Chapter 13

So, with a heart hardened by indignation and prepared for the severest measures, I descended to the drawing-room landing. Two doors opened upon it--that of the drawing-room itself, which faced over a terrace roofing the kitchens and across it to a garden in the rear of the house, and that of a room overlooking the street and scarcely less spacious. This had been the deceased General's bedroom, and in indolence rather than impiety I had left it unused with all its hideous furniture--including the camp-bed which his martial habits affected. And this was the apartment I entered, curious to learn how it had been converted into a reception-room for the throng which now filled it.

I recognised only the wall-paper. The furniture had been removed, the carpet taken up, the boards waxed to a high degree of slipperiness; and across the far end stretched a buffet-table presided over by a venerable person in black, with white hair, a high clear complexion, and a deportment which hit a nice mean between the military and the episcopal.

I had scarcely time to tell myself that this must be Mr. Horrex, before he looked up and caught sight of me. His features underwent a sudden and astonishing change; and almost dropping a bottle of champagne in his flurry, he came swiftly round the end of the buffet towards me.

I knew not how to interpret his expression: surprise was in it, and eagerness, and suppressed agitation, and an appeal for secrecy, and at the same time (if I mistook not) a deep relief.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he began, in a sort of confidential whisper, very quick and low, "but I was not aware you had arrived."

I gazed at him with stern inquiry.

"You are Mr. Richardson, are you not?" he asked. There could be no doubt of his agitation.

"I am; and I have been in this, my house, for some three-quarters of an hour."

"They never told me," he groaned. "And I left particular instructions --But perhaps you have already seen the mistress?"

"I have not. May I ask you to take me to her--since I have not the pleasure of her acquaintance?"

"Cert'nly, sir. Oh, at once! She is in the drawing-room putting the best face on it. Twice she has sent in to know if you have arrived, and I sent word, 'No, not yet,' though it cut me to the 'eart."

"She is anxious to see me?"

"Desprit, sir."

"She thinks to avoid exposure, then?" said I darkly, keeping a set face.

"She 'opes, sir: she devoutly 'opes." He groaned and led the way. "It may, after all, be a lesson to Mr. 'Erbert," he muttered as we reached the landing.

"I fancy it's going to be a lesson to several of you."

"The things we've 'ad to keep dark, sir--the goings-on!"

"I can well believe it."

"I was in some doubts about you, sir--begging your pardon: but in spite of the dress, sir--which gives a larky appearance, if I may say it--and doubtless is so meant--you reassure me, sir: you do indeed. I feel the worst is over. We can put ourselves in your 'ands."

"You have certainly done that," said I. "As for the worst being over--"

We were within the drawing-room by this time, and he plucked me by the sleeve in his excitement, yet deferentially. "Yonder is the mistress, sir--in the yellow h'Empire satin--talking with the gentleman in sky-blue rationals. Ah, she sees you!"

She did. And I read at once in her beautiful eyes that while talking with her partner she had been watching the door for me. She came towards me with an eager catch of the breath--one so very like a cry of relief that in the act of holding out her hand she had to turn to the nearest guests and explain.

"It's Mr. Richardson--'George Anthony,' you know--who wrote _Larks in Aspic!_ I had set my heart on his coming, and had almost given him up. Why are you so cruelly late?" she demanded, turning her eyes on mine.

Her hand was still held out to me. I had meant to hold myself up stiffly and decline it; but somehow I could not. She was a woman, after all, and her look told me--and me only--that she was in trouble. Also I knew her by face and by report. I had seen her acting in more than one exceedingly stupid musical comedy, and wondered why 'Clara Joy' condescended to waste herself upon such inanities. I recalled certain notes in her voice, certain moments when, in the midst of the service of folly, she had seemed to isolate herself and stand watching, aloof from the audience and her fellow-actors, almost pathetically alone. Report said, too, that she was good, and that she had domestic troubles, though it had not reached me what these troubles were. Certainly she appeared altogether too good for these third-rate guests--for third-rate they were to the most casual eye. And the trouble, which signalled to me now in her look, clearly and to my astonishment included no remorse for having walked into a stranger's house and turned it up-side down without so much as a by-your-leave. She claimed my goodwill confidently, without any appeal to be forgiven. I held my feelings under rein and took her hand.

