Читать книгу The Hispaniola Plate - John Bloundelle-Burton - Страница 6

Now this is the manner in which the mystery was at last cleared up in the time of Reginald Crafer, Lieutenant, R.N.

There was, and still is, in the neighbourhood that lies between Chancery Lane and Cheapside, an ancient banking establishment that is as old as the Bank of England itself-if not some years older-and that has, from its creation, been known as "Cazalet's." Yet there has been no Cazalet in the firm for nigh upon a hundred years, but, instead, the partners-of whom there are now two-boast the ancient patronymic of Jones. These Joneses are descendants, on the female side, from the last Cazalet, and in this way have become possessed of the old business; and it was when their father-for they are brothers-died, at almost the same time that Reginald's uncle passed out of existence, that a change took place, which led in a roundabout way to the writing of this narrative of "The Hispaniola Plate."

Old Mr. Jones had, I say, been gathered to all the other Joneses who had gone before him, and the two young Messrs. Jones-one aged forty-five and the other thirty-nine-decided that his decease marked a period in the existence of Cazalet's when a change ought to be made. That change was to take a shape, however, in the first instance, which caused a vast number of the people who banked with them, as well as all their senior clerks-many of them nearly as old as the late Jones himself-to shake their heads and to wonder why that late Jones did not burst forth corporeally from his grave, or, at the very least, appear in the spirit, to forbid the desecration that was about to take place. For the old house was to be pulled down-ruthlessly sacrificed to the spirit of the times, and a bran-new one was to be built up in its place!

"Well," said the ancient chief cashier-who had been there boy and man since 1843, and had grown old, and also tobacco-and-spirit-stained, during the evenings of a life spent in the service of Cazalet's-when he received the first intimation of this terrible news, "if that's going to happen it's time I was off. Lor' bless me! a new house! Well, then, they'll require some new clerks. They don't want a wreck like me in such a fine new modern building as they're going to shove up."

"Why, Mr. Creech," said a much younger employé of Cazalet's, a youth who came in airily every morning from Brixton, and was supposed to be the best lawn-tennis player in that suburb, "that's just why you ought to remain; you'll give the new show a fine old crusted air of respectability; you're a relic, you are, of the good old days. They'll never be able to do without you."

But Mr. Creech only grunted, and, it being one o'clock in the day when this conversation took place, he lifted up the lid of his desk, took some sandwiches out of a paper packet, and, applying his lips to a small flask, diffused a genial aroma of sherry-and-water around him. Yet, as he thus partook of his lunch, he wagged his head in a melancholy manner and thought how comfortable he had been for the best part of his life in the old, dingy, dirty-windowed house; it having been a standing rule of Cazalet's that the windows were never to be cleaned, and rumour had it that they had not been touched since the house was built.

That the firm "would never be able to do without him," as his cock-a-hoop junior had remarked, seemed, indeed, to be the case, and received exemplification there and then. For at that moment a bell rang in the inner sanctum where the brothers sat, and a moment afterwards the office-boy who had answered it told Mr. Creech that the "pardners wanted to see 'im;" whereon he gulped down a last drop of the sherry-and-water, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and went in to them, wondering "what was up now?"

"Sit down, Creech, sit down," said the "pardners" together, "we want to have a talk with you about the new house." Here Creech grunted. "Or rather," the elder one went on, "the old house;" whereon the cashier smiled, as much as to say that that was a far more congenial subject to him. Then Alfred, the elder brother, continued:

"You know more about this house, Creech, than anybody else." Creech gave a grunt again here, which tailed off into a sigh. "Why, bless my soul! you've been here five years longer than I've been in existence-there's no one else knows as much about us as you do."

"I came here a boy of sixteen," said Creech, looking at the clock on the wall as though it was a kind of calendar of his career, "and I'm sixty-five now. That makes forty-nine years. Come Easter, I've been here fifty years. It's a long while!"

"It is a long while," said the younger partner, Henry. "But you're all right, you know, Creech. Cazalet's look after those who have served them long and well. When you feel like retirement and a pension, you say so. Only, I don't know how we shall get on without you. However, the retirement is a long way off yet, I hope. Let us talk about the present."

