CHAPTER VIII
When they had driven away Sidney wandered off beyond the outskirts of the crowd to a lonely spot among the trees, where he walked up and down, whistling softly to himself and pausing from time to time to aim a blow at the head of an unoffending daisy with his stick.
“What an ass I am,” he exclaimed presently in heartfelt tones, but a listener who had fancied he was alluding to his foolish gambling on the turf would have been mistaken. His thoughts were engaged on quite a different and much pleasanter subject.
How lovely she had looked! How sorry she had seemed! What sympathy had shone in her eyes as she listened to his discreditable troubles. How determined she had been to find a way out; surely she could not show such interest in the concerns of all her acquaintances.
The way out, by the by, now that he thought of it dispassionately, was hardly, perhaps, quite one that a man could take after all and keep the little self-respect left to him; but it was overwhelmingly sweet that she should have lost sight so completely of all considerations except the one of retrieving his fortunes.
He had always liked and admired her, of course, but never till to-day had he realised what a loyal, brave spirit dwelt behind those sea-blue, childish eyes. There was no girl in the world like her, and was it unduly conceited of him to think she must like him a little to show such agitation at the tale of his misfortunes? And here he frowned and pulled himself up short. What business had he, a ruined gambler, a man whose career was, to all intents and purposes, at an end, to think twice about any girl, much less to feel so absurdly happy? He determined heroically to banish Barbara from his thoughts, and in pursuance of that excellent resolution walked off across the Park at such a tearing speed that little boys whom he passed asked derisively where the other competitors in the race had got to.
…
It was on the following morning that Mrs. Vanderstein made certain confidences to Barbara, thereby dashing to earth the high hopes she had built of rescuing Sidney from the ruinous meshes in which he had entangled himself.
To that which Mrs. Vanderstein told her the girl listened at first with incredulity, but a scoffing comment was received with such extreme disfavour that she dared not venture another; and finally, as she heard more and fuller accounts and Mrs. Vanderstein, chafing under a sense of her friend’s disbelief, went so far as to produce written evidence of the truth of the story, Barbara was no longer able to deny to herself that the astounding tale was undoubtedly not the joke she had taken it for, but represented the plain facts of the case.
With increasing dismay she heard all that Mrs. Vanderstein had to tell her, seeing her hopes for Joe vanish more completely at each new piece of information; and when at the end of the tale her friend reproached her for her lack of sympathy she had much ado to prevent herself from bursting into unavailing tears.
She was able, however, to summon enough self-control to find some words of affection, which seemed to fill the requirements of the situation; at all events they seemed to satisfy Mrs. Vanderstein. The girl only made one stipulation, and on this point remained obstinate till the elder lady, failing to shake her determination, was at last obliged to yield a reluctant consent.
As soon as she could escape, Barbara, making the first excuse that occurred to her, ran to her room, where she pinned on a hat without so much as waiting to glance in the looking-glass. Then, snatching up a latch key, she let herself out of the hall door and hurried to the nearest post office.
Several telegraph forms were filled in, only to be torn up and discarded before she worded the message to her satisfaction; and even when she handed it in under the barrier – which protects young ladies of the post office from too close contact with a public who might, were it not for these precautions, be exasperated into showing signs of violence – she was still regarding it doubtfully, and her fingers lingered on the paper as if reluctant to let it go.
It was addressed to Joseph Sidney, and covered more than one form.
“Plan completely spoilt will explain meanwhile try telling your aunt the truth as you promised she will be in at teatime and it will be best to get it over one way or another.”
Would he come? she asked herself, as she went back to the house; and all the afternoon the same question echoed in her mind. Would he come? And, if he came and did not succeed in enlisting Mrs. Vanderstein’s sympathies, what then?
There seemed no other possible course. In vain, as she sat beside her friend in the motor, she racked her brains to imagine some way in which Joe could still raise the money if this attempt failed. But she had his assurance that he had already exhausted all practicable means.
Mrs. Vanderstein wished to visit a shop in the Strand, and their way to it led them past the theatre that Madame Querterot had visited a week before, in the company of her daughter and her daughter’s suitor.