As I released it she motioned me to give her my arm. "I must find you supper at once," she said quietly, in a tone that warned me not to decline. "Not--not in there; we will try the library downstairs."

Down to the library I led her accordingly, and somehow was aware--by that supernumerary sense which works at times in the back of a man's head--of Horrex discreetly following us. At the library-door she turned to him. "When I ring," she said. He bowed and withdrew.

The room was empty and dark. She switched on the electric light and nodded to me to close the door.

"Take that off, please," she commanded.

"I beg your pardon? . . . Ah, to be sure!" I had forgotten my false nose.

"How did Herbert pick up with you?" she asked musingly. "His friends are not usually so--so--"

"Respectable?" I suggested.

"I think I meant to say 'presentable.' They are never respectable by any chance."

"Then, happily, it still remains to be proved that I am one of them."

"He seems, at any rate, to reckon you high amongst them, since he gave your name."

"Gave my name? To whom?"

"Oh, I don't know--to the magistrate--or the policeman--or whoever it is. I have never been in a police-cell myself," she added, with a small smile.

"Is Herbert, then, in a police-cell?"

She nodded. "At Vine Street. He wants to be bailed out."

"What amount?"

"Himself in ten pounds and a friend in another ten. He gave your name; and the policeman is waiting for the answer."

"I see," said I; "but excuse me if I fail to see why, being apparently so impatient to bail him out, you have waited for me. To be sure (for reasons which are dark to me) he appears to have given my name to the police; but we will put that riddle aside for the moment. Any respectable citizen would have served, with the money to back him. Why not have sent Horrex, for example?"

"But I thought the--the--"

"Surety?" I suggested. "I thought he must be a householder. No," she cried, as I turned away with a slight shrug of the shoulder, "that was not the real reason! Herbert is--oh, why will you force me to say it?"

"I beg your pardon," said I. "He is at certain times not too tractable; Horrex, in particular, cannot be trusted to manage him; and--and in short you wish him released as soon as possible, but not brought home to this house until your guests have taken leave?"

She nodded at me with swimming eyes. She was passing beautiful, more beautiful than I had thought.

"Yes, yes; you understand! And I thought that--as his friend--and with your influence over him--"

I pulled out my watch. "Has Horrex a hansom in waiting?"

"A four-wheeler," she corrected me. Our eyes met, and with a great pity I read in hers that she knew only too well the kind of cab suitable.

"Then let us have in the policeman. A four-wheeler will be better, as you suggest, since with your leave I am going to take Horrex with me. The fact is, I am a little in doubt as to my influence: for to tell you the plain truth, I have never to my knowledge set eyes on your husband."

"My husband?" She paused with her hand on the bell-pull, and gazed at me blankly. "My husband?" She began to laugh softly, uncannily, in a way that tore my heart. "Herbert is my brother."

"Oh!" said I, feeling pretty much of a fool.

"But what gave you--what do you mean--"

"Lord knows," I interrupted her; "but if you will tell Horrex to get himself and the policeman into the cab, I will run upstairs, dress, and join them in five minutes."

IV.

In five minutes I had donned my ordinary clothes again and, descending through the pack of guests to the front door, found a four-wheeler waiting, with Horrex inside and a policeman whom, as I guessed, he had been drugging with strong waters for an hour past in some secluded chamber of the house. The fellow was somnolent, and in sepulchral silence we journeyed to Vine Street. There I chose to be conducted to the cell alone, and Mr. Horrex, hearing my decision, said fervently, "May you be rewarded for your goodness to me and mine!"

I discovered afterwards that he had a growing family of six dependent on him, and think this must explain a gratefulness which puzzled me at the time.

"He's quieter this last half-hour," said the police sergeant, unlocking the cell and opening the door with extreme caution.

The light fell and my eyes rested on a sandy-haired youth with a receding chin, a black eye, a crumpled shirt-front smeared with blood, and a dress-suit split and soiled with much rolling in the dust.

"Friend of yours, sir, to bail you out," announced the sergeant.

"I have no friends," answered the prisoner in hollow tones. "Who's this Johnny?"

"My name is Richardson," I began.

