Читать книгу The Massingham Butterfly and Other Stories - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 8

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It required but a mere glance at the tall, plump, sleek-conditioned man whom my clerk brought into my office one winter afternoon to see that my visitor either was or had been one of the class known as gentlemen’s gentlemen. Confidential servant was written all over him; a certain something in his eye suggested that he had all his life been keeping the secrets, as well as brushing the clothes and superintending the linen, of at least a marquis. That eye lighted up as it fell on me; its owner bowed with a mixture of respect and easy familiarity.

“You don’t bear me in mind, Mr. Campenhaye?” he said inquiringly as he took the chair to which I pointed. “You’ve forgotten me, sir?”

I glanced at the bit of printed card which had been brought in to me a few minutes previously.

“Mr. Millwaters?” I replied. “No, I’m afraid I——”

“I was valet to the Duke of Claye, sir, at the time you did that bit of business for his grace,” he said, with another smile. “That little affair about the——”

“Oh! I remember—I remember!” I broke in, being too busy for any exchange of reminiscences. “Ah! And you are not with the duke now?”

“No, sir,” he answered, “I left his grace three years ago, Mr. Campenhaye. The fact was,” he continued with a smirk, “I married one of the upper servants, and went into a different line. The superior lodgings for gentlemen line, Mr. Campenhaye, Ebury Street.”

“I hope you are doing well,” I remarked, politely.

“Ain’t done badly, sir, so far,” he responded. “You see, I had a very good stock of furniture that had come to me from various relatives, and as my wife is a first-class cook we considered that if we took a good house in a good neighbourhood——”

“Just so—just so!” I said. “And what brings you to me?”

The ex-valet pushed himself and his chair a little nearer, and his smile became mysterious and confidential.

“One of my lodgers!” he whispered. “A—a dead ’un!”

“A dead man!” I exclaimed. “Recent death?”

“Died this very morning, sir, just after his breakfast,” answered Millwaters. “I found him myself. ‘Heart failure,’ says the doctor. ‘Dead,’ he says; no need for an inquest, ’cause he’d been attending him for a week, and was with him late last night and he can certify. But there’s some mystery, Mr. Campenhaye—some strange mystery!”

“Of what nature?” I asked.

Millwaters scratched the side of his plump cheek, as if he were a little puzzled. I knew what was puzzling him—he did not quite know where to begin his story.

“Begin at the beginning,” I said. “If you want any advice, tell me everything, and don’t leave out any details that seem of no importance to you.”

“Well, it’s this way, sir,” he responded. “Just about two months ago we had our drawing-room floor to let—very nice set of rooms, with separate bathroom. We advertised them in The Times and The Morning Post, and we soon had a call from this gentleman I’m telling you about—Mr. Robert Walshaw. An elderly man, Mr. Campenhaye; full sixty, I should say. He——”

“Describe him,” I said.

“Well, sir, not what you would call a conspicuous gentleman. Middling height, inclined, very little, to stoutness, with a grey beard and whiskers that seemed as if he’d only recently let them grow—short-cropped, anyway. Not what you’d call quite the gentleman, Mr. Campenhaye, you know; at least, not the sort I’ve been accustomed to serve. I should say a sort of retired first-class commercial sort of gent, sir, of a superior sort. Well-dressed, sir; all his clothes made by one of our leading West End firms—oh yes! Likewise his linen and appointments.”

“Go on, Millwaters,” I remarked as he paused and looked an inquiry. “I have an idea of the man. So he came to you?”

“Came there and then, sir, the very day he called to look at the rooms. He made no difficulty about terms; said he’d pay every month, and insisted on paying a month in advance. So, of course, we didn’t bother about any references, sir.”

“I see,” said I. “So long as the money is all right, the rest—eh?”

“Well, sir, he was the very picture of what you’d call high respectability,” replied Millwaters. “A sort of churchwarden gentleman, sir; all the same, he never went to church, now I come to think of it. But it’s his habits that I’m coming to. He settled down quick, Mr. Campenhaye, and fell into what you might call a routine. He brought a quantity of old books with him, and he was always having parcels of books sent to him from all over the country. He spent all his time reading and writing; he’s left a pile of writing on his table. All his days were like clockwork—meals to the minute, and so on. But by the end of the first month my wife and me had noticed three things about him; important things, Mr. Campenhaye, so I judge.”