Large placards ornamented the front of the house, depicting some of the more thrilling episodes of the play. These were varied by photographs of the young actor who played the principal rôle. He was portrayed in immaculate evening dress and in the act of opening the safe; another picture showed him snapping his fingers at the officers of the law; and yet a third displayed him as he took – in the fourth act – the heroine to his arms.
Mrs. Vanderstein and Barbara had seen the play, which was making a roaring success, on more than one occasion. Mrs. Vanderstein smiled as she observed the posters.
“That is a good play,” she said to her companion. “I can hardly help screaming when he escapes by the window as the police burst into the room. It is almost too exciting. And he, the gentleman burglar, you know, is so good-looking. One can’t help being on his side, can one? And of course one is intended to be. All the honest people are so terribly dull. Besides, of course, he was a count and quite charming really. I don’t wonder the heroine forgave him.” She put down her parasol, as they turned into a shady street. “Do you know, Barbara,” she went on, “I think that sort of play might do a lot of harm. It can’t be right to make dishonesty appear so attractive.”
Barbara made no reply, and Mrs. Vanderstein, glancing at her in surprise, was still more astonished at the strange look in the girl’s eyes.
“What do you think about it?” she asked again.
“It depends on what you call harm,” Barbara answered slowly, and as they pulled up at their destination the conversation came to an end.
They went home early and had barely finished tea when Sidney was announced. He looked rather pale and shook hands with Barbara without speaking as she made a hasty excuse and left the room. Going into another sitting-room, she waited in an agony of suspense till the drawing-room door should open and the interview be over for good or ill.
She had not long to wait.
Five minutes had scarcely passed before she heard the sound of hurried footsteps descending the stairs, and a moment later the front door banged behind Sidney’s retreating figure. At the same time a bell pealed violently and, before it could be answered, Barbara caught the sound of the swish of silken skirts and the light tread of Mrs. Vanderstein’s feet as she ran down a few steps and called over the banisters to the butler.
“Blake,” she called, as that portly person emerged from the door leading to the basement. “Is that you, Blake?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Blake, I am not at home in future to Mr. Joseph Sidney. You are never to let him come into this house again. Do you understand?”
“Very good, ma’am.” Blake’s tones were as imperturbed as if he were receiving an order to post a letter.
“And tell the footmen. I will not see him again on any account whatever. Let it be clearly understood. And, Blake, please telephone at once to Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones and say, if it is convenient to him, I should like to see him immediately. Ask him to come at once; or to come to dinner; or to the opera. No,” she corrected herself, “not to the opera to-night. But ask him to come and see me before I start if he possibly can. It is most important.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Blake showed no surprise: in moments of distress his mistress always telephoned to Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones.
Mrs. Vanderstein, still in a state of great agitation, retreated to write a letter before dressing for the opera, a matter that demanded, to-night of all nights, both time and undistracted attention.
When she descended to the dining-room all traces of the disturbance caused by Sidney’s visit had vanished from her face; and her expression was again one of joyful expectation, as it had been throughout the day. After writing a hurried note, she had entirely dismissed all memory of her husband’s nephew.
It was natural that, in the contest with other interests so enthralling as those which that evening filled the mind of his uncle’s widow, Sidney should cease to occupy a place in Mrs. Vanderstein’s thoughts; should become, as he would have expressed it, an “also ran.” What was more remarkable was the fact that Barbara’s countenance, when she took her place at the early dinner, wore a look of pleasant anticipation almost equalling that of her friend, very different from the signs of anxiety and distress that had been visible upon it during the earlier part of the day. Mrs. Vanderstein had seen nothing of the weeping figure which, after Joe’s dismissal, lay with its face buried in the pillows on Barbara’s bed trying to stifle the great sobs that shook it in spite of every effort, or even she, preoccupied as she was, would have felt astonished at so complete a recovery of spirits.