"From the Grampian Hills? Al' ri', old man; what can I do for you?"

"Well, if you've no objection, I've come to bail you out."

"Norra a bit of it. Go 'way: I want t'other Richardson, good old larks-in-aspic! Sergeant--"

"Yessir."

"I protest--you hear?--protest in sacred name of law; case of mish--case of mistaken 'dentity. Not this Richardson--take him away! Don't blame you: common name. Richardson _I_ want has whiskers down to here, tiddy-fol-ol; calls 'em 'Piccadilly weepers.' Can't mistake him. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

"Look here," said I, "just you listen to this; I'm Richardson, and I'm here to bail you out."

"Can't do it, old man; mean well, no doubt, but can't do it. One man lead a horse to the water--twenty can't bail him out. Go 'way and don't fuss."

I glanced at the sergeant. "You'll let me deal with him as I like?" I asked.

He grinned. "Bless you, sir, we're used to it. _I_ ain't listening."

"Thank you." I turned to the prisoner. "Now, then, you drunken little hog, stand up and walk," said I, taking him by the ear and keeping my left ready.

I suppose that the drink suddenly left him weak, for he stood up at once.

"There's some ho--horrible mistake," he began to whimper. "But if the worst comes to the worst, you'll _adopt_ me, won't you?"

Still holding him by the ear, I led him forth and flung him into the cab, in a corner of which the trembling Horrex had already huddled himself. He fell, indeed, across Horrex's knees, and at once screamed aloud.

"Softly, softly, Master 'Erbert," whispered the poor man soothingly. "It's only poor old Horrex, that you've known since a boy."

"Horrex?" Master Herbert straightened himself up. "Do I understand you to say, sir, that your name is Horrex? Then allow me to tell you, Horrex, that you are no gentleman. You hear?" He spoke with anxious lucidity, leaning forward and tapping the butler on the knee. "No gentleman."

"No, sir," assented Horrex.

"That being the case, we'll say no more about it. I decline to argue with you. If you're waking, call me early--there's many a black, black eye, Horrex, but none so black as mine. Call me at eleven-fifteen, bringing with you this gentleman's blood in a bottle. Goo'-night, go to bye-bye. . . ."

By the fleeting light of a street-lamp I saw his head drop forward, and a minute later he was gently snoring.

It was agreed that on reaching home Master Herbert must be smuggled into the basement of No. 402 and put to rest on Horrex's own bed; also that, to avoid the line of carriages waiting in the Cromwell Road for the departing guests, the cab should take us round to the gardens at the back. I carried on my chain a key which would admit us to these and unlock the small gate between them and the kitchens. This plan of action so delighted Horrex that for a moment I feared he was going to clasp my hands.

"If it wasn't irreverent, sir, I could almost say you had dropped on me from heaven!"

"You may alter your opinion," said I grimly, "before I've done dropping."

At the garden entrance we paid and dismissed the cab. I took Master Herbert's shoulders and Horrex his heels, and between us we carried his limp body across the turf--a procession so suggestive of dark and secret tragedy that I blessed our luck for protecting us from the casual intrusive policeman. Our entrance by the kitchen passage, however, was not so fortunate. Stealthily as we trod, our footsteps reached the ears in the servants' hall, and we were met by William and a small but compact body of female servants urging him to armed resistance. A kitchen-maid fainted away as soon as we were recognised, and the strain of terror relaxed.

I saw at once that Master Herbert's condition caused them no surprise. We carried him to the servants' hall and laid him in an armchair, to rest our arms, while the motherly cook lifted his unconscious head to lay a pillow beneath it.

As she did so, a bell jangled furiously on the wall above.

"Good Lord!" Horrex turned a scared face up at it. "The library!"

"What's the matter in the library?"

But he was gone: to reappear, a minute later, with a face whiter than ever.

"The mistress wants you at on'st, sir, if you'll follow me. William, run out and see if you can raise another cab--four-wheeler."

"What, at this time of night?" answered William. "Get along with you!"

"Do your best, lad." Mr. Horrex appealed gently but with pathetic dignity. "If there's miracles indoors there may be miracles outside. This way, sir!"

He led me to the library-door, knocked softly, opened it, and stood aside for me to enter.

