Читать книгу Court Netherleigh - Mrs. Henry Wood - Страница 14

"Some one is waiting to see you, sir," said one of Mr. Grubb's servants to him, as he entered the house on his return from church.

"Who is it?"

"Mr. Dalrymple's man, sir. He has been waiting nearly an hour."

Reuben came forward from the back of the hall. The moment Mr. Grubb caught sight of his face, usually so full of healthy bloom, now pale and woe-begone, he was seized with a presentiment of evil.

"Come into the library, Reuben," he said. "Have you brought ill news of any kind?" he added, shutting the door. "What is it?"

And to make matters more intelligible to you, reader, we will go back to the past Friday night, when Robert Dalrymple left his lodgings in the company of Mr. Piggott, leaving poor Reuben in distress and despair.

Reuben sat up the livelong night. The light dawned after the brief interval of darkness, very brief in June, the sun came out, the cries and bustle in the streets gradually set in, and London had begun another day. At six o'clock Reuben lay down on his bed for an hour, and then got himself a bit of breakfast—which he could not eat. His master did not come.

Fearing he knew not what, and attaching more importance, in his vague uneasiness, to Robert's having stayed out than he might have done at another time, at nine o'clock Reuben betook himself to Mr. Piggott's. That gentleman did not live in very fashionable lodgings, and his address was usually given at his club, not there. Reuben, however, knew it. Some time before, Reuben had gone on a fishing tour, to catch what information he could as to the private concerns of Mr. Piggott and Colonel Haughton, and had found out where each lived.

The slipshod servant who came to the door could say nothing as to whether Mr. Dalrymple was staying the night there; all she knew was, that Mr. Piggott "warn't up yet." Reuben inquired as to the locality of Mr. Piggott's chamber, went up to it without opposition, and knocked at the door; a sharp, loud knock.

"Who's there?"

Another knock, sharper still.

"Come in."

Reuben walked in at once. "Sir," was his unceremonious address, "do you know anything of my master?"

"I!" cried Mr. Piggott, when he had recovered his surprise, and speaking from the midst of his bedclothes. "I do not. Why?"

"I thought you might know, sir, as you took him out last night. He said he was going to play with you and Colonel Haughton. He has not returned home, which I think very strange; and, as there is some important business waiting for him, I want to find him."

Reuben spoke out freely. But the "important business" was only an invention. He did not care to betray how uneasy he was, yet wanted an excuse for inquiring. Poor man! the fate of his early master lay ominously on his mind.

"He left us last night between twelve and one o'clock; to go home, as I suppose," said Mr. Piggott, somewhat taken aback.

"Between twelve and one, sir?"

"Close upon one it may have been; it had not struck. I know nothing more."

"Did he go home with Colonel Haughton?"

"That I am sure he did not. Colonel Haughton and I walked away together. I left the colonel at his own door."

"Away from Jermyn Street, I suppose you mean, sir!"

"You have no right to suppose anything of the kind," roared Mr. Piggott, aroused to anger. "What is it to you? Go out, and shut the door."

Reuben did as he was bid; there seemed to be no use in staying. He sought out Colonel Haughton, who (remembering past events) was civil, and who possibly felt some undefined uneasiness at the disappearance of Robert. His story was the same as Piggott's—that the young man had left them a little before one o'clock.

Trusting these gentlemen just as far as he could see them, and no farther, or their word either, Reuben went to the gambling-house in Jermyn Street. After some difficulty—for every impediment seemed put in the way of any inquiry; and, to judge by appearances, the place might have been the most innocent in the world—Reuben found a man attached to the house who knew Mr. Dalrymple. This man happened to be at the front-door when Mr. Dalrymple went out the previous night; it wanted about five or ten minutes to one. He watched him walk away.

"Which way did he go?" asked Reuben. "Towards home—South Audley Street?"

"No; the other way. He staggered a bit, as if not quite sober."

"Through the machinations of the wicked people that have been hunting him; he never drank but when incited to it by them," spoke Reuben, in his pain.

