Читать книгу The Ends Of Justice - Fred M. White - Страница 4

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The hoarse voice of the commissioner coming like the croak of a raven out of the foggy gloom had signified the hour of adjournment but the prisoner in the dock had heard nothing strange. He was too deeply wrapped up in the amazing drama that had been played to himself as the sole audience. But others had not failed to heed.

The bar had noticed it, and were discussing the matter eagerly. A few of the more thoughtful spectators marvelled as they took their way home-wards. And Lockwood Mostyn smiled as he shuffled out of court in his peculiar cat-like fashion. Men made way for him, others touched their hats to the capitalist, but he pushed by all of them. The smile on his dark features deepened. A little way down sleepy High-street a seedy-looking man, who might have been a broken-down professional man of some kind, was lounging. As Mostyn passed, the seedy man looked up with an inquiring eye.

"Yes," Mostyn muttered, "Sir Cyril is in his private room at the Courthouse. See him at once and serve the writ upon him. Then come to my house between six and seven."

The seedy man nodded and quickened his footsteps. Mostyn passed on with the air of a man who, on the whole, is pleased with his day's work.

He had a well-sounding, good old English name, but there was little of the Anglo-Saxon in Mostyn's blood. His jaw was heavy, and his face determined, but his thick lips and dark, beady eyes proclaimed the fact that Mostyn was not far remote from a Russian Jew. He was reputed to stand fairly high in the world of finance; he lived in great style at Lewton, which was within an hour of the city, and amongst a certain set he was regarded as a coming man. As to his antecedents, nobody knew or cared anything. He was one of the mysterious flowers in the garden of finance that occasionally grows into a strong plant, and just as occasionally withers away in a gaol. If Mostyn had one particular line, it was shipping.

"I must tighten the cord a little," Mostyn muttered as he walked along. "Bath has not quite the grit I gave him credit for. The fool was very near to the rocks this morning. I'll drop into the club and send him an ultimatum to come and dine with me to-night."

Meanwhile, Sir Cyril Bath had flung off his robes and wig, and was lying back in his chair with a white face and eyes that told of strange mental anguish. The usually strong man had been greatly moved by something. Unsuccessful rivals said that Sir Cyril Bath had no heart and no feeling. In ten years he had jumped from almost the outer bar into a judgeship. And there was no more miserable man in England at that moment. He saw and heard nothing, not even the loud, impatient knocking on the door. Then a handle was turned, and a seedy-looking man, with a faint, apologetic smile, crept in.

"Sorry to disturb you, my lord," he said. "But I was bound to give you this. Thank you, my lord. I wish your lordship good-day."

The man slipped silently away. Bath took up the oblong slip of paper. He opened it with something like a curse on his lips. It was a writ for nearly two thousand pounds. With a sudden frenzy of passion he tore the offending document in pieces.

"This will finish it," he groaned. "Well, there will be a pretty scandal at the bar, and a vacancy for some of those hungry fellows. Speculation, and betting, and moneylenders! A fitting epitaph for the grave of a man who aspired to be Lord Chancellor. Well!"

A porter came in with a letter, a note from Mostyn, asking, or rather commanding, Sir Cyril to dine with him that night. Perhaps Mostyn could find some way out of the difficulty. His lordship never dreamt that Mostyn had deliberately brought it about.

"My compliments to Mr. Mostyn, and I shall be very pleased," he said. "Send over to Langdean Cross for my dress clothes, and tell them to send a brougham over to bring me to Langdean Cross not later than midnight. My man is to come to the judge's lodgings."

As a matter of fact, Bath's country house was close to Lewton, a fine old place where he spent as much time as possible. For Sir Cyril was ambitious, he hoped to marry some day and found a county family. But for the expensive luxury of Langdean Cross things might have been fairly prosperous with him.

But Cyril Bath was in no mood to think of that for the present. He crossed moodily over to the judge's lodgings, where he had tea, and where he waited for his man to come and dress him for dinner. A little after seven be passed jauntily into the streets, and walked in the direction of Mostyn's house. There were many people who recognised him, and saluted him respectfully for the great and powerful, envied man that he was. Bath smiled bitterly. If those people only knew!