Within stood his mistress, confronting another policeman!

Her hands rested on the back of a library-chair: and though she stood up bravely and held herself erect with her finger-tips pressed hard into the leather, I saw that she was swaying on the verge of hysterics, and I had the sense to speak sharply.

"What's the meaning of this?" I demanded.

"This one--comes from Marlborough Street!" she gasped.

I stepped back to the door, opened it, and, as I expected, discovered Horrex listening.

"A bottle of champagne and a glass at once," I commanded, and he sped. "And now, Miss Joy, if you please, the constable and I will do the talking. What's your business?"

"Prisoner wants bail," answered the policeman.

"Name?"

"George Anthony Richardson."

"Yes, yes--but I mean the prisoner's name."

"That's what I'm telling you. 'George Anthony Richardson, four-nought-two, Cromwell Road'--that's the name on the sheet, and I heard him give it myself."

"And I thought, of course, it must be you," put in Clara; "and I wondered what dreadful thing could have happened--until Horrex appeared and told me you were safe, and Herbert too--"

"I think," said I, going to the door again and taking the tray from Horrex, "that you were not to talk. Drink this, please."

She took the glass, but with a rebellious face. "Oh, if you take that tone with me--"

"I do. And now," I turned to the constable, "what name did he give for his surety?"

"Herbert Jarmayne, same address."

"Herbert Jarmayne?" I glanced at Clara, who nodded back, pausing as she lifted her glass! "Ah! yes--yes, of course. How much?"

"Two tenners."

"Deep answering deep. Drunk and disorderly, I suppose?"

"Blind. He was breaking glasses at Toscano's and swearing he was Sir Charles Wyndham in _David Garrick_: but he settled down quiet at the station, and when I left he was talking religious and saying he pitied nine-tenths of the world, for they were going to get it hot."

"Trewlove!" I almost shouted, wheeling round upon Clara.

"I beg your pardon?"

"No, of course--you wouldn't understand. But all the same it's Trewlove," I cried, radiant. "Eh?"--this to Horrex, mumbling in the doorway--"the cab outside? Step along, constable: I'll follow in a moment--to identify your prisoner, not to bail him out." Then as he touched his hat and marched out after Horrex, "By George, though! Trewlove!" I muttered, meeting Clara's eye and laughing.

"So you've said," she agreed doubtfully; "but it seems a funny sort of explanation."

"It's as simple as A B C," I assured her. "The man at Marlborough Street is the man who let you this house."

"I took it through an agent."

"I'm delighted to hear it. Then the man at Marlborough Street is the man for whom the agent let the house."

"Then you are not Mr. Richardson--not 'George Anthony'--and you didn't write _Larks in Aspic?_" said she, with a flattering shade of disappointment in her tone.

"Oh! yes, I did."

"Then I don't understand in the least--unless--unless--" She put out two deprecating hands. "You don't mean to tell me that this is your house, and we've been living in it without your knowledge! Oh! why didn't you tell me?"

"Come, I like that!" said I. "You'll admit, on reflection, that you haven't given me much time."

But she stamped her foot. "I'll go upstairs and pack at once," she declared.

"That will hardly meet the case, I'm afraid. You forget that your brother is downstairs: and by his look, when I left him, he'll take a deal of packing."

"Herbert?" She put a hand to her brow. "I was forgetting. Then you are not Herbert's friend after all?"

"I have made a beginning. But in fact, I made his acquaintance at Vine Street just now. Trewlove--that's my scoundrel of a butler--has been making up to him under my name. They met at the house-agent's, probably. The rogue models himself upon me: but when it comes to letting my house-- By the way, have you paid him by cheque?"

"I paid the agent. I knew nothing of you until Herbert announced that he'd made your acquaintance--"

"Pray go on," said I, watching her troubled eyes. "It would be interesting to hear how he described me."

"He used a very funny word. He said you were the rummiest thing in platers he'd struck for a long while. But, of course, he was talking of the other man."

"Of course," said I gravely: whereupon our eyes met, and we both laughed.

"Ah, but you are kind!" she cried. "And when I think how we have treated you--if only I _could_ think--" Her hand went up again to her forehead.

