Читать книгу Craven Fortune - Fred M. White - Страница 8

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THE little man nodded briskly as he spoke. His tone was gossipy and trivial, yet at the same time there was a ring in it that sounded ominous. He watched Wilfrid place the glove in his pocket approvingly, though Wilfrid would have been at a loss to say what use that dainty article was likely to be to him.

"I dare say you are wondering who I am," the stranger said. "Don't let that trouble you. In any case I am no enemy and it may be that I shall prove to be a very good friend. But I have no desire to waste your time. Morrison will be back soon and if there is anything that you want, I advise you to take it without delay."

Wilfrid drew a sigh of relief. Whoever the man was, he had not guessed why the amateur burglar had come back.

"You are very good and I am much obliged to you," he said. "I have already done what I wanted to do and there is no reason why I should stay longer. As to the glove----"

"As to the glove, keep it. Believe me, it will be of the greatest advantage to you. But I would not let Morrison find you here on his return. He told you that he was not coming back to-night, but that was not true. Allow me to show you out and fasten the door behind you. You made more noise in getting in than you imagined; hence my appearance on the scene. It is lucky I was not ill-disposed towards you."

Wilfrid smiled, having nothing particular to say. He was quite content to take the little stranger at his word, feeling that he was no friend of Morrison's. At all events he had succeeded in smuggling Freda into the house. His mind was much easier as he walked down the drive into the road once more, taking care to pursue a roundabout way into Middlesworth so that he might not meet Morrison. The town hall clock was striking one as Wilfrid reached his rooms. There was a light in the sitting-room, but he thought nothing of that. Presumably his landlady had gone to bed, forgetting to lower the gas.

Wilfrid let himself in with his latchkey, feeling in no mood for sleep. He had done a foolish and cowardly thing, and he could not get it out of his mind. What was he going to say to Frank Saxby? he asked himself a score of times. His old friend could not be ignored. So it was with a feeling of blunted surprise that Wilfrid saw the very man in question seated in his armchair smoking a cigarette. Saxby rose and extended a hand that Wilfrid pretended not to see. To shake hands with the man whom he had betrayed suggested a policy of Judas.

"Surprised to see me?" Saxby laughed. "Fact is I got my business in London finished much earlier than I expected, so I returned by the last train. It seems very selfish of me, but that sword of Damocles impelled me to come to you at once. I suppose that it's all right?"

"You mean in the matter of the loan I promised you?" Wilfrid said dully.

The story would have to be told here and now; there was nothing to gain by putting it off, which would be more cowardly still. And yet it was very hard with that smiling, anxious face before him. These two had been friends for years; they had shared rooms together in London whilst each was studying for his profession; they had few secrets from one another. Wilfrid turned his head away and groaned aloud.

"What's the matter?" Saxby asked anxiously. "Anything wrong? I'm such a beastly selfish fellow, never thinking of anybody but myself. You've lost your money, Wilfrid, old boy?"

The temptation to prevaricate was strong, but Wilfrid resisted it. It would have been easy to invent some plausible story with so good an opening as Frank Saxby had given him. But then Freda knew the truth and Freda had tried to make good the loss. How hard she had tried, Wilfrid had yet to learn when the story of her strange conduct that evening came to be told. Wilfrid motioned his friend to a chair and sat down opposite.

"I am going to make a very humiliating confession," he said. "I don't know what you will think of me when you hear the story. I got that money out of the bank intending to give it to you to-morrow. After the cheque was cashed, I hesitated to leave the money here because there have been so many mysterious robberies in Middlesworth lately. I was going to dine with Morrison, so I placed the notes in a case in my pocket."

Saxby listened with simulated indifference. He did not quite know what was coming, but he felt sure that the money was lost. He nodded encouragingly.

"Bentley was there," Wilfrid went on. "He was rude and overbearing as usual. He was rude about Freda, whom he greatly admires. He did his best to provoke a quarrel. I evaded that, but then he taunted me with my poverty and suggested that I could not play bridge for proper stakes. I lost my head and my temper. Can you guess what happened?"

Saxby nodded. It was very hard to control his feelings, but he managed it. He had no claim on Bayfield, who had merely promised to lend him a certain sum of money. Still, he was face to face with ruin and the thought haunted him.

"I fancy I can guess," he said. "The gambling was high and you had shocking bad luck. In such circumstances one always does have shocking bad luck."

"Bad luck and Jackson for a partner. The money was gone almost before I knew what had happened. I suggested a cheque to Bentley, for I thought of you before it was quite too late, but the fellow was so rude I had to pay over the cash. I'm dreadfully sorry, Frank; it is a most humiliating confession, but there it is. If you can show me any way to----"

Wilfrid stopped, feeling unable to go farther.

"I'm afraid there is no way out of it, old boy," said Frank quietly. "It is the kind of accident that might happen to anybody. Bentley must wait. He has managed to get an inkling of the truth and thinks he is going to get me under his thumb. There is some rascally business between him and Stephen Morrison, and I should like to get to the bottom of it. I fancy there is some intention to make a tool of me. That would not suit me, if only because I should be thrown over and ruined directly I had served Bentley's purpose. That money must be found."

"But how?" Wilfrid asked uneasily. "If there is anything that I can do----"

"My dear fellow, there is nothing that you can do beyond giving me your sympathy. There is one desperate chance and I am going to take it to-night."

"What are you going to do?"