“Name them,” I said.

“Well, sir, first, he never had a single letter. Second, he never had a caller. Third, he never went out of the house, not once, until after dark. Every night, about 9 o’clock, he’d go out and walk around Eaton Square twice. I’ve seen him myself, Mr. Campenhaye. Then he came in and went to bed. He was a rare hand at going to bed early and getting up early. He used to get up and begin his writings at 5 o’clock of the morning.”

“Did he keep up these habits to the end?” I asked.

“To the very end, sir, even to this morning. Same thing, same routine, day after day; and certainly he never gave us any trouble. He liked good cooking and he kept some very good wine, and he fancied the best cigars, but he was easily pleased, and never complained, and he gave us no trouble until now.”

“And now?” I asked. “You can’t help a man’s dying suddenly in your house, you know; neither can the man help it.”

“Just so, sir,” replied Millwaters. “That ain’t it. The trouble, Mr. Campenhaye, if I may so express it, is twofold. One side of it is that we don’t know who he is, nor who his people are, and——”

“He must have left papers to show that,” I interrupted.

“Not a vestige of one, sir!” exclaimed Millwaters. “As soon as the doctor had been and had said there’d be no need for an inquest, me and my wife looked for papers. Mr. Campenhaye, there isn’t as much as a single line of writing on a scrap of paper to tell anything. We’ve gone through all he had—three trunks, a sort of strong-box, a couple of suit-cases. We’ve turned out all his drawers and so on—there’s nothing. There isn’t a letter, nor a bill, nor anything to give a clue. But there’s something in that strong-box—a nice weight I thought it when it first came—that’s enough to make anybody jump when they catch sight of it.”

“What?” I demanded.

Millwaters bent forward across the corner of my desk, and spoke one word in a hoarse whisper.

“Gold!” he said. “Gold.”

There was something so much more than ordinarily significant in the man’s tone that his mere pronunciation of this word gave me a sense of coming mystery. I became interested.

“You mean there is a quantity of gold in his trunks?” I said.

“In that strong-box, Mr. Campenhaye, gold, sir!”

I looked at him a moment in silence.

“Well,” I said at last, “after all, Millwaters, there is nothing very remarkable in an elderly gentleman of retiring habits keeping a good deal of ready money in gold by him.”

“Not as much as all that, sir,” replied Millwaters, with decision. “Nor—in bars!”

I started with genuine astonishment at that.

“Bars!” I exclaimed.

“Bars, sir! Lumps—ingots, I believe they call ’em, Mr. Campenhaye, in that trunk there’s half a dozen of those things. And there’s a good thousand pounds in sovereigns. I used to wonder why he always paid me in sovereigns, because his bill came to a goodish bit every month—our rooms aren’t cheap. Yes, sir, gold! Enough to—to make you see yellow, Mr. Campenhaye!”

“Well,” I said, after another pause, “what advice do you want from me?”

“I wish you’d come round, Mr. Campenhaye,” he said urgently. “I don’t like calling the police in, and I know from experience that you’re a rare hand at ferreting things out. You might be able to make something of it—though, as I said before, there’s no papers.”

“Very well,” I answered after a moment’s consideration. “Then we’ll go at once.”

We were round at Ebury Street in a few minutes. Millwaters’ house proved to be one of the best at the Victoria end of the street—a superior place in every way, for which one would expect to pay well as regards accommodation. The drawing-room floor was roomy and well arranged and well furnished. And in the bedroom lay the dead body of the mysterious lodger, still and peaceful, and looking, I thought, pathetically lonely. I looked carefully at the face, a much-lined, worn face, set amidst thin, grey hair, and I noticed that, as Millwaters had said, the beard was of comparatively recent growth.