"It will need some reparation," said I. "But we'll discuss that when I come back."

"Was--was Herbert very bad?" She attempted to laugh, but tears suddenly brimmed her eyes.

"I scarcely noticed," said I; and, picking up my hat, went out hurriedly.

V.

Trewlove in his Marlborough Street cell was a disgusting object-- offensive to the eye and to one's sense of the dignity of man. At sight of me he sprawled, and when the shock of it was over he continued to grovel until the sight bred a shame in me for being the cause of it. What made it ten times worse was his curious insensibility--even while he grovelled--to the moral aspect of his behaviour.

"You will lie here," said I, "until to-morrow morning, when you will probably be fined fifty shillings and costs, _plus_ the cost of the broken glass at Toscano's. I take it for granted that the money will be paid?"

"I will send, sir, to my lodgings for my cheque-book."

"It's a trifling matter, no doubt, but since you will be charged under the name of William John Trewlove, it will be a mistake to put 'G. A. Richardson' on the cheque."

"It was an error of judgment, sir, my giving your name here."

"It was a worse one," I assured him, "to append it to the receipt for Miss Jarmayne's rent."

"You don't intend to prosecute, Mr. George?"

"Why not?"

"But you don't, sir; something tells me that you don't."

Well, in fact (as you may have guessed), I did not. I had no desire to drag Miss Jarmayne into further trouble; but I resented that the dog should so count on my clemency without knowing the reason of it.

"In justice to myself, sir, I 'ave to tell you that I shouldn't 'ave let the 'ouse to _hany_-body. It was only that, she being connected with the stage, I saw a hopening. Mr. 'Erbert was, as you might say, a hafterthought: which, finding him so affable, I thought I might go one better. He cost me a pretty penny first and last. But when he offered to introjuice me--and me, at his invite, going back to be put up at No. 402 like any other gentleman--why, 'ow could I resist it?"

"If I forbear to have you arrested, Trewlove, it will be on condition that you efface yourself. May I suggest some foreign country, where, in a colony of the Peculiar People--unacquainted with your past--"

"I'm tired of them, sir. Your style of life don't suit me--I've tried it, as you see, and I give it up--I'm too late to learn; but I'll say this for it, it cures you of wantin' to go back and be a Peculiar. Now, if you've no objection, sir, I thought of takin' a little public down Putney way."

"You mean it?" asked Clara, a couple of hours later.

"I mean it," said I.

"And I am to live on here alone as your tenant?"

"As my tenant, and so long as it pleases you." I struck a match to light her bedroom candle, and with that we both laughed, for the June dawn was pouring down on us through the stairway skylight.

"Shall I see you to-morrow, to say good-bye?"

"I expect not. We shall catch the first boat."

"The question is, will you get Herbert awake in time to explain matters?"

"I'll undertake that. Horrex has already packed for him. Oh, you needn't fear: he'll be right enough at Ambleteuse, under my eye."

"It's good of you," she said slowly; "but why are you doing it?"

"Can't say," I answered lightly.

"Well, good-bye, and God bless you!" She put out her hand. "There's nothing I can say or do to--"

"Oh, yes, by the way, there is," I interrupted, tugging a key off my chain. "You see this? It unlocks the drawers of a writing-table in your room. In the top left-hand drawer you will find a bundle of papers."

She passed up the stair before me and into the room. "Is this what you want?" she asked, reappearing after a minute with my manuscript in her hand. "What is it? A new comedy?"

"The makings of one," said I. "It was to fetch it that I came across from Ambleteuse."

"And dropped into another."

"Upon my word," said I, "you are right, and to-night's is a better one--up to a point."

"What are you going to call it?"

"_My Tenant_."

For a moment she seemed to be puzzled. "But I mean the other," said she, nodding towards the manuscript in my hand.

"Indeed, that is its name," said I, and showed her the title on the first page. "And I've a really splendid idea for the third act," I added, as we shook hands.

I mounted the stairs to my room, tossed the manuscript into a chair, and began to wind up my watch.

"But this other wants a third act too!" I told myself suddenly.

You will observe that once or twice in the course of this narrative my pen has slipped and inadvertently called Miss Jarmayne "Clara."

THE RIDER IN THE DAWN.