Part 11

I sit down to this chapter of my Memoirs with an unwonted relish, because it exhibits me as an instrument in the hands of Providence. Doubtless, in our business, we perform that function oftener than the law recognises, but seldom so directly, so unequivocally, as in the adventure I shall now relate. And I say this, not because it left me with a title to one of the neatest little estates in the West of England, but because I, the one man necessary to the situation, dropped upon it (so to speak) with my hands in my pockets. I had never before happened within thirty miles of Tregarrick town: I walked in at one end purposing only to walk out at the other: and, but for a child's practical joke, I had done so and forgotten the place. It was touch and go, in short: the sort of thing to set you speculating on the possible extent of man's missed opportunities.

I had stepped ashore, after a voyage from Hull (undertaken from expedience and not for health), upon the Market Strand at Falmouth, with one shilling and fourpence in my pocket. I have been in lower water, but never with such a job before me; and I started to tramp it back to London with little more than a dog's determination to get there somehow. The third afternoon found me in Tregarrick, wet through, sullen, and moderately hungry. The time of year was October: all day it had been raining and blowing chilly from the north-west; and traffic had deserted the unlovely Fore Street when, as the town-clock chimed a quarter to five, I passed the windows and open archway of the Red Hart Hotel. A gust from the archway brought me up staggering and clutching my hat: I faced round to it, and, in so doing, caught a momentary glimpse, above the wire blind in a lower window, of a bald-headed man within standing with his back to the street; and at the same instant heard a coin drop on the pavement behind me.

A richer man would have halted, turned and scanned the pavement as I did. But a richer man would probably have taken longer to assure himself that nothing had been lost from his pocket, and would certainly have taken longer to suspect that the coin might have been tossed to him in charity. I flung a glance up at the window overhead, and spied a penny dangling over the sill by a string.

At once I recognised the secular jest; and stepped across the roadway to get a look at the performer. As I did so, an elderly man in an Inverness cape and rusty hat and suit emerged briskly from the archway of the inn, glanced up at the weather, and passed along the pavement beneath the window.

Thereupon, I saw the trick played to perfection. A curly-headed youngster popped into view, leaned out, rang the coin down at the very heels of the pedestrian, and whisked it as nimbly up. The man whipped round and, seeing nothing, pulled out a pair of spectacles and began to adjust them. I heard the youngster chuckle overhead as he stooped and a deflected gust from the archway, skimming his hat into the gutter, revealed the same bald head I had observed above the wire blind.

Just then, three other faces appeared; one above the same blind and two at the upper window behind the child. And a moment later I had spun right-about on my heel and was apparently in deep study of a damp placard upon a hoarding opposite.

The two faces at the upper window were interesting, had there been time to consider them; and one--that of a lady, obviously the child's mother--struck me as uncommonly beautiful, though pale and desperately sad. Beside her stood a man, as obviously the father; a handsome gentleman, with the flushed face and glassy stare of a drunkard. He stood there chuckling at the trick, and even the lady was smiling indulgently until she leaned out and caught a glimpse of the victim: whereupon, with a sudden terrified snatch, she drew the boy back from the window, and out of sight.

It was then, as I looked at the bald-headed man, seeking some explanation of her terror, that I caught sight of the face staring over the wire blind in the lower window, and lost not a second in presenting my back to it.

It belonged to an old acquaintance of mine. "Acquaintance," I say, because Robert Leggat and I had never been able to stomach each other. There was perhaps a trifle too much of the gentleman about both of us--enough, at any rate, to suggest rivalry, though we hunted different game. "Buck" Leggat was by gifts and election a sedentary scoundrel, with a tongue and a presence fatally plausible among women and clergymen, and a neat adaptable pen. Whence he came, or of what upbringing, I could never discover. I had heard some hint of an Oxford education, but he never alluded to that University in my company. Flash notes had brought him to the Old Bailey, and then his elegant deportment and a nice point of circumstantial evidence had saved his neck. This was about four years ago, and I had supposed him to be somewhere in the Plantations when his bad handsome face confounded me across Tregarrick Fore Street. He wore a clergyman's bands, too.

