CHAPTER XX

THE IMPENDING SWORD

"I must have ten thousand pounds, and"--Mrs. J. Lamb paused--"within a week."

"Must!"

Mr. Isaac Luker folded his hands together with a gesture which suggested the act of prayer. He seemed singularly out of place in his environment. They were in the apartment which Mrs. Lamb called her boudoir, a word which has a different meaning in the mouths of different women. In this case it stood for a room which represented what was possibly the last word in gorgeous decoration. Everything was of the costliest. If the result was a trifle vivid, it was not altogether unpleasing. It was a room in which one could be very much at one's ease--in certain moods--if one were of a certain constitution. There was something in its atmosphere which made a not ineffective appeal to the senses, not so much to the sense of beauty or of intellect, as to that of physical well-being. In some subtle way the owner's strong personality impregnated the whole place. On crossing the threshold a person of delicate perception might have become immediately conscious of something which could scarcely have been called healthy.

But the prevailing note was gorgeousness, and anything less gorgeous than Mr. Isaac Luker one could hardly conceive. Mrs. Lamb's costume harmonised with the apartment, it was so evidently the product of one of those artists in dress to whom expense is no object. And it became her very well. In it she looked not only a handsome woman, but almost a real great lady. Mr. Luker's apparel, on the other hand, was not only unbecoming and ill-fitting, but it was apparently in the last stage of decay. None of the garments seemed to have been made for him, and they were all of them odd ones. He was tall and thin. He wore an old pair of black-and-white checked trousers, which were too short in the leg and too big everywhere else; an old black frock-coat, which he kept closely buttoned, and which must certainly have been intended for some one who was both shorter and broader. His long thin neck was surrounded by a suspicious-looking collar, which was certainly not made of linen, and he wore by way of a necktie something which might have once done duty as a band on a bowler hat. One understood, after a very cursory inspection, why a gentleman who had such a keen regard for appearances as Mr. Andrew McTavish should object to being brought into involuntary, and unsatisfactory, professional contact with Mr. Isaac Luker.

Yet those who knew had reason to believe that Mr. Luker did a considerable business of a kind--though it was emphatically of a kind. He had one or two peculiarities. He was an habitual gin drinker, and though he could seldom be said to be positively drunk, he could just as rarely be called entirely sober. To all intents and purposes he lived on gin. He had it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and for afternoon tea and supper, and he did not seem to find it a very nourishing food. Then, perhaps partially owing to the monotonous regularity of his diet, he seemed to be incapable of saying what he meant, while his yeas and his nays were as worthless as his oaths. For a solicitor to be a notorious liar and drunkard one would suppose would be a serious handicap in his profession. Oddly enough, with Mr. Luker it was, if anything, the other way. The sort of clients he courted wanted just the sort of man he was. He, speaking generally, never did any clean business; he was only at home when dealing with what was unclean; and as there is more of that kind of commerce about than might be imagined--and some of it is amazingly lucrative--he did tolerably well. Indeed, there were those who declared that, although he did not look it, he was uncommonly well-off, it being one of his characteristics that he was as incapable of spending money as he was of telling the truth or giving up gin.

As he stood there, with his hands folded in front of him in an attitude of prayer, Mrs. Lamb regarded him with what could hardly be regarded as glances of admiration. When she addressed him it was with a frankness which was hardly in keeping with her _rôle_ of great lady, and which is not usual when one deals with one's legal adviser.

"Listen to me, Luker. I want none of your humbug, and I want none of your lies. I want ten thousand pounds inside a week--and you've got to get them. I'll give fifteen thousand for the ten, so there won't be a bad profit for some one."

"How long do you want the money for?"

"Oh--three months."

"On what security?"

"What security? On the security of my property."

"Your property?" Mr. Luker did not smile--a smile was probably another thing of which he was incapable--but his wizened features assumed a curious aspect. "Of what does your property consist?"

"None of your nonsense. To begin with, there are those ten thousand shares in the Hardwood Company. As you know very well, they're worth over fifty thousand pounds at the present moment."

"They would be if you had them--but you haven't."

"McTavish & Brown have got them, and you're going to make them disgorge."

"We've first of all to prove that they've got them."

"Oh no, we haven't; they have to prove that they handed them over to Cuthbert Grahame, which is a very different thing, as you know very well."

"My dear Isabel, you're a very clever woman; your fault is that, if anything, you're too clever."

"I've heard you called too clever before to-day."

"My dear----"

"Don't you call me your dear! I won't have it."