He came at length to Mostyn's resplendent place, with its mock Gothic lodge, its sheets of glittering glass, and its showy furniture. It was all very costly, and garish and overpowering, loud with the flavor of wealth, and varnished with the gloss that Mostyn's soul loved.

The costly, loud vulgarity of the drawing-room was chastened and toned by the wealth and beauty of the flowers there. Even the parvenu cannot debase flowers. It is impossible to have too many of them anywhere. Half-a-dozen pink-shaded lamps gave repose to the room, and toned down the pictures and the garish statuary. Evidently a feminine hand and a dainty feminine mind had been at work here. Sir Cyril looked round approvingly.

There was just the suggestion of a silken whisper, and a girl rose from a low seat by the fire. This was Mostyn's niece, Russet Ray. Nobody had ever got to the bottom of the relationship, and nobody really believed it. For Russet was gentle, and sweet, and refined, a genuine English girl with a complexion of milk and roses, and a pair of grey eyes that glowed in her face like the clear surface of a summer lake. The little mouth was firm and resolute, the low, broad forehead told of a mental power and intelligence beyond the common.

"How are you, Sir Cyril?" she asked in the sweetest possible voice. "And how is Grace? She has not been to see me for quite a time."

"I believe my ward is very well," the judge replied. "So long as she is at Langdean Cross she is perfectly happy. Most girls of her age always long for London. Where is your uncle?"

Mostyn, resplendent in glossy linen and diamond studs, solved the conundrum by appearing at the same moment. A magnificent specimen of the butler tribe stood in the doorway with the announcement that dinner was served.

The dinner was long and elaborate, a repast worthy of Lucullus. The table glittered with plate and linen and crystal, a garish display softened and chastened by the banks of feathery ferns and flowers. Everything was redolent of wealth: you could imagine the master of it all signing cheques for millions with less effort than a child over a copybook. Sir Cyril sat there quiet and moody, eating little and drinking a deal of champagne. Russet rose from her chair at length.

"I have ordered coffee in the billiard-room," she said, "where I shall leave you to talk the business you both like so much. As for me, business seems a horrid thing. But I am only a girl."

She passed out with a little laugh. Her face grew hard and grave as she found herself alone. She crept into the billiard-room, and from thence in to the dark green heart of the winter garden beyond, leaving the glass door slightly open behind her. There she sat with the air of one who listens. She had come on purpose.

Mostyn came swaggering and whistling into the billiard-room, followed by his guest. He switched on an extra electric light or two.

"Give me plenty of light," he said. "Have a cigar? Here's your coffee, and the liqueur stand is behind you. You've had a nasty jar to-day."

"It was a bit of a shock," Bath muttered. "I never expected it. I had come to Lewton to-day to take the place of my learned brother, Judge Denham. The sudden illness of his wife, you know."

Mostyn nodded and chuckled. There was a demoniac grin on his face, a look of cunning in his dark eyes.

"I knew what you had to face," he said. "And you didn't come out of it well, Bath; you're not the man I took you for."

"My good friend, if I had been recognised—"

"Pooh! There was no chance of that. Who could possibly mistake the most learned Commissioner Bath in his wig and spectacles for the reckless, rollicking—but no matter. All's well that ends well."

"But will it end well?" asked Bath, as he pulled moodily at his cigar. "Fancy me sitting there trying the very man—"

"Who put the Lone Star away," Mostyn growled. "The case is as clear as daylight; as clear as—"

"Mostyn, a blacker conspiracy against an innocent man—"

"You chattering fool!" Mostyn hissed. "Harden your heart; send him to gaol. Give him as long a term as possible—say, twenty years. A few weeks ago it was a toss-up whether we sank or swam. If I hadn't laid the plant for Cathcart, who would have stood in his place? If that cur of a Powell hadn't funked it and committed suicide, not one breath of the story would ever have become public property. And when the facts began to leak out, somebody had to suffer. And it won't be the first time that an innocent man has had to suffer. You're not going to back out now."