Back he went to South Audley Street, in the hope that his master might have now reached it. Not so. The day wore on, and he did not come. Reuben was half distracted. In the evening, he went to various police-stations, and told his tale—his master, Mr. Robert Dalrymple, had disappeared. It may, perhaps, seem to you, reader, that all this was premature; hardly called for; but the faithful old servant's state of mind must plead his excuse.

Another night passed. Sunday morning arose, and then tidings came of Robert and his probable fate. The police had been making inquiries, and one of them came to Reuben.

A hat had been found in the Thames, the previous day, floating away with the tide. Inside it was written "R. Dalrymple." The policeman had it in his hand; bringing it to Reuben to be owned or disowned. Reuben recognized it in a moment. It was the one his unfortunate master had worn on Friday night. How could it have got in the water?—and where, then, was Robert Dalrymple?

Little need to speculate. Some bargemen who were in their vessel, lying close to the side of Westminster Bridge, had disclosed to the police that about two o'clock on Saturday morning they had heard a weight drop into the water, seemingly from the bridge—"as if," said one of them, "a body had throwed hisself right on to the Thames o' purpose to make a hole in it."

It was this disastrous news that Reuben had now brought to Mr. Grubb. That gentleman sat aghast as he listened. The old man, seated opposite to him, broke down with a burst of anguish as he concluded, the salt tears raining on his cheeks.

"Can he have wilfully destroyed himself?" breathed Mr. Grubb.

"Only too sure, sir," wailed Reuben; "only too sure."

"And the motive? Embarrassment?"

"Not a doubt of it, sir: he was quite ruined."

"If he had only applied to me!—if he had only applied to me!" bewailed Mr. Grubb, rising from his chair to pace the room in excitement. "I would have saved and helped him."

"A dreadful set had got hold of him, poor young man," sobbed Reuben. "The same gamblers—one of them's the same, at any rate—that got hold of and ruined his uncle. Doubtless you know that story, sir. On this last Friday evening that ever was, I told it to Mr. Robert, hoping it would turn him back. But those wretched men had laid too fast a hold upon him. One was waiting for him outside in the street then. My belief is, sir, he couldn't break with them."

"Had the tale no effect upon him?"

"Some little it had; not enough. He must go forth to play that night, he said to me; he had given his word to Piggott to go, and, besides, he thought the luck would turn and favour him; but once the night was over, he would know that Haughton and the rest of the set no more. And I think he would have kept his word, sir."

"I suppose luck did not favour him? That shall, if possible, be ascertained."

Reuben shook his head. "No need to doubt, sir. The worst is—the worst is—I hardly like to say it."

"Can anything be worse, Reuben, than what you have told me?" was Mr. Grubb's sad rejoinder, as he took his seat again.

"Ay, but I meant as to his means, sir; his losses. He was quite cleared out; he told me that; everything, including Moat Grange, so far as his life interest in it went, was staked and gone. But that last night"—Reuben's voice dropped to a dread whisper—"he took out with him what was not his to stake. And, no doubt, lost it."

"What was it?" questioned Mr. Grubb, in the same hushed tone, feeling rather at sea, yet afraid of he knew not what.

"It was a cheque that had come up that morning from Netherleigh. Farmer Lee wanted some money invested in some particular security, and he got my master to undertake to do it for him, to save himself the journey up. Mr. Robert had told me all about it—he mostly did tell me things. Ah, sir, his disposition was open and generous as the day."

"And the money came?"

"The cheque came, sir. It was for five hundred pounds. Piggott called that Friday afternoon and scented the cheque; saw it, most likely. He took Mr. Robert out to dinner, and plied him with wine, and between ten and eleven he brought him back again, staying outside while my master came in—come in for the cheque. It was then I tried to pull him up by telling him about his uncle Claude—how the man Haughton had lured Mr. Claude to his destruction, just as he was now luring Mr. Robert. He said he would have no more to do with Haughton after that night; but he went out to Piggott with the cheque in his pocket, and they walked away together arm-in-arm."

Mr. Grubb took out his pocketbook, and made a note in pencil. He would get that cheque back from the gamblers, if possible. At any rate, he would have a good try for it.

