There was something that appealed to him in the suggestion; it would be a decidedly novel experience to spy upon Miss Mayhew under an impenetrable disguise. He could easily spare a few days; there was some business in Paris he could attend to at the same time.
The weekly visit to Gloria was the only drawback. But for the moment the prospect of tracking Miss Mayhew outweighed the disappointment of not seeing his sweetheart. He would write her to-night, explaining that he had suddenly been summoned to Glasgow on important business which could not be delayed.
It was arranged, therefore, that Lydon should be round at the office early the next morning, and after he had assumed his disguise, the two men should proceed at once to Paris.
But Mr. Grewgus, who certainly did not spare himself in the interests of his clients, had something more to propose. A bright idea had suddenly occurred to him. He asked his client if he had any important engagements for that evening, and on receiving an answer in the negative, unfolded his plan.
“Well, as you can spare the time, I suggest that we take a peep at Ashstead Mansions and see if we can get anything useful out of the porter at the flats. Most of these fellows will talk if they can see money is about.”
“But, the same objection,” began the young man, and Mr. Grewgus interrupted him with uplifted hand and a quizzical smile.
“Of course, I foresee that. You might meet the Mayhew girl or Whitehouse, or both coming down the staircase, and they would at once smell a rat. What about having a rehearsal of that excellent disguise which you are going to assume to-morrow? I can rig you out comfortably in a quarter of an hour.”
Lydon agreed. There was an element of sport in the whole thing which the hatchet-faced detective seemed to enjoy as much as his client. Disguised in a heavy beard and moustache, the young man walked out of the detective’s office. They took a taxi and dismounted within a few yards of Ashstead Mansions.
The porter, a young military-looking man, was standing outside the particular block they entered. Grewgus whispered in his companion’s ear. “I’ve reckoned him up in a single glance. I know the type. He will talk till doomsday after the first ten-shilling note is slipped in his hand. Of course, you won’t mind a bit of expense over the job?”
Lydon whispered back that, under the circumstances, expense was no object. He was prepared to spend a considerable amount of money to confirm or disprove his suspicions of Zillah Mayhew.
They went into the hall, and scrutinized the board containing the names of the particular block in which Number 18 was situated. The name of Whitehouse did not figure on it.
The detective rubbed his thin face. “This is 18 Ashstead Mansions, right enough, but nobody of the name of Whitehouse resides here. You are quite sure of the number?”
The young man smiled. Detectives perhaps resembled solicitors; they did not credit the average person with ordinary intelligence.
“Impossible for me to make a mistake,” he answered. “I was far too interested not to make sure. I only learned it last night.”
Seeing they were obviously perplexed, the porter strolled up to them. “Are you looking for somebody, sir?” he asked, addressing Grewgus, whom he evidently regarded as the more dominant personality of the two. “Perhaps I can assist you.”
Grewgus spoke in his rather precise, formal way. “Am I correct in saying that a Mr. Whitehouse occupies one of these flats?”
The military-looking man shook his head. “Nobody of that name in this block, sir, or any of the others.”
Grewgus turned to his companion with a finely simulated air of surprise. “Either we have been misinformed as to the precise locality or the name itself,” he said.
Lydon, not used to the subtle processes of the detective mind, thought it best to say as little as possible. He just muttered the safe words, “It certainly looks like it, doesn’t it?” playing up to the lead given him by the astute Grewgus.
That gentleman extracted with a great air of deliberation a ten-shilling note from his waistcoat pocket and pressed it into the receptive hand of the porter.
“I may as well tell you we are here to make a few inquiries about a certain party,” he said. “You say there is no Mr. Whitehouse here. Does a young lady named Mayhew reside in this or any of the other blocks?”
The porter, stimulated by the douceur so promptly and adroitly administered, became voluble at once, thus justifying the detective’s hasty diagnosis of his temperament.
“Miss Mayhew, sir, lives with her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Glenthorne, in this block, Number 18. I believe she is their niece; I have heard her call him uncle.”
Grewgus turned to the disguised young man and addressed him with the utmost coolness and suavity. “Of course, we were given the wrong name. I suspected it after I searched that board.”
He turned to the porter, who, by the knowing smile that showed itself upon his good-looking face, appeared to be awaiting developments of an interesting character.
“Now can you tell us something about this Mr. Glenthorne? Do you know his profession, his business, his occupation?”
The smile on the porter’s face deepened, as he saw Grewgus’ hand steal ostentatiously to his pocket, and withdraw another note. It had evidently dawned on his mind by now that they were detectives, and were prepared to pay liberally for information.
“I could tell you about almost anybody in this block, sir, but not Mr. Glenthorne. When he is in London, he seems to go out every day, and returns at all sorts of hours, sometimes to lunch, sometimes to dinner, sometimes not till close upon midnight.”