The change, indeed, had been instantaneous and coincided with the moment, when, in the midst of her grief, a sudden idea had flashed into Barbara’s mind, an inspiration, it seemed, that immediately smoothed away all trouble and made plain the way by which Sidney’s difficulties should be removed. How was it possible that she had not thought of it before? The knowledge that Joe would never agree to the means she proposed to take, that the persuasions and sophistries of yesterday would be of no use here, that it would be impossible even to broach the subject to him, she swept from her impetuously. There was no need that he should ever suspect her hand in the matter. Care must be taken; she must act with prudence and caution, and all would be well. One thought only held her mind to the exclusion of all else, the wish to protect and save this boy whom she loved from the consequences of his own folly. Nothing was worth considering except this. No fear of the possible effect on her own life shook her resolution, for what, she thought, is life or for that matter death, if it does not imply the prolongation on the one hand, or, on the other, the cutting short of the ties of affection.
She remembered the reckless air with which Joe had said that this business would be the end of all for him, and with a shudder she told herself that the words could only have one meaning. If by sacrificing her life his could be saved, she would not hesitate to give it. Here plain to her eye was the opportunity to serve him, and whatever the result might be to herself she did not shrink from it. As she dressed for the evening, Barbara smiled gladly to herself and sang softly a little song. One thought disturbed her. Sidney was unaware that his salvation was so near. She could not bear to think of him now, worried and despairing. Yet how could she reassure him without betraying herself and the great idea? With a little frown Barbara mused over this question, as she stuck a paste comb that Mrs. Vanderstein had given her into the masses of her thick fair hair. Presently she scrawled a few words upon a sheet of paper, and hastily folding it into an envelope tucked it into the front of her dress; then, fearing she was late, she ran down the stairs.
“Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones is out of town, ma’am,” Blake was saying as she entered the room.
“Oh well, never mind now,” said Mrs. Vanderstein.
Dinner that evening was a silent meal. Mrs. Vanderstein, gloriously arrayed, sat smiling abstractedly at nothing from one end of the small table. So preoccupied was she that she forgot to eat, and Blake was obliged to ask her repeatedly whether she would partake of a dish before she could be brought to notice that it was being handed to her. Once, as, recalled suddenly to the present, she brought her thoughts back with a start from their wanderings and turned with some trivial remark towards Barbara, she noticed with a faint feeling of amusement that the girl was as much engrossed in her own imaginings as she was herself, and was sitting absently pulling a flower to pieces, her great eyes fixed vacantly on the shining pearls that swung suspended from the neck of her friend.
They started in good time, Barbara begging to be allowed to stop for one minute at a post office on the way.
She had, she said, forgotten to reply to an invitation, and thought that now it was so late she had better send an answer by wire. She gave the message, which was already written out and in a sealed envelope, to the footman, together with some money, and told him to hand it in as it was, and not to waste time in waiting to see it accepted.
The man was back in a minute, and they drove on, to take their places a few minutes later in the long string of motors and carriages which was slowly advancing to the doors of the Covent Garden opera house.
CHAPTER IX
Mr. Gimblet lived in a flat in the neighbourhood of Whitehall. It was a fad of his to be more comfortably housed than most solitary men. The situation was conveniently near to Scotland Yard, where officials were much in the habit of requiring to see him at odd moments. The view from the windows, overlooking the river, was delightful to one of cultivated and artistic propensities, and the rooms, large and well-proportioned, were capable of displaying to advantage the old and valuable pictures and furniture with which it was the detective’s delight to surround himself.
Much of his time was spent in curiosity shops, and he was among the first to discover that former happy hunting ground of the bargain seeker – the Caledonian market. Many an impatient member of the Force, sent round from the “Yard” to ask Mr. Gimblet’s assistance in some obscure case, had, after kicking his heels for an hour or two in the hall, left the flat in desperation, only to meet the detective coming up the stairs with a dusky, dust-covered picture in his hand, or hugging to his breast a piece of ancient china.