"Very well, although it is possible that few men have a better right----"

"Right! Don't you dare to talk to me about right!--you!--don't you talk to me like that, Mr. Luker! You just simply listen to me. I want ten thousand pounds before this day week, and you've got to get it. No one in London knows better than you from whom and how to get it."

"Mrs. Lamb--by the way, how is your worthy husband?"

"Never mind my worthy husband--you keep to the point."

"Even supposing we are able to saddle McTavish & Brown with the responsibility for the Hardwood shares--which is problematical--it'll take a good deal more than three months to do it. It is not to be supposed that they'll accept an adverse decision without taking the case through every court available. That may take years. If in the end it is decided that they will have to pay, it is not by any means certain that they will be able to. Costs will have swollen the original total enormously; it all will have to come from them. There is nothing to show that they are in a position to pay such a huge sum as that will be."

"Oh yes, there is; they're rolling in money; I've seen enough of them to know so much."

"You think you have. I doubt if that is a matter on which your judgment can be trusted. If the case ultimately goes against them, the possibilities--I should say the probabilities--are that they will declare themselves bankrupt. Then where will you be? You will have to pay your own costs, and, instead of getting the amount adjudged, after another interval of dreary waiting, you may receive, as a final quittance, perhaps sixpence, or a shilling, in the pound. And in the meantime, you must remember, you will have to live."

"You old croaker!"

"Let me make a suggestion."

"Your suggestions!"

She brought her fist down on the back of an armchair with an emphasis which almost suggested that she would have liked that chair to have been some portion of his body.

"Let me lay the whole case before a friend of mine, and, after he has given it careful consideration, it is possible that he may make you a proposition."

"What sort of proposition?"

"That I cannot tell you--the best he can."

"You understand that I must have ten thousand pounds within a week?"

"I hear you say so. If my friend can see his way no doubt he will let you have them."

"Mind he does see his way!"

"As to that----"

Mr. Gregory Lamb's sudden appearance in the doorway perhaps allowed to serve as an excuse for his sentence to remain unfinished.

"You here!" exclaimed Mr. Lamb, as if he were not too well pleased to see him. "I didn't know."

Mr. Luker's greeting, although well meant, was a little peculiar.

"My dear Mr. Lamb, how well you are always looking!--and always so beautifully dressed. What a lovely pin you have in your pretty necktie! Now I know a friend who would give you----"

"I don't want to know what your friend would give me! Confound it, Luker, I never see you but you tell me what some one you know would give me for something I have on. You might be a marine store-dealer."

"There are worse trades, Mr. Lamb--there are worse trades. Now with regard to that exquisite pair of trousers----"

"Look here, Luker, if you're going to tell me what some one you know will give me for my trousers, I'll throw something at you."

"You mustn't do that, Mr. Lamb, it might be something worth money--everything in the room is so very beautiful. Mrs. Lamb, I wish you good-morning."

"Now, no nonsense, Luker. I want that within a week--and you've got to see I have it--if you don't want trouble!"

"I understand perfectly, and will bear what you have said well in mind. You shall hear from me again very shortly."

"I will see I do!"

"I have had clients, Mr. Lamb, who would have conveyed that pin without paying for it--it presents such temptations to an honest man. I do hope it's properly secured. Good-morning!"

When Mr. Luker had retired Mr. Lamb turned to his wife, with knitted brows.

"Isabel, it's beyond my comprehension why you have anything to do with that animal. He's got scoundrel written large all over him."

"I shouldn't have thought that would have prejudiced him in your eyes."

"I suppose you think that's smart. I know there was a time when we both of us had to sail pretty close to the wind, but I thought that time had gone for ever. You've told me so over and over again. You're a woman of large fortune, of assured position, a person of importance. I should have thought that from the point of view of policy alone it would have been worth your while to have dealings with solicitors of standing only, and to have nothing to do with such a brute as that. Aren't you ashamed to have him seen going in and out of the house, or to have the servants know that he is here?"

"I'm not easily ashamed--you ought to know that. Is that all you've come for?--to tell me what you think about what is no concern of yours?"

"What's this I hear about your bringing out a play, and acting in it yourself?"

"Who told you that?"

"Winton--to my amazement!"

"What did he tell you?"

"Something about your producing a play of Talfourd's--Talfourd's, of all people in the world! My hat! he said that you proposed to act one of the principal parts in it yourself. Isabel, that's going too far; I won't stand it."

"You won't what?"

There was something in the lady's tone and in her attitude before which he obviously quailed.

"I don't think that it's becoming in a woman of your position, as--as my wife."

"It's not my fault that I'm your wife."

"Still the fact remains that you are. By the way, has Talfourd been saying anything to you about me?"