"What we want to know is this," said Alfred, "and you're the person to tell us. What is there stored away down in the vaults below the strong room? We haven't been down there for years; not since we were boys and our father used to let us go down sometimes. There seemed to be only an awful lot of mouldering rubbish, and it'll all have to be gone over and either destroyed or fetched up before the builders go to work on the foundations."

"So there is a lot of rubbish," replied Creech, "though I haven't been down there myself for over twenty years. The last time I was down was when the Prince o' Wales went to return thanks at St. Paul's. I remember it because I found a bottle of port wine on a ledge, and we drank his health as he went by. I told your father about it afterwards, and he said it must have been some of the Waterloo port his father had had given him."

"What else is there?"

"A lot of rubbish," repeated Creech. "There's several old boxes, most of them burst open, with leases, I should say, belonging to dead and gone customers of the bank, and a heap of broken old furniture that belonged upstairs when the family lived over the bank. I found a fine copper warming-pan, that Mr. Jones made me a present of; and I think there's an old spinet down there, and broken chairs and tables, and office stuff, and a basket full of broken glass and crockery, and that sort of thing."

"Humph!" said the elder brother. "Leases, eh? We ought to look into those. If they're ours we ought to preserve them, and if they belonged to customers who have left descendants, they should be returned. They may still be of the greatest value. Who can tell?"

"My wife," said the younger, "has been filling the new house at Egerton Gardens full of the most awful-looking gimcracks I ever saw. She'll want that spinet directly she hears of it, and if she could only find another warming-pan she'd hang it up in the bedroom passages as an ornament."

"My wife," said Creech, "warms the beds with ours in the winter. It's a very good one, but I'll send it back if Mrs. Jones wants to decorate her landing."

"No," said Jones Junior, "we'll say nothing about it. There's far too much rubbish in the house already. Suppose," to his brother, "we go down into the vaults and have a look round."

This was agreed to, so down they went, after Creech had armed himself with a large paraffin candle and had rummaged out a bag full of keys of all sizes and shapes, while the elder Jones carried with him the more modern and bright keys that opened the safes and strong room. This latter they were, of course, in the habit of visiting every day, but the trap door leading to the vaults below-which was in the floor of the strong room-testified to the truth of Creech's assertion that it possibly had not been opened for twenty years. First of all, when the key was found, the lock was so rusty that it could not be turned until some oil had been brought, and then the door had stuck so that the two brothers-for Creech was no good at this work-could hardly pull it up. However, at last they got it open, and then they descended the stone steps one by one.

The place-as seen by the light of the candle-was, as the old cashier had described it, an olla-podrida of all kinds of lumber. The hamper of broken glass and crockery was there, so was the spinet, looking very antique and somewhat mouldy-a thing not to be wondered at, seeing that the Jones family had not lived over the bank during the present century. The broken chairs, stools, and tables were all piled in a corner-in another stood the boxes, some of them burst open, of which Creech had spoken. And around and about the vaults there pervaded the damp atmosphere which such places always have. The cashier had brought a second candle in his pocket, which he now lit, and by this additional light they saw all that there was to be seen.

"A lease of a farm in Yorkshire," said Alfred, taking up the first one that lay loose on the top of the first box, whose rusted padlock came off it, nails and all, as they touched the lid, "called Shrievalls, from the Earl of Despare to Antony Jones. Lor' bless me! Why, Shrievalls has been in our family for any amount of time, and I never heard of the Earl. I suppose we bought it afterwards. That's no use to anyone. What's this? A covenant of the Earl of Despare to pay an annuity to Ambrose Hawkins for the remainder of his life, made in the year 1743; that covenant has expired! That's no use to any one, either. A bundle of acceptances by Sir Marmaduke Flitch to Peter Jones-our great-grandfather. Flitch! Flitch! No knowledge of him either. An authority from Annabella Proctor to pay to her brother, so long as he holds his peace-humph! – ha! – well, that's an old family scandal-we needn't read that just now. Transfer of a lease from Mr. Stringer, son of Sir Thomas Stringer, a judge of the King's Bench, to Mr. Samuel Wargrave, late silversmith and jeweller, of Cornhill, now of Enfield, dated 1688. I suppose one or the other of them was a customer of the bank."