The younger son of a Midland family, which had moderately enriched itself in the course of the preceding century by commercial transactions in which a certain labour-saving machine for the weaving industries had played a large part, Mr. Gimblet had received the usual public school education, and had spent two or three subsequent years at Oxford. His artistic propensities had always been strongly marked, but his family showing much opposition to his becoming an artist, and he himself having a modest idea of his own genius and doubting his ability to make his way very high up the ladder of success by the aid of talent which he knew to be somewhat limited, he had ended by going into an architect’s office, where he had worked with interest and enjoyment for several more years. It was by accident that he discovered his capacity for tracking the most wary of criminals to his hiding place and for discovering the authors of mysterious and deeply plotted crimes. It happened that a workman employed in the building of a house for which Gimblet had provided the design was found murdered in circumstances as peculiar as they were sinister. There appeared to be no clue to the author of the deed, and after a week or two the official investigators had confessed among themselves that they were completely at a loss.
To Gimblet, visiting the scene of the crime in his capacity of architect – but not without an unwonted and hitherto unknown quickening of the pulse – a piece of board nailed upright where it should have been horizontal had proved immediately suggestive; and its removal had brought to light certain hastily concealed objects, which with one or two previously unnoticed trifles had resulted in the capture and ultimate hanging of the murderer.
This success had led the young man to feel an interest in other mysterious affairs of the same nature; and it was not long before he found the task of assisting the police in such researches so much more profitable and engrossing than his work as an architect, that he gradually came to give more and more of his leisure to the attempt to discover secrets and to solve problems which at first sight seemed to offer no solution. By the time he was thirty there was scarcely a crime of any importance that he was not called upon to assist in bringing home to its perpetrator; and he had entirely abandoned the pursuit of architectural learning for that of criminal mankind.
He refused an invitation to become attached to the official staff, although this was conveyed in terms that were in the highest degree flattering, preferring to be at liberty to decide for himself whether or no he should take up a case. It was the sensational and odd that attracted him; and he found that quite enough of this came his way to make his occupation an extremely profitable one.
Early on Tuesday afternoon Gimblet sat in his dining-room, contemplating with some satisfaction a large dish of strawberries and a pot of cream sent him by a Devonshire friend. He was finishing a luncheon which he considered well earned, as that morning he had discovered in a narrow back street in Lambeth, and purchased for a mere song, a little picture black with age and dirt, in which his hopeful eye discerned a crowd of small but masterfully painted figures footing it to the strains of a fiddle upon the grass under a spreading tree. Gimblet told himself that it was in all probability from the brush of Teniers, and he had propped it on the dining-room mantelpiece so that in the intervals of eating he could refresh his eyes as well as his body. Beside him lay the day’s paper which he had hardly had time to read before going out that morning. He heaped cream upon his strawberries, sprinkled them with sugar, and took, in succession, a spoonful of the mixture, a look at his picture, and a glance at the paper. With a contented sigh he repeated the process.
At the moment he had no work in hand, and no one more thoroughly enjoyed an occasional loaf.
It was good, he felt, to have nothing to do for once; to have time to idle; to eat greedily delicious food; to spend as many hours as he chose in the dusty recesses of second-hand shops; to do a little painting sometimes; even to be able to arrange beforehand to play a game of golf. Gimblet had an excellent eye, and had been rather good at games in early days. He seldom had time now and, if he did go down to a golf ground occasionally in the afternoons, had to resign himself to play with anyone he could find, as he never knew till the last minute whether he would be able to get away.
He thought of going this afternoon, and looked at his watch. There would be a train from Waterloo in half an hour. Just time to finish his strawberries and catch it. That picture would look well when he had cleaned it. He took up the paper again. It must have been a fine sight last night at Covent Garden. And what a list of singers. Gimblet, who loved music, wished he had been there. “The Verterexes might have asked me to their box,” he said to himself. “Life is full of ingratitude. After all I did for them.”
And then it struck him that he had not done much for the Verterexes after all, beyond nearly arresting Mr. Verterex by mistake for a murder he had not committed.
Gimblet laughed.
Then his thoughts reverted lazily to the pleasures of loafing.
“I think I shall give up work,” he said to himself. “Why not? I have enough money put by to keep me, with economy, in moderate comfort. Not quite so many strawberries perhaps,” he added regretfully, taking another mouthful, “but what I want is leisure. Yes. I am decided I will do no more work. Let the police catch its own burglars!”
He spoke aloud, and defiantly, addressing himself to the picture.