"I am going to see James Everton, Freda's uncle. Not her uncle really, you know. James Everton is actually cousin to Freda's father. Calls him uncle for short, I suppose. But, of course, you know all about the relationship. As I daresay you've heard, the old man never goes to bed, at least that is the popular belief in Middlesworth. Freda and myself are the only people who are ever allowed in the house. He is a close-fisted, grasping old miser, but there is good in the man if you can only distil it out."

"How did you manage to get into his good graces?" Wilfrid asked.

"Oh, that was more or less of an accident. Some old ledgers came into my hands in the way of business and I found that there was money due to James Everton. I paid it over to him out of the estate of a man who left no heirs, and Everton was pleased to compliment me on what he called my honesty. He seemed to think that I might have kept the money and nobody been any the wiser. Probity in a lawyer struck him as a singular thing. Everton was pleased and asked me to go and see him when I had nothing better to do."

"You mean that he is a friend of yours?" said Wilfrid.

"My dear fellow, nobody could possibly be a friend of James Everton," Frank smiled. "I have been once or twice in that cottage of his and a more dreadful muddle you never saw in your life. I always take the old man a cigar or two, which he is fond of, though he says he can't afford to smoke unless somebody gives him a weed. I'm going down now to see James Everton and to ask him to lend me the money at a fair rate of interest. It is possible he may consent."

Wilfrid listened doubtfully. James Everton's reputation was by no means high in Middlesworth. But there was just a chance of Frank Saxby succeeding.

"Could you manage to let me know after you have seen Everton?" Wilfrid asked. "I know it's out of your way, especially as you have three miles to walk to your diggings. But I shall be very anxious to know whether or not you have succeeded in----"

"My dear fellow, I'm not going into the village to-night," Frank interrupted. "It's too late and I have an appointment early in the morning. I came to beg a shake down for the night, on the sofa, anywhere."

It was by no means the first time that this had happened, so that Wilfrid had no objection to raise. He had not the faintest desire to go to bed yet, so he would smoke a pipe until Frank returned from his very uncertain errand.

It was not a pleasant pipe that Wilfrid smoked after his friend had departed. The more he thought over the situation the more bitterly did he blame himself. A word in season would have changed everything. His false pride had precipitated this trouble; it had resulted in placing Frank Saxby in a very dangerous position, in the loss of Freda's jewel, and in risking her reputation with the Morrisons. That Freda had run further risk for the sake of her lover and the fulfilment of his promise Wilfrid did not doubt for a moment. He wondered where she had been and how she had managed to get herself in that mess. No doubt the girl would tell him in due course.

But for the moment this was not the point. The great thing was the salvation of Frank Saxby. He had gone off on a wild goose chase. It seemed horrible, he thought, that so good a friend should be ruined and so bright a career shattered by a man like Bentley. And yet the latter seemed to have matters entirely in his hands. Wilfrid was still painfully pondering the matter when there came a gentle tap at the front door. It might be a patient, a suggestion that Wilfrid was disposed to entertain favourably; action was better than sitting there brooding over his own selfish folly. He hurried to the door.

A ragged outcast stood there with a letter in his hands. There were plenty of vagrants of his class in Middlesworth, people without a home, and Wilfrid recognized the type at a glance. Probably the man had been sent to him by some distant patient and rewarded with a few coppers for his pains. The man touched his hat civilly enough.

"A gentleman gave me this for you," he said. "He came out of a cottage and asked me to bring this to you. He said as how when you got it, you would perhaps give me a sixpence, sir."

"Let's see if it is worth the money first," Wilfrid smiled. "Wait a moment."

He tore open the envelope and glanced hastily at its contents. His face changed slightly, but he took sixpence from his pocket and tossed it to the tramp blinking on the doorstep.

"Here you are, my man," he said. "There is no answer. Good night."

The door closed, but Wilfrid did not return to the sitting-room. On the contrary he put his boots on again and took down an overcoat. The letter was from Saxby, written on a scrap of note-paper and enclosed in a flimsy envelope of the cheapest kind.

"Something very wrong here," Frank had written in pencil. "I'm scribbling in Everton's cottage. I'd like you to come here as soon as you get this. Walk straight in and don't say a word of what you are doing to anybody."

There was an ominous ring about the message that Wilfrid did not like. The curt restraint made the matter all the more suspicious. With rapid strides Wilfrid made his way to the little cottage in Martin's Lane. There was a light burning in the window, and without knocking at the door Wilfrid walked in.

There was only one sitting-room and that was in the most utter confusion. Books and papers were scattered about everywhere; on a table stood the remains of a meal; and plates and knives and forks that had not been cleaned for months. A safe in one corner stood open and from it protruded a heavy mass of blue papers tied up with red tape. It seemed impossible to imagine that any man with a well-ordered mind could have lived there.

"Are you upstairs, Frank?" Wilfrid asked in a cautious whisper.

A voice from above replied in the affirmative and Wilfrid went up the dirty stairs. One bedroom was empty, but the other held a bed with a dirty coverlid, a chair and a broken chest of drawers, on which stood a fragment of looking-glass.

On the bed a white figure lay with the head thrown well back and the coverlid drawn up to the chin. Wilfrid started as he looked at the face.

"Dead," he said. "That man is dead. Let me examine."

Wilfrid paused as he pulled down the coverlid. He had touched something dark and sticky. The expression of his face turned to a look of sternness.

"Blood," he said curtly. "Blood! There has been foul work here."