By good luck he had not recognised me, but was occupied with the bald-headed man who still groped on the pavement. The placard which I appeared to be studying announced the Sale by Auction of a considerable country estate, and my eyes roamed among such words as "farms," "tenements," "messuages," "acres," while I cast up the possible profit of my discovery. Here was I, pretty hungry, with barely the coin for a night's lodging. Here was Leggat, escaped convict, lording it in the coffee-room of a hotel, masquerading as a parson; therefore up to some game--a bold one--by the look of it a paying one. Decidedly I ought, with a little prudence, to handle a percentage.

I edged away from the hoarding to the shop-front on my left--a watchmaker's; and so, still presenting my back to the Red Hart, past a saddler's, a tailor's, the entrance of the County Hall, and the Town Clerk's office. Here, out of view from Leggat's window, I turned, stepped across the street into the hotel archway, and walked boldly into the coffee-room which opened out of it on the left.

Leggat had disappeared. The room in fact was empty.

I rang the bell, and after some minutes it was answered by a waitress, a decent girl, though somewhat towzled.

"There was a clergyman here a moment since," said I.

"That will be Mr. Addison. Do you wish to see him?" She eyed me with no great favour, and indeed my clothes ill agreed with the respectable dinginess of the coffee-room.

"So Addison's the name!" thought I, "and a pretty good one too. I wonder if Leggat has the face to claim descent from the essayist. He's capable of it." I pulled out my only shilling. "Well, yes, I want to have a talk with him: but I'll sit down and wait till he comes, and meanwhile you might bring me a glass of rum hot, with one slice of lemon. Mr. Addison is staying the night here, I suppose?"

"I don't know," she answered. "Anyhow, he won't be riding home to Welland till late. But hadn't you better come to the bar for your rum?"

"Well," said I, "if it's all the same to you, I'll stay where I am. To tell the truth, my dear, I've come to see Mr. Addison about putting up my banns: and that's a delicate matter, eh!"

Upon this she began to eye me more favourably, as I expected. There's an _esprit de corps_ among women--or an _esprit de sexe_, if you will--which softens them towards the marrying man. Surrender to one, surrender to all. "But you don't belong to Welland parish," said she.

"Quite right. It takes two to make a wedding, and the young woman belongs to Welland."

"Who is she?"

"Aha!" I winked at her knowingly.

"I come from Welland parish myself," she went on, her curiosity fairly piqued.

"Then if you happen to be going home to church next Sunday keep your ears open after the second lesson."

She tossed her chin and went off on her errand, but returning in three minutes with the grog, must needs have another try. "I reckon it's Susie Martin," she declared, and nodded at me with conviction in her eye.

"Well, now, supposing it's Susie--and, mind you, I'm not admitting it--you won't forbid the banns, I hope?"

"La, no! And I'll wager Mr. Addison won't, either," she tittered.

Plainly, here was an answer worth pondering. "You seem to be pretty full in the bar, to-night?" I observed, casually, to gain time; and, indeed, a hubbub of voices from across the archway smote on our ears through the double baize doors.

"The auctioneer is standing treat."

"Oh!--ah, yes--the auctioneer, to be sure," I murmured.

"The sale won't begin in the Long Room before six: he has half-an-hour for wetting their whistles. Seeming to me, you'll be lucky if you get Mr. Addison to attend to _your_ business before it's over. But, perhaps," she added archly, "you'll like to have a word with Susie, to fill up the time? Shall I send her word that you are here? I dare say she'll find a chance to slip down to you; that is, if her mistress attends the auction."

"But will she?" I asked, doing my best to look wise.

She nodded sagely. "I shouldn't wonder. She'll want to look after the squire; he's more than half drunk already."

"It's plain you're a clever girl," I said; "but we'll let Susie wait for a while. And my business can wait on Mr. Addison. If his is an auction, mine is notoriously a lottery."