At that moment his servant came into the room.
“A gentleman very anxious to see you, sir,” he said. “I have shown him into the library.”
“Ask him to come in here if he’s in a hurry,” said Gimblet. “I haven’t finished lunch.”
A minute later the man opened the door again, announcing:
“Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones.”
Major Sir Gregory Aberhyn Jones was a little man with a pink complexion and a small brown moustache. He was short and rather plumper than he could wish, but carried himself very uprightly and with a great sense of his own importance, glaring at those who might be so obtuse as not immediately to recognise it with such concentrated disapproval that it was usual for the offenders to realise their mistake in the quickest possible time. Behind a fussy, self-satisfied exterior he hid a fund of kindness and good nature seldom to be met with. Sir Gregory prided himself on his youthful appearance, was, in his turn, a source of some pride to one of the best tailors in London, took remarkable interest in his ties and boots, trained his remaining hair in the way it should go, and, though he was sixty-five, flattered himself that he looked not a day over fifty-nine.
“I am in luck to find you, Mr. Gimblet,” he said, advancing with outstretched hand as Gimblet rose to receive him. “But this is a sad occasion, a very sad occasion, I fear.”
“Dear me,” said Gimblet, “I’m sorry to hear that. But won’t you sit down? I thought as my man said you were in a hurry you would rather come in here than wait for me. May I offer you some strawberries? No? I’m sorry I can’t give you any wine, but I’m a teetotaller, you know. Don’t have any in the house. Afraid you’ll think me faddy. And now that the servant has gone, may I ask what is the sad event which has given me the pleasure of seeing you?”
“Bad habit, drinking water,” commented Sir Gregory, seating himself in an arm-chair by the fire-place. “But nowadays young men have no heads. They can’t stand it, that’s what it is. Show them three or four glasses of port and they say it gives them a headache. Absurd, sir! The country is rotten through and through. The men can’t eat, they can’t drink, they can’t even dance! They stroll about a ball-room now in a way that would make you sick. In my days we used to valse properly. But they don’t dance the deux-temps any more, I’m told. They say it makes them giddy! Giddy! Rotten constitutions, that’s what we suffer from nowadays. It’s the same with all this talk of reforming the army. Compulsory service indeed,” the major snorted. “What should we want compulsory service for? In my day one Englishman was as good as twenty Germans or any kind of foreigner. At least he would have been if we’d had a European war, which as it happened was not the case while I was in the Service. But now there are actually people who think that if it comes to a fight it would be an advantage for us to have as many men as the enemy. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, if there’s any truth in it. No, no, the army doesn’t need reforming, take my word for it. There are a few alterations which I could suggest in the uniforms which would make all the difference in the world, but except for that, what I say is, let sleeping dogs lie.”
Having delivered himself of these remarks, Sir Gregory felt in his pocket, drew forth a cigar case, selected a cigar and asked for a match.
“Did you come to persuade me to your views on compulsory service?” asked Gimblet pleasantly as he continued to devour his strawberries, which were now nearly all gone. “Because I’m afraid it’s no good. You can’t possibly convince me that its adoption is not a vital necessity to the nation.”
“I’m sorry to hear you think that,” said the other, “for I have the highest opinion of your intellect. Believe me, when you discovered the frauds that were being perpetrated at the Great Continental Bank last year, I marked you down, Mr. Gimblet, as the man I should consult in case of need. And it is to consult you that I am here. I said it was a sad occasion. Well, it is sad for me, but I am not yet, as a matter of fact, quite sure whether or no it is desperately so. What has happened, in a word, is this. A lady to whom I am deeply attached has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” said Gimblet, pushing back his chair. He had eaten the last of the strawberries. “May I ask who the lady is – a relation of yours?”
“Not exactly. She is a Mrs. Vanderstein, for whom, as I have just said, I have a great regard, I may say an affection. In fact,” said Sir Gregory, leaning forward and speaking in confidential tones, “I don’t mind telling you that she is the lady I have chosen to be the future Lady Aberhyn Jones.”
“Indeed. You are engaged to marry her?”