"It's a fearful position for a man to be in."

"Better than being in gaol," Mostyn said pointedly. "Look here, Bath. You are in a pretty tight place, and it will take all our skill to get out of it. We are both in need of money—"

"I—well, you know pretty well how I stand. And I've just been served with a writ for two thousand pounds. I've got eight days. My God! I'm afraid to think what will come at the end of that time."

Mostyn nodded. The information of this new crisis was no news to him. As a matter of fact, he had engineered it for his own ends.

"I daresay I can manage that for you," he said. "Nothing like push and audacity. Look at my house, my pictures, my jewellery. Every stick of it is mortgaged, not a bottle of wine paid for. Why, I am in debt for the very socks I wear. And out of the hundreds of pounds I owe in Lewton there is no tradesman who dares ask for his money. If they suggest payment, I bully them, and then give them large orders. And they charge me forty per cent. extra, and chuckle over the idea they are doing me. Well, if it turns out trumps they will be paid; if not, serve the greedy rascals right. But I'm not going to fail. My courage and audacity will pull me through, and you and I are going to be two of the richest men in England. We shall live to have many a laugh over this business."

But Sir Cyril shook his head moodily. Mostyn had nothing to lose. If he came to grief he could start again. Whereas the other bulked large in the public eye, he stood on a lofty pedestal, and if he fell he fell like Lucifer, never to rise again. Bankruptcy was bad enough, but only Bath knew what a disgraceful bankruptcy his would be.

"It's all very well," he muttered. "You and I have been in some queer schemes together, but none of them ever turned out well. The Lone Star business was to put one hundred thousand pounds in our pockets, instead of which we lose our original outlay and narrowly escape—"

"But we haven't lost it yet, man," Mostyn cried impatiently. "We have only to lie low and do the dignified, and the underwriters must pay in time. And your name does not appear in the business at all. It was no fault of mine that Cathcart turned traitor for his own ends, but merely a coincidence. If you will only be a man, all will be well yet, and you will finger your fifty thousand pounds before the year is out."

Bath rose and paced the room with agitated strides.

"If I only could," he muttered. "If I had that money I should be free of all the anxiety and trouble that is slowly crushing the life out of me. I should be able to look the whole world in the face instead of a disgraceful finish that would be a record in the history of the bench of judges. And never would I be tempted to speculate again."

"Not till the next time," Mostyn sneered. "You're a pretty fine lot, because you've never been found out, at least, hardly ever. But there was Judge Jefferies, and Bacon, and Walpole, and one or two more who weren't exactly angels in their way. A judge is only a man after all. If you like to fight it out you may dine in the House of Lords, or if you lie down to it you may peg out in a gutter. I've got a little plan—"

Bath groaned aloud. He hastily poured out a glass of brandy and tossed it down his parched throat. Mostyn watched him uneasily and with some contempt.

"That's not the way," he said significantly. "There's only one finish for a man who starts bracing himself up with brandy. How long can you give me?"

"An hour or more," said Bath. "I sleep at Langdean Cross to-night. My brougham comes for me at midnight. What's that noise?"

There was no noise beyond the stirring of a leaf in the conservatory. Russet crouched closer and held her breath.

* * * * *

A big clock was striking the hour of midnight as Sir Cyril slipped into his brougham. A cold stream of air came from the direction of the conservatory. The further door leading into the garden had been open for this half-hour past. A woman by the outer gate darted in the direction of Lewton High-street. The big, old-fashioned brougham lumbered along with Bath inside. He seemed to be half asleep, as was the red-faced coachman on the box. Neither of them appeared to see anything. They did not see the solitary figure of a man lounging in the shadow of the gaol. They did not see the figure dart out and swing itself on the bar behind the brougham; they had no knowledge of the white-faced, tight-lipped burden they were carrying into the heart of the night.