I need not go into details as to our search in that room. It is sufficient to say that I scrupulously examined every article of clothing, every drawer in the wardrobe, bureau, table, every trunk and box without finding a scrap of writing or anything to show who this dead man was. The trunks, suit-cases and boxes were either very old or quite new. The tabs sewn into the clothing showed that Mr. Walshaw had patronised a well-known Conduit Street firm; the linen had been bought recently in the same neighbourhood. But I knew that there would be no clue there; this particular customer doubtless paid cash, and the firm would know nothing about him.

Nor was there any clue in the contents of the strong-box, a weightily-made affair of oak, clamped with steel. It had taken himself and two men to carry that upstairs, said Mr. Millwaters, and it was the only thing he had found locked when he had taken possession of the dead man’s keys—a very small bunch. I naturally examined this box with great care. There was a tray at the top, in which, carefully packed in tissue paper, was a small quantity of very old silver plate, spoons, forks, table appointments. Under the tray, in four strong canvas bags, was a quantity of gold in sovereigns and half-sovereigns. We counted the contents of one bag, and made the amount a little under three hundred pounds. This bag was open; the others were sealed. I came to the conclusion that the four contained about twelve hundred pounds. And—this being the first thing of special significance that struck me—I noticed that all the sovereigns and half-sovereigns which I handled were dated previous to the year 1900.

The bars of gold, dully yellow and unattractive in their unworked state, were underneath the bags, and were also wrapped in canvas. There were, as Millwaters had said, half a dozen of them—specie. And in turning them over we unearthed an old pocket-book of worn morocco leather.

“I didn’t see that before,” remarked Millwaters. “But I was in a hurry. Open it, Mr. Campenhaye. There may be papers in that.”

All that the pocket-book contained, however, was two keys of a complicated pattern. Attached to them was a crumpled label, on which was written, in a crabbed, angular hand, “Safe No. 69.”

On examining the metal disc attached to these keys, I found that the number was repeated. Round it was the engraved inscription, “London and Universal Safe Deposit Company, Limited.”

“There’s a clue, Millwaters,” I said. “Your late lodger has something stored with these people. Now, let me see his sitting-room.”

“There’s nothing there, sir, I’m afraid,” remarked Millwaters. “In the way of papers, I mean. Excepting, of course, the papers that he’d written himself—there’s plenty of them.”

I saw what he meant as soon as I walked into the sitting-room. This, a light, roomy apartment, wore the air of a library and study combined. The walls were lined with books, the centre-table was piled with books. A quick glance at shelves and tables showed that nearly all dealt with archæological and antiquarian subjects. And on the large, neatly arranged desk, which stood between the windows, were quantities of documents and papers, duly docketed, marshalled and tied up, and in an open dispatch box lay a thick pile of manuscript, written in the crabbed hand of the label, which, with its keys, I had already placed in my pocket. I took this manuscript out, and turned to the first page. And then I read a title, written out with meticulous care in neatly arranged lines:

But there was no author’s name. There, where it should have been, was a blank. It was evidently to be written in—when?

“That,” observed Millwaters at my elbow—“that’s what he was always writing at, Mr. Campenhaye. I came to know through watching him as I was in and out. He used to do so many papers every day, sir—the pile’s grown since he came here. Those other papers, I think, are his notes. But there’s nothing in them, nor anywhere in the desk, about him.”

In this Millwaters was right. I searched the desk thoroughly and found no further clue. The dead man had evidently destroyed whatever letters he received as soon as he got them; he had not even kept receipts for the books which were always being sent to him. I spent some time in examining his library, hoping to come across a book-plate, or a name scribbled on a fly-leaf; I found nothing at all. And after a good two hours spent in this way, I was faced by the fact that here was a dead man whose real name might be Robert Walshaw, and might not, and that those who now had to deal with his body and his effects knew absolutely nothing of him, his relatives or his antecedents.

“There’s only one thing to be done, Millwaters,” I said. “There’s a slight clue in this label. I know the manager of the London and Universal, and I’ll go down there and see if he can tell me anything. In the meantime, you’d better lock up this room, seal that strong-box and make arrangements with an undertaker.”

