Читать книгу Bernard Treves's Boots - Laurence Clarke - Страница 5

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"Are you sure your name is Manton?"

Captain Gilbert looked keenly across the table. The light in the little room was not good, and the expression on the Captain's face was one of intense interest and bewilderment.

"Quite sure, sir—John Manton," answered the man standing at the further side of the table.

Manton was one of a number of recruits who had that day presented themselves at the Ryde Recruiting Office—a tall, well-poised man of twenty-six, dark-haired, blue-eyed, firm-lipped and vigorous-looking, despite the fact that his countenance was somewhat pale. He wore a well-brushed blue serge suit, noticeably the worse for wear. His bowler hat, too, had seen long service.

Captain Gilbert, still looking at him, drew forth a sheet of paper, and took up his pen.

"John Manton," he wrote, then his eyes lifted, and he looked once more and with a peculiar expression into the tall young recruit's face. For a moment he paused. "Manton," he said, "I should like to see you privately after the office closes."

The young man steadily returned his gaze.

"Very good, sir," he said, with an air of docility. "At what time shall I come?"

"At eight o'clock," returned Gilbert. "Wait for me outside." His eyes followed the other as he turned and left the building, but the moment the door had closed Captain Gilbert plunged once again into his work.

"Next," he called to the line of men seated on the far side of the room; and the man at the end of the line rose and advanced towards the table.

Manton in the meantime paced the streets until eight o'clock, then turned his steps towards the recruiting office.

"I wonder what he wants," thought the young man.

Possibly Gilbert guessed he had been in the army before, and wished to question him upon that point.

"Whatever he wants," thought Manton, somewhat wearily, "does not much matter. If he refuses to take me, and manages to find out everything, I can enlist somewhere else."

As the clock struck eight Captain Gilbert, with an air of haste, closed his desk, left the office and came striding along the street.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Captain, catching sight of Manton, "we'll come up here to the left; it's quieter."

He led the way as he spoke towards a deserted side street. It was already almost dark, and the dimmed street lamps had been lit. They had proceeded some distance together in silence, when Gilbert halted suddenly, and laid his hand on Manton's shoulder.

"Treves," he said, "so you had the grit to do it, after all?"

Manton turned and stared in wonderment.

"Do what, sir?" But he suddenly felt his fingers seized in a cordial grip.

"Gad," went on Gilbert, "that'll make a man of you—eh?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand a word of what you are saying, sir!"

"You don't understand a word! Why, of course you don't! I like you for it—and I'll be frank, I thought I never could like you. Somehow," he went on, looking into Manton's face, "you are the same and yet different, but I'd know you anywhere, despite this shabby old suit and your battered bowler. You knew me, too, when you came into the office."

Manton, still bewildered beyond measure, shook his head slowly.

"I have never seen you in my life before, sir!"

"No, of course not," laughed Gilbert, who was jovial and good-natured. He slipped his arm through Manton's. "Come along now, and we'll talk about it!" Something in the situation of the moment seemed to exhilarate him. "So you've decided to make good after all? Well, all I can say is—I'm delighted. For your own sake, for the old Colonel's sake, for everybody's sake!"

Again he paused and looked into his companion's face.

"I'll admit, Treves, I didn't think you had it in you. I thought——"

Manton freed his arm from the other's grasp.

"I am sorry, sir," he said, "but you are evidently making a grievous mistake. My name is Manton——"

"I don't care what your name is," retorted Gilbert, irritated a little by what he believed to be the other's unnecessary reserve. "You can get rid of your name and call yourself Manton or Jones or Smith or Robinson or anything you like for all I care! But I know you to be Bernard Treves, and——"

But this time a note of firmness appeared in Manton's voice.

"My name is not Treves, sir!"

Gilbert shrugged his shoulders.

"You needn't keep up that note with me," he said. "I'm delighted to find you have the grit to try to make some sort of reparation."

Manton moistened his lips.

"I still don't understand you," he said slowly. "But all I can do is to assure you I am not Treves. If you know some one who resembles me and whose name is Treves, perhaps you would look at me again. To my knowledge, sir, I have never met you in my life before."

As he spoke he took off his hat and turned his face fully towards the Captain.

For a moment there was silence.

"In this half-darkness," said Gilbert, "you look absolutely like Bernard Treves to me. You looked like him in the office. I could see that you had been in the army the minute you stood at my table." He paused, and for the first time a slight doubt crept over him. "The only thing that seems changed to me," he went on, "is your manner. Come, now, Treves, you know me well enough to confide in me; that's why I asked you to speak to me out of the office. Anything you care to say will go no further. I will accept it as unofficial, and if you intend to make good I'm prepared to be a good friend to you. But in the first place admit that you are Treves; it will make matters much easier."

For some moments Manton remained silent. Gilbert believed that at last he was about to admit his identity.