“Not precisely engaged,” admitted Sir Gregory, with a slightly troubled look.
As a matter of strict accuracy, he had proposed to Mrs. Vanderstein about three times a year ever since the death of her husband; but Mrs. Vanderstein, although tempted by his title, had already been the wife of one man twice her age and did not intend to repeat the experiment. Still, his friendship was dear to her; he was the only baronet of her acquaintance and she liked to have him about the house. He had been a director on the board of one of her husband’s companies, and, when introduced by him, her pretty face and amiable disposition had quite captured Sir Gregory’s heart, so that he had cultivated Mr. Vanderstein’s society to such good purpose as to become a constant habitué of the house in Grosvenor Street.
After Mr. Vanderstein’s death he lost no more time than decency demanded in proposing to his widow; and, though she refused to marry him, and refused over and over again, yet she did it in so sympathetic a manner and was so kind in spite of her obstinacy that Sir Gregory believed her absence of alacrity in accepting his hand to be prompted by anything rather than a lack of affection. She treated him as her best friend and consulted him on every question of business, to the wise conduct of which her own shrewdness was a far better guide, and had imperceptibly fallen into the habit of never making a decision of any importance without first threshing out the pros and cons in conversation with him. Nothing so strengthened her faith in the soundness of her own judgment as his disapproval of any course she intended to adopt.
“For some reason,” Sir Gregory continued after a pause, “Mrs. Vanderstein has never consented to an actual engagement. It is that which makes me so uneasy now. Can it be – Mr. Gimblet, I give you my word I feel ashamed of mentioning such a suspicion even to you – but can it be that she has fled with another?”
He uttered the last words in such a tragic tone that Gimblet, though he felt inclined to smile, restrained the impulse, and, summoning up all the sympathy at his command, inquired again:
“Will you not explain the circumstances to me a little more fully? When did the lady vanish? Have you any reason to think she did not go alone? Was there some kind of understanding between you, and what did it amount to?”
“I will be perfectly frank with you,” said Sir Gregory, “much the best thing in these cases is to be absolutely candid. You agree with me there? I thought you would. At the same time where a lady is concerned – you follow me? One must avoid anything that looks like giving her away. But in this case there is really no reason why I should conceal anything from you. Mrs. Vanderstein has never accepted my proposals. On the contrary she has refused to marry me on each of the occasions when I have suggested it to her. You ask me why? My dear sir, I cannot reply to that question. Who can account for a woman’s whims? Not I, sir, not I. Nor you either; if you will allow me to say so.” Sir Gregory’s hands and eyes were uplifted in bewilderment as he considered the inexplicable behaviour of woman in general and of Mrs. Vanderstein in particular. “But I have no doubt that in time she would have reconsidered her decision,” he went on puffing at his cigar, “that is to say I had no doubt until this morning.”
“And what happened then?” asked the detective.
“I came up from Surrey, where I had been paying a week-end visit,” pursued his visitor, “arriving at my rooms at midday. My servant at once informed me that Mrs. Vanderstein had sent a telephone message yesterday evening, begging me to go immediately to see her and adding that it was most important. I only waited to change into London clothes, Mr. Gimblet, before I hurried to her house in Grosvenor Street. And when I got there, what did I hear? ’Pon my soul,” exclaimed Sir Gregory, taking his cigar out of his mouth, “you might have knocked me down with a feather!”
“You heard that the lady had disappeared?”
“Exactly. Not been seen or heard of since last night. Drove away from her own door, they tell me, in her own motor car; and has never come back from that hour to this.”
“Did she leave no word as to where she was going?”
“None whatever. She dined early, of course, on account of the opera.”
“The opera! In that case what makes you think she didn’t go there?”
“Of course she went. Didn’t I say so? She drove off to Covent Garden and that’s the last that’s been heard of her.”
“You interest me,” said Gimblet. “Was she not seen to leave the opera house?”
“I don’t know about that,” said Sir Gregory. “I found the servants very much disturbed; and very glad they were, I may say, to see me.”
“She has probably met with some accident and has been taken to a hospital,” suggested Gimblet. “Have any inquiries been made?”