"Then it was Wargrave!" exclaimed Creech. "I've seen that name in some of our old books. At least, I think I have. Let me see-Wargrave. Where have I seen it? I know it somehow."

"It can't matter," said the younger Jones. "There has been no Wargrave on our books for a long while."

"A bundle of letters," went on the elder, taking them up, "from the Lady Henrietta Belville to Bartholomew Skelton, Esquire, at the University of Leyden, with one beginning, 'My dear and only love, – Since my 'usband is away to York'-Oh, dear! dear! we needn't read that now."

"I should think not," said the younger brother. "The Skelton family still banks with us. We had better send the letter back intact. Bankers should keep secrets as well as lawyers."

"Wargrave," mumbled Creech to himself, as he leaned against an antique office-stool minus a leg. "Wargrave! Where have I heard the name?"

"An account book with no name in it but a date. And written therein, 'On behalf of the Earl of Mar, his expedition.' Humph! ha! well, we had a good many Jacobites among our old customers. What's this? A glove with a lot of tarnished silver fringe about it, a woman's-these are romantic finds! – a bunch of withered flowers, almost dust, and a little box-"

"That's it," exclaimed Creech, "a box with the name of Wargrave on it. That's it!"

"On the contrary, Creech, there is nothing on it; but, inside, a paper with written on that, and badly spelt, too-'His hair. Cut from his head by a true friend after his death at the Battle of Clifton Moor.'"

"No, no," said Creech, "I don't mean that box. I mean there is a box somewhere in this vault-a small one, with the name of Wargrave on it."

"There are a good many boxes with names on them," said one of the brothers, glancing round; "and I doubt if any speak more pathetically of the past than this one with its wisp of withered hair and its label."

But Creech was hunting about in the rubbish by now, and at last, exclaiming, "That's the one I mean," seized on a small iron box a foot square and brought it to where the partners and candles were.

"That," he said, as he plumped it down on the spinet, which emitted a rusty groan from its long-disused keys as he did so, "is the box I mean. I remember seeing it years and years ago. Look at what's written on it."

In faded ink, brownish red now instead of black, on paper a dirty slate colour instead of white, were the words: -

This box is to be given to any descendant or representative of Lieutenant Nicholas Crafer who is alive at my death. To be given at once after, but not before. – Samuel Wargrave.

Nota Bene. – I do believe it is very important.

January, 1709.

"And," exclaimed the younger brother, "being so very important it has lain here for over 180 years. We have been assiduous for our customers."

"But why," said the elder brother, "when you saw it years ago, Creech, was nothing done? Why did not you, or my father, find out some Wargrave or some Crafer? There must be some left."

"Your father said he would make some inquiries; but I don't know whether he ever did or not. At any rate, it went clean out of my head. I was just off on my holidays, I remember, when I happened to see it; and, to tell you the truth, I never thought any more about it from that day to this. And I shouldn't have done so now if it hadn't been for that transfer you read out a minute ago."

*******

A fortnight later the box was in Reginald Crafer's possession, with an apology from Messrs. Cazalet and Co. for the long period in which it had lain unattended to in their hands. They had discovered him by a reference to the suburban directory, after a search through the London and also several county directories, and Mr. Bentham's name had been quite enough to assure Messrs. Cazalet and Co. that he was the rightful person to whom to entrust the box.

The lock-a most excellent one, considering when it was made-had to be burst open, for no key could be found to fit it, and then Reginald saw what were its contents. First, there was a piece of paper on which was written: -

I do feel so sure that Mr. Wargrave will carry out my instructions after my death that I leave this pretious legacy to him in all good faith, and to you my descendant to whom it may after come, with all my love and good wishes; and so I say, May what you find herein prosper you. N. C.

Then, in a neat roll, tied up with black ribbon, was a vast number of sheets of paper covered with writing, some of it being very neat, some of it very ungainly, with many words scored out and others inserted, and also many misspelt, and some not spelt twice alike.

And Reginald Crafer, after an early meal, sat himself down to a perusal of those closely written sheets which had been at last unearthed after lying in the vaults of Cazalet's bank so long.

This is what they told him.

The History of

NICHOLAS CRAFER, Lieutenant,

and the Search for

THE HISPANIOLA PLATE,

with all that occurred during that searchand followed after it

As told by him