“I suppose we shall have to advertise, Mr. Campenhaye?” said Millwaters. “There must be somebody belonging to him somewhere.”

“Wait until I return,” I said. “I may find something out.”

I drove straight off to the safe deposit. I had previously done business there, and they knew me well enough to give me information on what was, after all, not exactly my affair.

“Mr. Robert Walshaw!” said the manager. “Oh yes! But we have only seen him, once or twice—twice, I feel sure. He came here and rented a safe—quite a small safe—about three months ago; called afterwards, as I say, twice, and we’ve never seen him since. Dead, you say, Mr. Campenhaye, and left no clue whatever as to his identity beyond that label? Well, then, under the circumstances, I think we shall be justified in—eh?”

“In opening the safe?” I said. “Certainly! That is what I hope you will do. We must get to know something about him.”

Three of us attended the opening of this safe—the manager, the secretary and myself. It was, as the manager had observed, quite a small safe, one of their smallest. All that was seen on opening it was a couple of old, well-worn leather bags, hand-bags. But one bag was filled to the brim with gold, all of a date previous to 1900, and the other contained two packets of cut and uncut diamonds. And here again there were no papers, letters, documents—nothing to tell us more about Robert Walshaw.

We paid small attention to the gold. At a rough guess, I should say there were twelve or fifteen hundred pounds there. But we looked at the diamonds with a good deal of interest, and, in unwrapping the various papers in which they were done up, the secretary discovered a torn label on which was part of an address.

That was easy enough to make out. It presumably meant “Mr. Isador Cohn, Diamond Merchant, Hatton Garden, E.C.” And so, when the manager had restored these valuables to the safe, and had sealed it up, I went off to Hatton Garden in an endeavour to find Mr. Isador Cohn, and hear what he knew of the matter. I found Mr. Cohn without difficulty, an elderly man, who at first could tell me nothing, but after a time began to look as if his memory was getting to work.

“I tell you what!” he said suddenly, “I remember that some years ago I sold a lot of stones such as you mention, to a gentleman who said that he was commissioned to buy them for a noble family—they were to be set and kept as heirlooms. But it’s—oh, twelve or thirteen years ago. I remember nothing much except that the buyer was a middle-aged, fresh-complexioned man, and that he paid me in bank notes. It was a big transaction; of course, he employed an expert to estimate the value. But I never knew his name—the buyer’s I mean.”

“How much did the transaction represent?” I asked.

“Oh!” answered Mr. Cohn, with cheerful indifference. “I should think perhaps about twenty thousand. I think it was twenty thousand. I’d almost forgotten the deal—it was done in a morning. I could supply what he wanted, and he paid cash, and there was an end of it.”

So far so good, but I was only at the beginning. And after a hurried visit to the safe deposit, and another to Millwaters, and a third with Millwaters to his solicitors, I packed a bag and caught the evening express to Stilminster, taking with me a page or two of Mr. Walshaw’s manuscript.

It was very late at night when I arrived at Stilminster, a small country town, in a purely agricultural district, and I was glad to find a decent hotel, to get some supper, and go to my room. But I managed to interview the landlady for a minute before going upstairs, and to get a morsel of information.

“Stilminster,” I observed blandly, “is a very old town?”

“One of the oldest in England, sir,” she replied with assurance. “Founded by the Romans in the year seventy-five.”

“Many antiquities here to see, of course,” I said.

“The town is full of them, sir,” she answered. “In summer, and early autumn, we have visitors from all over the world.”

“That’s deeply interesting,” said I. “Now, I wonder if there is anybody in the town—some local antiquary, you know, to whom I could pay a visit to-morrow morning?”

“Certainly, sir,” she replied, “there are several. But you’ll find none better than Mr. Daniels, the shoemaker, at the corner of Cripplegate. He’s a poor man, but a learned one, and if you like to employ him for an hour or two, he’ll tell you more about the old place than anyone else can.”

“I shall call on Mr. Daniels as soon as I have breakfasted,” I said. Then, as a chance shot, I remarked, “By the way, I see that you have had this house a great many years, so I suppose you know the town well. Do you know or remember anyone by the name of Walshaw?”