"What should he say?--except to advise me to sew you in a sack and drop you into the river."

"That's just what he'd like--he's that sort of man."

"Is he? He's what you never were, never will be, never could be--a gentleman. Why you don't even begin to understand what a gentleman is."

"'Pon my word, I wonder that I let you talk to me like this. I don't want to quarrel with you--I hate quarrelling!--I really do. You couldn't treat me worse if I were a shoeblack."

"I never met any one yet whose shoes you were worthy to black. Why, Luker's a man compared to you. He doesn't sponge upon a woman."

"It's not fair of you to speak to me like this--it is not! I know you're not fond of me----"

"Fond of you!--fond!"

The lady flung out her arm, as if the idea of her entertaining any feeling of that kind for her husband was a grotesque one, and she laughed. As he continued his tone suggested a snarl.

"I don't know that I'm particularly fond of you. You don't go out of your way to make yourself agreeable to a fellow. You've only got to say the word to be rid of me for--well, at any rate, a good long time."

"What's the word? L.S.D.?"

Mr. Lamb coughed.

"A fellow can't go away with empty pockets."

"I thought so. Out with it! What are you at?"

"The truth is, Isabel, I'm not feeling very well."

"If you were feeling as I'd like you to feel you'd be feeling very much worse."

"That's frank! A nice thing for a wife to say to her husband! I believe you're capable of anything."

"I am--I always have been--and I always shall be, you bear that constantly in mind. Why can't you say what you want? If it is prussic acid to use upon yourself I'll give you money enough to buy a barrelful."

The expression of Mr. Lamb's countenance was sullen, so also was the tone of his voice, which perhaps on the whole was not to be wondered at.

"I want to go to the Riviera."

"That means Monte Carlo. Well go--at once--and never come back again."

"If you'll give me the coin I'll start in a jiffy."

"How much do you want?"

"I daresay I could manage with a thousand. I've hit upon a system."

"You've hit upon a system!"

"If you'll only keep still for a moment I'll tell you what it is, and then you'll see for yourself it's an absolute cert. I'll turn the thou. into fifty in less than no time. I can't help doing it!--you see!--and then I'll give you half."

"You'll give me half! Then am I to understand that you won't go unless I give you a thousand pounds?"

"I couldn't do it on less--the system I mean. I've worked out all the details and I really couldn't. I'll show you if you like. It's want of capital that wrecks a man in a thing like this. If you haven't got the proper amount--the lowest possible amount that's absolutely necessary--you might as well throw your money into the sea."

"Then you'll never go at all, because I haven't a thousand pounds to give you."

"What do you mean?"

"It's simple. I don't think I've fifty pounds at my bankers, and I'm pretty sure that they won't honour my cheque if I overdraw."

"Isabel!"

"You owe money, don't you?"

"I daresay I owe a bit here and there."

"So I've been given to understand. I also owe a bit. And my creditors, like yours, won't wait."

"Mine will have to."

"Will they? I thought that was just what they wouldn't do."

"Who's been telling you tales about me?"

"A little bird. So you see, Gregory, I'm more in want of a thousand pounds, because you can't carry on a house like this for long on fifty pounds, even if I have so much at the bank, which, as I say, I doubt."

"Fifty pounds! You're playing the fool with me--it's a favourite game of yours. What's become of the quarter of a million you told me that man Grahame had left you?"

"That's what I should like to know."

"You don't mean you've spent it? You can't have done--not in the time."

"I've never had it to spend."

"What rot are you talking? What game are you playing? Have you all along been telling me nothing but lies?"

"Cuthbert Grahame told me himself that he was worth more than a quarter of a million; soon after he died I told you that only a small portion of the money could be found."

"You told me nothing of the kind--you've never told me anything. Whenever I asked you a question you've always shut me up. You've kept me all along in the dark."

"Then I tell you now. Only a small sum was ever found, and that's been spent--and more than spent."

"Then am I to understand that he was fooling you when he talked about his quarter of a million?"

"I don't believe that he was. I believe he was telling the truth; that he was worth what he said; only it's never been found, and no one seems to know where it is." She held out her clenched fists in front of her, shaking them, as if she were endeavouring, by the exercise of sheer physical force, to assist her mental process. "Sometimes I feel that I know--that I am very near to knowing--that if I could do something I should know quite. It's as if I'd been told something in a dream, and, on waking, had forgotten what it was. I don't like to think of the time he died--I can't." She looked about her, as if unconscious of his presence, with something on her face, in her eyes, which startled him. "Yet if I could--if I could! I believe it would all come back to me what I have forgotten, and I should know where the money is. But I can't! I can't! Since--since the pillow slipped from under him, I--I've never been the same."