"I will tell you my history for the past three months, sir," said the young man.

"I shall respect your confidence," Gilbert answered.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but my name is really Manton, and, as you guessed when I came into the office, I have been in the army before. I was at Scarthoe Head, Battery A. I was a sergeant, and, being a public school man, was made book-keeper to the acting adjutant." He fell into silence again, and went on after a pause. "Something went wrong in regard to the delivery of stores to the fort. There was a hundred and forty-five pounds deficit in the accounts. I was held responsible, sir."

There was an intensity and a genuineness in the ring of the stranger's voice that gripped Gilbert's attention. He listened with the closest attention, and as Manton narrated in detail his life during the past six months, Gilbert's convictions faded and gradually vanished. It was impossible that the man could have invented the story, a story so easy of verification. It was some time, however, before he let Manton perceive his change of view; then he drew in a deep breath.

"Gad!" he exclaimed, "then you are not Treves after all!"

"No, sir."

"Go on with your story."

Manton obediently resumed his discourse, bringing his history down to that afternoon and his visit to the recruiting office.

"It's amazing!" exclaimed Gilbert. "I could have sworn—— But, after all," he went on, as if communing with himself, "there's something in your eyes that's different."

"My one ambition in life," concluded Manton, "is to repay that hundred and forty-five pounds. I wanted to do it for the honour of the battery. But when three months had passed and I found I couldn't manage it, I decided to enlist again."

Gilbert, when his first surprise had departed, began to feel an unusual interest in the young man, and as the two strolled back towards the Captain's hotel, he dropped his slight tone of authority, but was quite uncommunicative as to the mysterious and evidently delinquent Treves.

"If you could come to the office in the morning," he said at parting, "I think we can get round any difficulties there may be in regard to your re-enlistment. Do you mind if I make inquiries about you, merely as a matter of form?"

"Not in the least, sir."

A few minutes later Captain Gilbert put through a trunk call to Scarthoe Fort. The commandant of Battery A, who was known to Gilbert by name, happened to be on duty. Gilbert explained that a man giving the name of John Manton, lately of his battery, had that day attempted to re-enlist at Ryde.

"I'd like all the information you can give me about him," Gilbert asked.

"One of the best," came back the prompt answer from Scarthoe Fort. "Manton was a favourite here, and quite unofficially, although matters got a bit muddled, and the case went against him, none of us believed him guilty. A first-rate gunner and white clear through. I shall be glad to know that he's back in the army again."

Gilbert rang off, and all that night the amazing resemblance between his friend Treves and Manton occupied his thoughts. As a result of this preoccupation, and some time during the small hours, a startling idea came to him, first as a nebulous, vague possibility, then as an entirely practicable and simple solution of a difficulty. The thought was this: why should not the singular resemblance between Treves and Manton be turned to good account? Manton had said he wanted more than anything in the world to repay the money due to the battery. Treves, on his part, wanted—— Gilbert broke off here, but his thoughts continued to pursue the new, startling idea that had come to him.

"Gad!" he exclaimed, as the morning broke, "I believe the plan would achieve miracles. If Treves got away under another name he might rouse himself. He might become a man again." ...

In the morning Manton came into the office looking bright, vigorous and full of vitality. Gilbert rose and examined him. Yes, there was a difference, a slight, almost undetectable difference. Something in the eyes—nothing more than that.

"Are you convinced now, sir?" asked the young man, smiling and standing at attention.

"I am quite convinced, Manton, and I have a proposition to make to you."

He took his visitor into an inner room, and, seated there, he unfolded a little of the plan that had come to him during the watches of the night.

"Manton," he said, "I must get authority before I can accept you as a recruit, but in the meantime," he went on, "I have been thinking of our talk of last night. I like you for trying to earn that hundred and forty-five pounds, and they gave a good account of you at Scarthoe."

"I don't know who had the money, sir, but I'd do anything in the world to pay it back for the honour of the battery."

Captain Gilbert paused, then took a letter from the pocket of his tunic. The envelope was addressed: "Lieutenant Bernard Treves, 15, Sade Road, Lymington."

Gilbert had written this letter earlier that morning. With a certain air of formality he handed it to John Manton and instructed him to deliver it to Lieutenant Treves that evening after dark.

"I have a plan in regard to you, Manton, that I think will work out to your entire satisfaction. I won't tell you what it is until you have seen my friend Treves. But when Treves has read this letter he may, or may not, think it worth his while to pay you the money you need. If he doesn't, please come back to me to-morrow, and we will go on with the matter of your re-enlistment."

"In case Lieutenant Treves decides favourably, sir, what must I do to earn the money?"

"You will learn that from him," answered the Captain. "Go to-night, as unobtrusively as you can," he said. He rose, held out his hand and gripped Manton's fingers cordially in his.