“A gentleman apparently of quite irregular habits?” interjected the detective.
“Quite so, sir. Whatever his business is, it takes him away a good deal. He spends more than half the year abroad.”
“And what about Miss Mayhew? Is she as erratic?”
“Never stays here very long, sir. She was off to-day. From something I heard, I think she was bound for Paris.”
A second note found its way into the porter’s ready palm, and Grewgus was prepared to admit that he had earned it.
The two men were turning away, when the porter said in a low voice: “Here is Mr. Glenthorne, sir. Do you know him?”
Grewgus motioned him to silence. A well-remembered figure entered the hall and ascended the staircase. He cast a sharp glance at the two men, but it was evident he did not penetrate Lydon’s disguise.
When he was safely out of earshot, Leonard whispered to his companion: “It is the man whom I know as John Whitehouse.”
They went out into the street, and then the detective spoke. “Glenthorne in Ashstead Mansions, and Whitehouse when he visits his friends at Effington. The beginning of a very pretty mystery, Mr. Lydon. Perhaps our trip to Paris will help us to solve it.”
CHAPTER NINE
When they had left Ashstead Mansions safely behind, the detective turned down a side street, and, leading the young man under a convenient archway, dexterously whipped off the disguising beard and moustache and put them in a small bag he had brought with him.
“Now Richard is himself again, and can face the world in his own proper person,” he observed in a jocular tone. “I suppose we will separate here. I am going on to Hammersmith to see one of my smartest men and put him at once on the job of finding out what he can about Stormont and the man whom you originally knew as Whitehouse. Better be at my office about eight o’clock to-morrow. As soon as I have made you up, we will start.”
As they parted, Grewgus observed that he had better pay out all the outgoings, and Lydon could give him a cheque from time to time. “I expect it will run you into a pretty penny,” he said, “but from what you have said, I gather you don’t mind that. The thing certainly seems worth investigating. The fact of this fellow having two names is very suspicious. And whatever is going on, I have little doubt we shall be able to connect Stormont with it. It is impossible he can be ignorant of the fact that Whitehouse calls himself Glenthorne when he is away from Effington.”
Lydon went back to his rooms, and in the evening dined at the Berkeley with a friend. The more he thought over the matter the more he congratulated himself on having gone to the solicitor, and through him to Grewgus, who impressed him as a man of remarkable capacity. What they had learned at Ashstead Mansions was enough to prove that there was some deep mystery about the occupants of Number 18, a mystery in which the owner of Effington Hall was obviously involved.
Whatever that mystery was, did Gloria and Mrs. Barnard know anything about it, or were they as ignorant as he was when he had first set foot in the fine old Tudor mansion where the rubicund profiteer posed as a man of business who had lately taken up the rôle of country gentleman?
Of Mrs. Barnard, he could not, of course, be sure. She was a singularly quiet, self-contained woman, not much given to general conversation. Considering the hours he had spent down at Effington, he had really seen very little of her. She seemed to play a very subordinate part in the life led there, her brother taking the lead in everything, impressing himself upon his guests, in his bluff, genial way, while she remained in the background.
She seemed, so far as he could judge, to be interested in two things—clothes and the local charities. And no doubt Stormont had put her on to the latter, in order to make a good impression in the neighbourhood, and disarm the critical attitude which is so often assumed against a new-comer.
Gloria he was convinced knew nothing and suspected nothing. He loved the girl with his whole heart and soul, with every pulse of his being, but even his great love would not have blinded him if he had observed anything suspicious or evasive about her. In all their intercourse together, she had been so perfectly frank, even with regard to the uncle whose kindness she so greatly appreciated. When she told him that Stormont was a financier, it was evident she was telling what she believed to be the truth. And about her early life with her parents in China she had been as open as a book. Whatever mystery there might be about Stormont himself, there was none about the brother who held a high position in one of the biggest banks in that far-off country.
She had shown him more than one letter from her parents, who kept up a constant correspondence with her, and he could see from what he read there was nothing suspicious about them. In the last one he read, there was an intimation that at any moment they might make up their minds to come to England for a brief holiday. Yes, there was no doubt everything was open and above-board with Jasper Stormont, her father.
The young man found himself wishing that visit would be paid soon. He could question a man more closely than he could a woman.
He was at Grewgus’ office at the appointed hour next morning. As before, there was nobody there but the detective himself. The staff did not put in an appearance till nine. In a very few minutes the disguise was effected, with a few additional touches which made it more complete.
When he had finished, Grewgus drew back and surveyed his handiwork with an air of pardonable pride. “If Miss Mayhew meets you face to face, she will never suspect you are the young man she met at Effington Hall. There was no recognition in Whitehouse’s glance last night, although I have no doubt he was suspicious of what we were doing there. I bet you he will have asked the porter a question or two by now. But that chap is no fool; he will know how to put him off.”