"There's one thing to console you," she answered smartly and (in the light of later knowledge I am bound to add) wittily; "you aren't drawing a blank." And with this shaft she left me.

Now the girl's talk was nothing short of heathen Greek to me, as doubtless it is to the reader, and I sat for ten minutes at least digesting it with the aid of my grog. Here was Leggat, my quarry, identified with a Mr. Addison, incumbent or curate of a country parish within riding distance of Tregarrick. He was here to attend an auction. My thoughts flew to the bill I had been pretending to study half-an-hour before; but unfortunately I had given it no particular attention, and could only remember now that it advertised an estate of good acreage. The name "Welland," indeed, struck me as familiar, but I could not refer it to the bill, and must pull up for the moment and try a cast upon a fresh scent--Susie Martin. Mr. Addison, _alias_ Leggat, is not likely to forbid her banns, whoever she may be; in other words, won't be sorry to see her married. And Susie is a servant--of a mistress who will probably be attending this auction--to look after a drunken husband, who presumably, therefore, is also concerned in the auction. I recalled the two faces at the upper window, the one tipsy and the other sad, and felt pretty sure of having fixed Susie's employers. I recalled the lady's start of terror as she had caught sight of the bald-headed man below, and that I had first seen the bald head behind the window out of which Leggat had looked a minute later. If the bald-headed man had been talking with Leggat, this might connect her terror with Leggat. And both she and Leggat were to attend the auction. But what was this auction? And who the dickens was the bald-headed man?

The tangle--as the reader will admit--was a complicated one. But so far fortune had served me fairly; and considering the adventure as a game, in my knowledge of Leggat and his ignorance of my being anywhere in the neighborhood, I still held the two best trumps. In speculating on the possible strength of these two cards a new opening occurred to me. I had come with the purpose of forcing Leggat to buy me off or admit me into his game. But might there not be more profit, as there would certainly be less risk, in taking a hand against him? I had no fancy for him as a partner. I knew him for an unhealthy villain, with an instinct for preying on the weak, a born enemy of widows and orphans. If only I could discover what the stakes were, and what cards the other side held! Well, but I could have a try for this, even. I could, for instance, apply to the squire for a job, and this might throw me in the way of Susie Martin.

I stepped to the baize door, and passed out upon the archway. Six yards to the right, the Boots, with his back to me, was fixing a ladder to climb it and light the great lantern over the entrance. To my left a broad staircase ran up into the darkness. I tip-toed towards it, gained the stairs, and mounted them swiftly, but without noise, guiding myself by the handrail.

The stairs ran up to the first floor in two flights, with a bend about half-way. At the top of the second flight I found myself facing a pitch-dark corridor. The rooms facing the street must (I knew) be on my right; but as I groped along, my palm found the recess of a doorway on my left, and pressed open the door which stood just ajar. I drew back and listened: then, hearing no sound, poked my head cautiously within.

The room was dark, but the glow of a dying fire at the farther end gave me some idea of its dimensions. A faint reflection of this glow fell upon the polished surface of something which I guessed to be a mahogany table-leg, and, after a second or two, I perceived, or thought I perceived, two heavily-curtained windows, reaching almost to the top of the wall opposite.

I was reconnoitring so, in the recess of the doorway, when I heard a low tapping far up the corridor, and withdrew my head in time to see a door open and the faint ray of a candle fall upon a figure standing there, about twenty yards from my hiding-place; the black-coated figure of Mark Leggat.

"Hullo!" I said to myself. "Now for Susie!"

It was not Susie, however, who stepped out and, closing the door behind her, confronted Leggat, candle in hand. It was the pale lady I had seen at the window.

They stood for a moment conversing--so their attitude told me--in short whispers; and then came slowly down the passage towards me, the lady appearing to protest whilst Leggat persuaded and reassured her. At first I took it for granted they would enter one of the doors opposite; but, as they still came on, I saw that I must either retreat or be discovered.