I saw at once that the name was utterly unfamiliar to her. And she shook her head decisively, and said that there was no one of that name in Stilminster—at least of any note—nor had there been anyone within her recollection.

“The population is only twelve hundred,” she remarked, “so we know everybody. I never remember any Walshaw—it’s not a name of these parts. It sounds North country.”

So when I went around to the shop of the learned shoemaker next morning, I refrained from asking him point-blank if he had ever known a Mr. Walshaw. Instead I engaged him in conversation on the history and antiquities of Stilminster. He was an old, shrewd-eyed, clever-looking man, a working craftsman, and he stitched busily at a boot as he talked to me of the old places of his native town. I soon discovered that he was a born antiquary, and bearing in mind what my object was, I eventually remarked that I wondered he had never thought of writing the history of Stilminster. He laughed cheerily at that suggestion.

“Nay,” he said. “I’m no hand at putting things on paper. Of course, the history of the old place ought to be written; there have been little books and pamphlets—plenty of ’em—but never anything considerable. Once we had a man—fellow townsman—who could have done it, meant to do it, and was the very man for the job, mister, but——”

He paused and shook his head over his work, and I waited impatiently for his next words, for I was now sure that I was on the track.

“But he came to a sad end, did that man,” he said, after a period of silence. “Went under—a long way under.”

“How was that?” I asked.

The old shoemaker lifted his hand and pointed with his awl through the window to a large building across the street, over the principal door of which I saw the word “bank” in old-fashioned gilt letters.

“You see yonder place, mister?” he said. “That’s Candew’s Bank. Candews are the big folks hereabouts. It’s a baronetcy. The present man is Sir Lionel Candew—an old man now. Candews are not only bankers, either; they’ve a big spinning-mill at Hopton, ten miles away. Spinners and bankers—that’s what Candews have been for 200 years. Folk of vast wealth, of course.”

He resumed his work, and I kept silent, knowing that he was going to let loose a flood of reminiscences.

“That bank across there is the principal bank in the neighbourhood,” he went on. “Everybody goes to Candew’s, and the man I was talking of just now, the man who ought to have written the history of Stilminster, he was Candew’s manager at that bank, trusted, confidential manager—Richard Maygrove. Until it all came out, anybody that you could ha’ met in Stilminster would ha’ told you that Richard Maygrove was what we may term a pillar of probity!”

“And what came out?” I asked quietly.

“It was sheer accident that it did come out,” said the old man, with a dry chuckle. “At least, so Maygrove said. You see, Maygrove was trusted as I should think never man was before. He’d been in that bank since he was a lad of fifteen. He was sole manager at thirty, and Sir Lionel Candew left everything to him. He was a steady-going, sober chap, Maygrove—bachelor, churchgoer—the only interest he had outside banking was pottering about the old town. Many’s the hour I’ve spent with him. And it was always his intention to write its history. Why, whenever he took his holiday, it was only to go to London to read things up at the British museum and the Rolls House. He thought of nothing but collecting material for that book. And it was while he was away on his holiday one year that the smash came. It was a smash, too. Go out into the street, mister, and every other man you meet can tell you just as much about it as I can.”

“I prefer to hear your account,” I answered.

“Well,” he continued, smiling, “it was young Mr. Francis Candew—Sir Lionel’s son and heir—that found things out. He came home from Oxford and, instead of settling down to amuse himself as a country gentleman, he took it into his head to make himself thoroughly acquainted with his father’s two businesses. And he did it thoroughly. A smart, shrewd youngster he was—and a hard-headed man of business he is to-day. You’ll see him if you’re stopping here a day or two, for he’s at that bank every day from 11 to 3. Now, while Maygrove was off for his month’s holiday, young Mr. Francis went into things at the bank and the result was that Maygrove was arrested on a charge of embezzlement. And there was no doubt of it—not a doubt!”

“Was the amount large?” I asked.

“They tried him on a charge of embezzling some couple of thousands,” answered the shoemaker, “but it was hinted by the lawyers that he’d helped himself to between thirty and forty thousand, if not more. And he pleaded guilty.”

