engineered the trouble. Certainly the man had nothing to recommend himself beyond his money. He was over fifty, too, and had led a life concerning which the less said the better. His brilliant attainment's had been wasted on dissolute habits. At fifty years of age he was tired of the world, and bitterly cynical. He had fallen in love with Elsie Gordon's bright young beauty, and the nameless charm of face and form that made most of her acquaintances her abject slaves. And when Silverdale set his heart upon anything he got it. He had money and brains and a method absolutely unscrupulous, so than there was no great trouble in getting his own way so far as Elsie was concerned.

There was nothing new about the story—the thing had happened before, and it will happen again so long as man desires a certain woman, and he has no conscience. Silverdale's acquaintances averred that he had been born without one. And no sooner was Elsie his wife than he began to neglect her. It was always a grievance that she cared nothing for him, that he could not get behind her barrier of reserve, that never once had she a smile for him. She had paid her price, and he should not get another farthing. And yet she had smiles and tenderness for others; he had seen the proud beauty of her face relax; he had seen the gleam in her eyes.

Well, she should pay for it, and she did. She paid for it by a thousand bitter tortures that Silverdale knew well how to inflict. He was a "Quilp," with a thin veneer of civilisation. There were times when he disappeared for weeks—Lady Silverdale had not the faintest idea where he was. She had to invent excuses. Still, these were breathing spaces, and she was not ungrateful. Otherwise she would never have been able to stand the strain. And Silverdale was away on one of his mysterious excursions now.

Lady Silverdale had dressed—gone out for the evening. There was a garden fete at the Duchess of Harringay's place in Park-lane, and Lady Silverdale had been bidden to it. From the bottom of her soul she had come to hate all these things; she wanted to get away into the country and rest.

But Silverdale would have none of that. He had bought and paid for his lovely wife, and in a way he was proud of her. He liked other men to see her, to covet her beauty, and to revile him for the possession of what he valued so lightly. This was one of the tortures.

Lady Silverdale pushed her way listlessly through the crowded rooms gay with light and flowers in the direction of the garden. Everything at Harringay House was on the most magnificent scale, for the duchess was a dollar princess, and she had come to Harringay with her hands full of millions.

It had seemed to her a pleasant thing to buy herself a duke, and having done so, she proceeded to fall in love with him. He was a fine specimen, of the clean-lived clean-minded athletic animal, and generously fond of his pretty little wife. Lady Silverdale regarded her with a wistful smile. How was it that some people get everything in the world?

"It's real good of you to come," the duchess said heartily. "You don't care for this kind of thing. I'm not quite so sure that I do myself. Only there are some of the girls from the other side and I want to show them that New York is not the only village in the forest. Guess they're sorry for the time when they used to snub Sadie Macgregor—which was me, dearie. Silverdale here?"

"Silverdale is somewhere up in Norway," Elsie said, hating herself for the lie. At the price of her freedom she could not have said where Silverdale was at that moment. "At least I understand that was where he meant to go. But then you see he is a law unto himself and does not consult me."

With a smile she passed on, with a word for one and another until she came to the garden. She sat there a little apart from the rest, regarding the brilliant scene and the shaded lights in the trees. A footman came up presently with a letter on a tray.

"This was left for you, my lady," he said. "There was no answer."

Lady Silverdale thanked the man in her own generous way, though she glanced indifferently at the note in her hand, but her fingers clutched upon it with a sudden blind passion, the blood was singing in her ears. "Am I never to know a moment's peace and happiness?" she asked herself. "Why does that fiend pursue me like this. If he would only show his hand! If he would only give me a chance! If I only dared to tell Phil Temple?"

Just for a moment the brilliant scene about her was forgotten, she was away in a world of her own. Her twitching fingers grew steady. Presently in a languid way she tore open the envelope, and read it with the faint suggestion of a smile on her lips. A score of curious eyes might be regarding her, and it behoved her to be careful. How much heart breaking misery did all the gilded frivolity cover, she wondered? Were some others here as unhappy as herself?