I backed, therefore, around the half-open door and into the room. Then, as their voices drew near, it flashed on me that this might be the room they were seeking. I took three breathless paces across it, and found the table's edge. Guiding myself by this, and guided by the mercy of Heaven, which kept my feet from striking against the furniture, I found myself within three yards of the window nearest to the fireplace, with just time enough to make a dash for cover, and whip behind the curtain before Leggat pushed the door wide, and the pair entered the room.

"You _must_ give me five minutes!" Leggat was saying. "I tell you it's not for my sake, but for yours; it's your last chance!" Then, as the lady made no answer--"You did not believe you had another chance?" he asked.

"There can be none!" she answered now. "You have ruined me; you have ruined us all: and it was my fault for not warning Harry in time."

"My dear Ethel," he began; but a gesture of hers must have interrupted him, for he checked himself, and went on--"Very well, then, my dear Mrs. Carthew, if you prefer it; you are at once too weak and too scrupulous. A fatal defect, although you make it charming! Until too late, you hid from yourself that you loved me. When that became impossible you ran for shelter behind your vows and a theory--which you know in your heart to be impossible--that I, who had ventured so much for you, did not love you."

"Love!" she echoed hoarsely. "What love could it have been that sought this way?"

"Well, as it happens, it _was_ a way. Harry? Tut-tut, with Harry I was merely the handiest excuse for going to the devil. Suppose you had never set eyes on me. You know well enough he was bound to gamble away Welland sooner or later, just as he will sooner or later drink himself dead. I am sorry for the child; but, look you, I am going to be frank. It was just through the child I hoped to get you. To save Welland for _him_ I believed you would follow your heart and take my help with my love. You wouldn't. You couldn't help loving me, but--as you put it--you are a good woman: and even now, with the sale but an hour away and a sot of a husband to lead off with poverty, you won't."

She had set down the candle on the table; and now, having made a peephole between the two curtains, I saw her lift her head proudly.

"No," she said, "to my shame I loved you; but you would buy me, and I am not to be bought."

"I know it," he answered, and let out a grim laugh. "But on one point I am going to prove you mistaken. You believe that because I tried bribery I did not love you. You win by that error; but it is an error nevertheless, as I am going to prove."

While her eyes questioned him he drew a roll of notes from his pocket.

"Your fond brother-in-law intends to buy Welland," said he.

"James?"

"To be sure," he nodded while he ran through the notes with finger and thumb. "As the eldest brother, James Carthew wants Welland, to add it to the entailed estates. He has always wanted it: but these eight months, since that infant was born to him, he has wanted it ten times more. To-night he bids for it: and for decency's sake he bids through me--which is precisely where he comes to grief."

"I don't understand."

Leggat went on silently counting the notes. "Three thousand, five hundred," he answered; "the deposit money and a trifle over, in case of accidents. James Carthew is a rich man. I should reckon him up at a hundred and twenty thousand, and be within the mark."

"But why should he employ you?"

"In the first place, I suppose, because I've played the game for him throughout, and played it pretty successfully."

"_You?_"

He nodded. "You don't suppose Harry was playing against _me_ all this while? My dear lady, you cannot ruin a man at the cards without some capital of your own; that is, supposing you play straight, as I beg to observe that I did. No, no: I had a backer, and that backer was your amiable brother-in-law."

"But why?"

"Simply because a steady-going man like James, however much he inherits by entail, resents the choicest portion of the property--which does not happen to be entailed--being willed away to a loose dog of a younger brother. And when that younger brother marries and has a son, whereas he has married a childless woman, he resents it yet more bitterly. He cannot digest the grievance that, when he dies, the whole must go to the son of the brother who sits and drinks the wine in Naboth's vineyard. But, as it happens, his childless wife dies, and presto! he marries again. At a decent interval a child is born, and now is his time to play a tit-for-tat."

