Читать книгу A Shadowed Love - Fred M. White - Страница 15

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Martlett lay back dreamily contemplating the loves of the angels as depicted on the ceiling of the dining room, as if that fine artistic effort had been the crowning work of his career. In a way he had built up the fortunes of Stanmere, and yet this dry practical lawyer was one of the central figures in one of the strangest romances ever known.

And the work was not finished yet, though Stanmere was once more a fine, almost free property. Martlett and another had built it up step by step, and the fascinating process was no less fragrant because the house of cards might be knocked down at any moment. Resolution and tact were required, and the exercise of that delicate finesse which the soul of the lawyer loved.

He did not look very much as if he were waiting for an antagonist who might at moment ruin the whole beautiful scheme. It was a dangerous antagonist, but that did not prevent Martlett from getting the full flavour of his tobacco. He smiled grimly as he heard the clang of the door bell. Almost immediately Goss entered the dining room stiff and dignified, with his nose in the air, as if he smelt something unpleasant.

"The person you spoke of, sir," he said. "Party of the name of Venner."

"A gentleman named Venner, confound you," a swaggering voice said. "But when your ladyship has had as much to do with—"

The door closed with more force than the immaculate Goss generally employed, and the new-comer came to an abrupt pause. His easy swagger vanished, he stood with an uneasy grin on his face.

A handsome, cunning brutal face; a face lighted by shifty grey eyes, a face coarsened and hardened by dissipation. The man was tall and well set up, but his swaggering air was a veneer: he had bully written all over him. His dress, too, was fashionable, with a touch of caricature in it. A certain staginess clung like scent to the man.

"Well, Venner," Martlett said, in his dry way. He looked up with the end of his cigar between his fingers. "So you came to see Lady Stanmere? As matter of fact you are not going to see Lady Stanmere."

"Oh, indeed," Vernier sneered. "We shall see about that."

"We shall indeed. What are you going to do with that chair?"

"What does a man generally do with a chair? Sit on it, of course."

"You are not going to sit down. I do not choose to be a vis-a-vis with a scoundrel of a valet who has just served a term of imprisonment. If you try that on again I'll have you flung from the house by a footman."

All very quietly spoken and in a low voice. But the lawyer's face was hard and his eyes steely. The other man laughed uneasily. But during the rest of the interview he stood, moving restlessly from one foot to the other.

"My wife put you up to this," he growled. "My angel wife, my dove-eyed partner who calls herself Nurse Cecilia. When I—I came back to London—"

"By the way of Portland and Wormwood Scrubbs?"

"Never mind that. I hastened back to the partner of my joys and sorrows. You can imagine my anxiety to see her—"

"With a view to something—strictly temporary—in the way of a loan."

Venner stepped from one leg to the other again.

"I didn't got it," he muttered, "not a penny. She said that I was the cross she had to bear. She offered me food and shelter till I could find some honest living, but on the currency question she was firm. Then I lost my temper and was fool enough to tell Cecily that down here there were chances. You couldn't have got to know my game in any other way."

"All the same I did," Martlett replied. "Now listen to me. For over five years we have been free of you. In five years many things have happened."

"Ay, ay. The house of Stanmere has got prosperous for one thing."

"It has. Exceedingly prosperous. We have money to spare now, money to go into your pocket if necessary. You smile. Oh, I know your power. It is possible for a dirty, cowardly scoundrel like you to bring disgrace upon this house. If our penal laws were not so unhappily strict I should know how to act. In Corsica, for instance, I should give some bravo twenty pounds to put a knife between your ribs. In so doing I should look confidently for the applause of society. In this effete country one has to buy off men like you."

Venner's grey eyes gleamed. Martlett was coming to business at last.

"The question is," the lawyer went on, "what do you know?"

"And a fair question too. I know that my master, Mr. Paul, is hiding away somewhere in London."

Martlett nodded and glanced critically at his cigar. The fencing was beginning in earnest now. The keen intellect was aroused.

"I hate Mr. Paul," Venner went on. "I should never have known the inside of a gaol but for him. He put me aside when he could have told a lie or two to save me, and he started on what he called a new life. And when I came out of an American prison I started to hunt for him. There is still that warrant out for him across the water for murder. It would be a nice thing to see a Stanmere hanged for a crime like that. Revenge I wanted, revenge I craved for. But what is revenge compared with money!"

"What, indeed?" Martlett asked, sententiously. "Go on."

"Well, I got into trouble again, and my wife put me off the scent once. She can never forget that her father had a small farm on this Stanmere Estate."

"Your wife is a good and true woman, Venner."

"Oh, of course," Vernier sneered. "But I am on the track of my man now, and when I have hunted him down I shall state my terms. If I asked you, I should be told that Mr. Paul in dead, which would be a lie, my old fox. When I am sure of my game I shall want ten thousand pounds."

"You will never have so many pence, Venner."

"Oh, yes I shall. Mr. Stephen will be good for something for the credit of my family. Mr. Stephen has turned respectable. Mr. Stephen lives in Cambria Square with his daughter in a style that isn't done for nothing; Mr. Stephen lies low and takes his walks abroad at night, as gentlemen frequently have to do who dabble too much in shady European politics."

Mr. Martlett smiled approvingly at the end of his cigar. He had every scrap of information that the bully had to offer him. Like most of his class, the man talked too fast. He had said more in the last few minutes than Martlett could have hoped to pump out of him in an hour. His face hardened.

"Now listen to me," he said. "For the present you can do nothing; for the present you are perfectly harmless. When you find your man it will be time enough to come here with your threats. But I warn you that you stand on dangerous ground. There are tremendous interests at stake here with which you cannot be allowed to interfere. Perhaps you may compel me to purchase your silence later on, ay, but the proof must be clear. I know your past life like an open book. There are three charges upon which I could have you arrested at any moment. And if you dare to write one line or one word to Lady Stanmere I'll lay you by the heels before a day is over your head."

Venner would have threatened, only his courage failed. For the present, at any rate, he was going to get nothing here. And, quite imprudently, he had laid out his last five shillings in his return journey to Stanmere. It was very hard, so hard that the tears of self-pity were very near the surface.

"If you would not mind advancing me a few pounds," he said, with a servile manner that caused Martlett to smile. "Say five pounds, sir. I've got a little scheme on hand that in the course of a few days—"

"Not a farthing," said Martlett. "If you are penniless, so much the better." He had his hand on the bell, and Goss, with his nose still suspicious of unsavoury odours, appeared. "Goss, show this fellow out. And if he comes again bang the door in his face. If that does not suffice, duck him in the lake. You need not be in the least afraid of the consequences."

The door closed again, and Martlett carefully selected another cigar. It was a piece of reckless dissipation on his part.

"So the deception works," he said to himself. "It was the only way of keeping that fellow in the dark. Did ever such tremendous interests before rest on the shoulders of a poor blind girl!"