There were two enclosures in the envelope, one a quarter leaf out from a letter, the sight of which brought the blood flaming into Elsie's cheeks. There was no difficulty in recognising the writing, seeing that it was her own. She could remember the exact circumstances in which every word was written. The words had come from her full heart at the moment when, torn between love and duty, she was hesitating as to whether she should marry Silverdale or not. And the letter had been written to Temple.

There was no harm in it, not a word there that caused her to blush. But it was passionate and headstrong, and prudence had been thrown to the winds. In the hands of some clever lawyer, a terrible significance could be placed upon it.

She read the glaring words again without regret. Why should she not write what she felt? The letter was for Phil Temple's eye alone, and he would understand. It was one of a dozen or more, and she had asked Phil to destroy them. Possibly he was under the impression that he had done so; certainly he had not the slightest idea that they had fallen into other hands.

Blackmail! That was the only word for it. Some cunning scoundrel had stolen those letters, and was blackmailing the writer. His method had something of originality. He took a quarter of a letter at the time, and detached it from the context. He sent it in instalments, and asked so much for it. When that was forwarded another portion of the letter followed. And Lady Silverdale was at her wit's ends for money.

The other enclosure was a typed strip of paper, curtly giving instructions where the money was to be sent.

Never mind about the money, it ran, diamonds will do as well. Send some good stones, the same as you did last time. Only I've got to have something to-night. Do as I tell you, and another quarter of this letter will be posted to you to-morrow. As you know, I always keep my word. A ring, a trinket, anything that you have will do. I knew that you were coming here to-night, and that is why I have made this little arrangement for you. As soon as you get this go as far as the end of the garden till you come to a little summer-house with a sun-dial on one side. Place the bracelet or whatever it is by the right hand of the dial, and leave it there. I shall watch till you go away and then get it. This will do to go on with for the next few days, but next week I am in need of a large sum of money. You will get it on your jewels. And in return for that you shall have a whole letter, cara mia. Now go and do as you are told.

The slip was plain type with no signature. If she could only get hold of this scoundrel, if she could but meet him face to face! But he was far too cunning for that. Every time that he wanted money or jewellery he found some new and ingenious method of getting it without the slightest chance of being tracked. Elsie had tried it once, and had been ignominiously beaten.

Why did she not tell Phil Temple? Why did she lack the courage to do so? And, why did she not defy this rascal, and let him carry out his threat of sending the rest of the letters to her husband? She was playing the part of a coward: she was too much afraid of the consequences.

With a miserable sigh for her own weakness, Elsie slipped off a diamond bangle. It was a costly little toy, and would probably keep the blackmailer quiet for a day or two. But at this rate she would very soon have no jewels left. Her husband might come home at any time, and demand to see the diamonds, and what would he say to her then? What a miserable world it was!

One thing appeared to be fairly plain—the man who had the letters had the entre to good society. It was no cunning thief in the way of a servant who had done this thing. It looked as if the man who wrote the letter had the freedom of Harringay House. It was something in the way of a discovery and something further in that direction than Elsie had ever gone before. Perhaps if she followed on his tracks and hid herself carefully she would get at the truth. And if once she did so, she would not be scrupulous as to her methods of revenge. But she abandoned the idea almost as soon as it entered her mind. Her foe would not be taken in like that.

She was frightened—for the first time in her life she was sorely afraid. There was something in the dark and secret methods of this man that set her heart beating fast. The feeling of utter helplessness was terrible. And it was dreadful to know that she had to comply.

She hid the letter away, and rose from her seat. She passed through the idle, chattering crowd, thankful that nobody detained her. Very few of her own personal friends appeared to be near at the moment. In a listless detached kind of way she threaded her way to the lonely part of the garden indicated by the letter. She could see the sundial looming up in the faint light cast by the lanterns. Doubtless the man she feared was even there watching her with eager, greedy eyes.

She stopped in front of the sundial, and pretended to examine it, the bracelet in her hand. As if the antique object interested her she stepped on to the pedestal, and placed the bracelet on the spot mentioned in the letter. She stepped down again presently, her face a little pale, her limbs trembling. Without so much as a backward look she walked towards the house. A little cry escaped her lips as she saw Philip Temple standing there.

She could see that his face was stern, and his lips white.

"It's no business of mine, of course," he said. "But I should very much like to know why you left your bracelet on the sundial."