“Pleaded guilty!” I exclaimed. “Oh, well, I suppose he couldn’t do less.”

“He not only pleaded guilty, mister, but he openly defied them all—judge, jury and the lot! He acknowledged that he’d got the money; he defied ’em to find it. What’s more, he said stoutly in the dock that he’d a good right to it. He stood there, mister, bold as brass—I can see him now, for I went to the trial—and told them that he’d got the money, and it was where they could never touch it: that if accident, in the shape of Mr. Francis, hadn’t upset his plans, he and the money would have been clear out of their reach in another month, and that, as luck had gone against him, he would never divulge where the money was—never!”

“Well?” I said. “Of course, he was sentenced. To what?”

“Ten years’ penal servitude,” said the old man. “It was hinted pretty plainly to him that if he’d only make restitution, there would be a lighter sentence. But he refused steadily, though they put him back for a night to think it over. And when they gave him leave to speak, he told them—pretty plainly, too—why he’d robbed Sir Lionel Candew.”

“Ah!” I said. “That’s interesting. What reason did he give?”

“One that impressed a deal of folk in his favour, mister. You see, there were two of these Maygroves—Richard and Robert. Richard went into the bank, Robert went to the spinning mill at Hopton; they were twin brothers and sons of a small farmer on Sir Lionel’s property. Now, Robert was an inventive genius—always making and contriving things—and when he’d come to be a young man he invented a machine that’s in use to-day all over the world—patented, mister, by Sir Lionel Candew. And Richard Maygrove, standing in that dock, openly accused Sir Lionel of stealing his brother’s plans, drawings, papers, and patenting the thing himself. His story was that Robert, fully trusting his master, showed all these documents to him, understood that Sir Lionel would protect him, and that Sir Lionel took the whole idea, patented it himself and snapped his fingers in Robert’s face. ‘He robbed my brother,’ says Richard in that dock, ‘as shamelessly as if he’d picked his pocket, and he’s made fortune upon fortune out of what he got. And I set to work to rob him and I’ve done it, and he shall never see one penny of what I’ve taken. I know what I shall have to pay for letting myself be caught, and I’ll pay for it. But there’ll be no restitution from me, so you can sentence me as soon as you like.’ And sentenced he was, mister—ten years.”

I was by that time pretty sure as to where I was. The man lying dead in Millwaters’ house in Ebury Street was, without doubt, Richard Maygrove, who, after his discharge from prison, had occupied himself in a return to his favourite pursuits. But there were two or three points which still needed clearing up, and it seemed to me that Mr. Daniels could give me more information.

“How long since is all this, then?” I asked.

“Twelve years,” he answered.

“So that Maygrove would be released between two or three years ago,” I said.

The old man chuckled.

“Oh, he was released,” he said. “I happen to know that the Candews did all they could to track him when he was released, but they never did. He clean disappeared. They say here in the town that he had the money all safely planted in foreign parts and went off with it.”

“Very likely,” said I, carelessly. “I dare say he did. What became of the other brother—Robert?”

He looked up from his work with another of his shrewd, half-humorous glances.

“There’s folks in this town, mister, that would be glad to have that question answered satisfactorily,” he said. “Robert disappeared many years ago—ten years before Richard’s affair came to a head. And there are those who believe that Robert was in it with Richard.”

“The Candews think that, no doubt?” I said.

“What folk like the Candews think they’re good hands at keeping to themselves,” he said dryly. “I’m not meaning them. What they call the Maygrove mystery is talked of to this day, sir. What Richard did with the money? Where he’s got to since he left prison? Bless you! They talk it all out in the bar-parlours every night of the year.”

I changed the subject then, going back to the antiquities of Stilminster. And after arranging with the old shoemaker that he should show me around the principal sights at noon, I left him, took a turn along the street, and at 11 o’clock stepped into the bank. I handed my card to a clerk, and I had scarcely had time to glance around at the old-fashioned arrangements of the place, when he was back at my elbow. He indicated a side door.

“Mr. Francis Candew will see you at once, sir,” he said.