"He always hated us, I know," she murmured. "But _you_----"

"But I," he answered gaily, "am about to spoil that pretty game--and for your sake. Yes, and although you don't know how, and will never know how, I am going to risk my neck for it." He tossed the bundle of notes across the table towards her. She put out a hand as it rolled off the table's edge and dropped at her feet. "Count them: because I have to use them to-night to buy Welland back for you." And now there was a real thrill in his voice. "Count them," he insisted: "they are only the first-fruits, and after to-night you may never see me again: they are only the deposit on the price, and after the auction I shall ride away--not back to Welland Vicarage. But I have a word to leave, or to send, for Master James Carthew, and if these notes do not buy Welland back for you I am mistaken. I am what I am, and from what we are such poor devils as I cannot escape. But at least I have loved you, and in the end you shall be sure of it. Count them!"

He wheeled about on the words as the door was flung open. On the threshold stood Squire Harry Carthew.

He was white in the face and more than half-drunk. Under one arm he carried a leather-covered case and a pair of foils. His gaze wandered from his wife to Leggat, then back again to his wife.

"I want," said he, addressing her with husky solemnity, "a word with Mr. Addison in private." She bent her head and moved from the room, and he bowed as she passed, but somewhat spoiled the effect by shutting the door upon her train.

"I think," he said, closing the door a second time and locking it upon her--and his tone grew suddenly sharp, though he remained none the less drunk--"I think, Mr. Addison, we need waste no time. My wife's maid, Susie, has told me all that is necessary. You will choose one of those pistols, and we can settle the matter here and now. No!"--for Leggat had begun to edge towards the packet of notes lying on the floor--"you are not to stir, please, until we understand one another." He laid the foils on the table and held out the case. Leggat took the pistol next to his hand.

"You are drunk, Carthew."

"Am I? Well, that is likely enough, and as a sportsman you won't object to allow for it in our arrangements." He slipped the door-key into his breeches pocket and, still holding the pistol in his right hand, leaned forward and laid his left on the base of the candlestick. "You start from that end of the room, and I from this by the fireplace. Are you ready? Here, take one of the foils too. After I have blown the candle out you will remain at your end and count twenty, in silence, of course. I will do the same at my end, and then we begin."

"Don't be a fool, man! This is no duel; it is murder, and foolish murder."

Squire Carthew puffed out the candle. Then the guard of the foil rattled softly upon the mahogany as he closed his hand upon it. "Count twenty, please."

I leave the reader to picture my situation. There, in the silence and the darkness with these two--one of them drunk--prowling to kill. In all my experience I can recall nothing so entirely discomfortable. I had no defence but the folds of a window curtain. I could not stir without inviting a thrust or a pistol shot, or both. And I may remark here, that there is a degree of terror which resembles physical sickness. _Experto credite._

I heard the men kick off their shoes; and after that for many seconds--though I strained my ears, you may be sure--I heard nothing.

Then a hand brushed upon the woodwork of the recess and even rested for a moment against the curtain, within six inches of my nose. It was Leggat I could be sworn. I drew back as his fingers felt the stuff of the curtain and passed on groping; I even heard the soft crack of his elbow-joint as he gripped the foil again, which for the moment he must have tucked under his armpit.

And with that it flashed on me what he was after--the roll of notes lying on the floor, between the table and the fireplace, barely a foot beyond the table's edge and perhaps four yards from my hiding place. I knew the spot exactly. Squire Carthew had almost touched the packet with his foot as he stooped to blow out the candle.

I dropped on hands and knees behind my curtain, pushed it softly aside and began to crawl. I could hear nothing now but my own heart drumming. For the next few moments, if I made no sound, it was unlikely either that Leggat would steal back upon me or that the squire could reach me without encountering Leggat. My hand touched the table-leg, and the touch of it, coming unexpectedly, almost made me cry out. A moment later I felt more easy. Once beneath the table I was comparatively safe. But I must get my hand on these notes, and after pausing a second I steered towards the fireplace, poked out my head and shoulders beyond the table, and smoothed my palm across the floor until my fingers touched the packet and closed upon it.

At that moment, in the darkness, to the left, a foil rattled against a chair. The sound was a slight one, but it betrayed Leggat's whereabouts, and, with a gasp of triumph, Carthew came running upon him from the right.