Reuben had not much more to tell. Mr. Grubb put on his hat and went with him to see the police inspector who had the case in hand. It was a terrible blow: terrible in all ways: Francis Grubb was feeling it to be so—and what then would it be to his sister Mary?

The inspector pointed out to Mr. Grubb that, in spite of the finding of the hat in the Thames, which hat was, beyond all doubt, Mr. Dalrymple's, it did not follow that Mr. Dalrymple was himself in the Thames; and the splash heard by the men in the barge might have been made by any one else. There was no proof, he urged, that Mr. Dalrymple had been on Westminster Bridge, or near it. And all this seemed so reasonable that Mr. Grubb felt his heart's weight somewhat lightened.

But, ere the Sunday afternoon closed in, testimony on this point was forthcoming, and rather singularly. It chanced that a young man, named Horn, who was an assistant to Robert Dalrymple's tailor, and had often measured Robert for clothes, was spending the Friday with some friends at South Lambeth. Horn, a very respectable and steady man, had stayed late, for it was a wedding feast, beyond the time of omnibuses, and had to walk home to his lodgings near Leicester Square. In passing over Westminster Bridge, it was then close upon two o'clock, he saw some one mounted on the top, leaning right over the parapet, hanging over it, as if he had a mind to fling himself into the water. Horn, startled at the sight, ran up, and pulled the man back; and then, to his unbounded astonishment, he found it was Mr. Dalrymple.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said in apology. "I had no idea it was you."

"Good-night, Horn," replied Robert.

"Good-night, sir," returned Horn; and walked on.

But Horn felt uneasy; especially so at the remembrance of Mr. Dalrymple's face, for it looked full of trouble; and he turned back again. Robert was then standing with his arms folded, apparently looking down quietly on the water.

"Can I do anything for you, sir?" he asked. "Nothing has happened, I hope?"

"Oh, nothing at all," replied Robert. "I don't want anything done; thank you all the same, Horn. The night is warm, and I am enjoying the air: one gets it here, if anywhere. Good-night."

Joseph Horn wished him good-night again and walked finally away. On this day, Sunday, chancing to hear that Mr. Dalrymple was missing—for inquiries were now being made extensively—he came forward and related this.

It was just the one link that had been wanting. Poor Robert Dalrymple, utterly ruined, soon now to be pointed at as a felon, had found his trouble greater than he could bear, and had put an end to it. Of that there could exist no reasonable doubt. The melancholy tale speedily fled over London—how quickly such news does fly! Robert Dalrymple had drowned himself—another victim to Play.

"It runs in the family," quoth some careless people who remembered the former catastrophe. "Like uncle, like nephew! The name of Dalrymple must be a fated one."

"I would at least have used a pistol, and gone out of the world like a gentleman," was the bad remark of that bad man, Colonel Haughton, as he stood on the Sunday night—yes, the Sunday night—and listened to the news in that place with the hot name.

But the colonel changed his tone the following day, when Francis Grubb, the great East India merchant, whom all men, high and low, looked up to and respected, stood before him, and quietly informed him he must give up a certain cheque belonging to Mr. Lee of Netherleigh, or its value if it had been cashed; give it up, or submit to appear before a magistrate, and run the gauntlet of public exposure. After putting himself to a great deal of trouble, in the way of remonstrance, excuse, and grumbling, to which Mr. Grubb made no sort of reply, as he calmly waited the result, the colonel returned the cheque—which had not been cashed. Possibly the disappearance of Robert Dalrymple had put him and Mr. Piggott on their guard.

Meanwhile the Grange remained in ignorance of what was passing; but the terrible tidings would soon have to be carried thither.

When Mrs. Dalrymple returned home on Friday evening from dining at Court Netherleigh, she did not say much to Oscar about her son; but on the following morning, after breakfast, Oscar having slept at the Grange, she questioned him. Without making exactly the worst of it, Oscar disclosed the truth—that is, that Robert was undoubtedly falling into trouble through his gambling habits. He deemed it lay in his duty to tell this; and Mrs. Dalrymple, as the reader must remember, had been already warned by Reuben's letter. That letter had been a great shock to her; she knew how fatal the vice had already proved in the family.