She dropped into a chair, looking straight in front of her, with her hands dangling at her sides, as if she saw--she alone knew what. This was such a new mood for her that its very novelty scared Mr. Lamb.

"Don't look like that, Belle! What are you looking at?"

"God knows! God knows!"

Mr. Lamb squirmed.

"Don't! I say, drop it! You're a cheerful sort of person, upon my word! I come here to get a pound or two, and you go on like this! Do you mean to tell me straight that we're hard up?"

"There are three things that can save us, and three things only. If I could think I might find the money."

"Then, for the Lord's sake, think! Only don't think like that; it gives me the creeps to hear you."

"I can't think, anyhow, about that; I've tried, and I can't. If I could get the money out of McTavish & Brown, that would be something."

"Get it out of any one, but please remember that sharp's the word."

"Then there's the play--Harry Talfourd's play--I believe there's fame and fortune in that--and safety. Do you know what that means--safety?"

"Gracious, Isabel! don't shout at me like that! My nerves were all mops and brooms when I came; you've made them ever so much worse. I'm all of a twitter. I'll talk to you when you're in a more reasonable mood; you'll upset me altogether if I stay much longer." Mr. Lamb withdrew, to return immediately, at least so far as his head and shoulders were concerned, the rest of his body he kept on the other side of the door. "Deal fairly with a chap--do! I must have cash from somewhere, or I shall be in a deuce of a hole. Can you let me have fifty?"

"I can't."

"Can you make it twenty-five?"

"I can't. I can't let you have anything. Do you want me to yell at you? I--can't--let--you--have--anything! Do you hear that?"

"All right! don't shout at a man like that! I should think you must be going off your head. I never saw you in such a cranky mood before."

Mr. Lamb beat a precipitate retreat, this time finally. His wife, left alone, remained seated on her chair in that very curious attitude, with that very curious look upon her face.

"It must be imagination--what they call an optical delusion. Perhaps, as he says, I'm going off my head. One thing's certain, it can't be real. This is not his room; that's not his bed; that's not----" She veiled her eyes with the palms of her hands. "No! no!--I'm too much alone. I shall go mad if I'm so much alone--mad!"

She sat silent for some moments, with her features all contorted, as if she were wrestling with actual physical pain. Then, rising, she took out of a small cupboard in an ormolu cabinet a decanter containing some colourless liquid. Pouring some of it into a wineglass she swallowed it at a draught.

It was pure ether. She resorted to it to minister to a mind diseased.

When, later, she descended to the apartment which was called, as it almost seemed ironically, Mr. Talfourd's workroom, that gentleman rose to greet her with a smile. She also smiled. To all outward seeming she was herself again--self-possessed, satisfied with herself and with the world, at peace with every one. They exchanged a few banal sentences, both remaining on their feet, she looking at him with eyes which, to phrase it diplomatically, flattered, he meeting her glance with an appearance of serene unconsciousness that there was anything in it which was singular. Presently she touched on the topic which was to the front in both their minds.

"About the play--have you thought it over? Am I to play Lady Glover?"

He still was diplomatic.

"You will understand that I, being a conceited and self-centred author, the matter of my play bulges out until it assumes for me what you will probably, and correctly, consider exaggerated proportions. Will you let me think it over a little longer? In the first place, I have settled nothing with Mr. Winton, and, in the second, I want to ask you to do me a favour."

"You are aware that between you and me for you it is but to ask and to have--anything, everything, I have to give."

If her words were significant, the manner in which they were spoken underlined them. Neither the manner nor the matter of his reply could be termed sympathetic.

"I don't know if you are aware that I am engaged to be married."

If something flickered across her face which was not there a moment before, it went as quickly as it came.

"No, I wasn't. Are you?"

"I, of course, don't expect you to be interested in the trivialities of my life, and I only mention it as a mere detail, but--the lady would very much like to know you. May she?"

"My dear Mr. Talfourd! hadn't you better put it the other way? May I know her? and when? May I call on her? or will she pay me the great compliment of coming to see me?"

"You're very kind. With your permission she will come and see you to-night."

"To-night? I'm at home--of course! Do you know I'd almost forgotten it. Bring her by all means. Tell her she's to come early, before the people, and that she's to stop late, after the crowd has gone."

Of such clay are we constituted. She had not the dimmest notion that in giving that very warm invitation she was hanging up over her own head a sword of Damocles, which, in this case, was suspended by something which was almost less than a single hair.