When Leonard looked in the glass which Grewgus handed him, he was bound to confess that a complete metamorphosis had been effected. There was no resemblance between this heavy-bearded creature and the good-looking lover of Gloria Stormont.
“Now I think we will be off,” observed Grewgus. “I have written a letter to my head clerk telling him I’m off to Paris, and giving him the address of the hotel we shall stay at. Of course it will not be the Terminus, that would hamper us too much. I shall only take you there for the purpose of identifying her; I shall watch her from elsewhere. To stay there would be fatal to our plans. If she is the person you believe her to be, she is naturally as sharp as a needle, and she would soon tumble to the fact that we were taking a suspicious interest in her.”
A short time later they had left London behind them and were on their way to Paris and Zillah Mayhew. It was a fairly empty train and they had a first-class compartment to themselves.
Grewgus proved himself a most entertaining companion, and told Lydon many interesting things in connection with himself and his profession, in the pursuit of which he took the keenest delight.
He was about fifty-five, he told the young man, who was surprised at the statement, for, with his clean-shaven face and keen, alert expression, he looked a good ten years younger. He had been fifteen years at Scotland Yard, and ten years on his own.
While at the Yard he had acquired a considerable experience of the underworld. He told him some wonderful stories of the wide ramifications of crookdom of all classes from the lowest to the most aristocratic, of high-class gangs directed by men who presented a most respectable appearance to the outside world, mixing in decent society, and adopting some well-known business or profession as a blind. He regaled him with some thrilling tales of how diamond had cut diamond, of the marvellous ingenuity with which certain professional detectives had got the better of their natural enemies, the criminals.
Since he had been in private practice, his experiences had been less thrilling. He did a good deal in divorce business, and he was applied to in many cases of blackmail.
“If this young woman turns out to be Elise Makris, as you suspect, we are likely to be up against a blackmailing gang here,” he observed. “And I should gather they pursue their activities chiefly abroad. You will remember the porter dropped the fact that Glenthorne was frequently out of England.”
They snatched a light meal at Boulogne and they got out at Amiens for a very welcome whisky and soda. The Paris train was pretty full, and there was no opportunity for further disclosures of a confidential nature. Just before they rolled into the station, Grewgus whispered in his companion’s ear:
“As you said I was to spare no expense, I sent a wire to an old ally of mine to meet the train. We have worked together very often, and he is a most useful fellow, being a splendid linguist. He can speak French like a native, even to its slang. It may be I shall have to watch more than one person, and he will come in handy for the other.”
Evidently Mr. Grewgus was going to do the thing thoroughly, and the young man was pleased that he had got hold of such a painstaking fellow. The man with whom he had made the appointment was waiting on the platform, a clean-shaven, smart-looking individual rather like Grewgus himself. He was introduced to Lydon by the name of Simmons.
“I think you and I, Mr. Lydon, will stay at the Palace Hotel; it is pretty handy to the other one. We will go there first and book our rooms, and then proceed to the Terminus. If we wait a bit in the great hall there, we shall be pretty certain to spot our quarry. We’ll take Simmons with us, as he will want to know her as well, in case he has to be put on the job later.”
They secured their rooms and then went on to the Terminus. The hall was very full, but they found room in a corner, an admirable situation where they could survey everybody at their leisure without attracting too much attention themselves.
They sat there a long time, and Lydon was beginning to fear that Miss Mayhew had changed her plans, gone to some other hotel than the one given in Stormont’s letter of instructions. But presently a familiar figure, dressed in the height of fashion, passed through the hall, and when near the exit, lingered as if she was waiting for some one. Lydon spoke to the detective in a low voice: “That is she, waiting at the end.”
The two men took stock of her. “Singularly handsome young woman,” commented Grewgus in the same cautious tones. “I suppose she is waiting for the man Edwards.”
But she was not. To Lydon’s surprise and relief, another familiar figure crossed the hall, joined her, and the two went out together. It was that of the woman he had known as Madame Makris, the tenant of the Villa des Cyclamens.
There was no mistaking her. He remembered too well that stout form, the still handsome face with its traces of youthful good looks, the Jewish cast of countenance. He imparted the information to Grewgus.
A satisfied smile stole over the detective’s countenance. “Well, this is a bit of the most splendid luck at the very start,” he said. “The mother, the blemish which I could not see from here, the pendant which I could see, I think we have found one of the most important things we wanted, at once. There can be no doubt, in face of those three things, that she is Elise Makris, or at any rate that that is one of possibly numerous aliases. Anyway, she is the woman who drove your friend to frenzy. I expect mother and daughter are devoted to each other, and hunt in couples wherever they can. The next thing is to find out what game they are after here.”
He whispered a few words to his colleague, Simmons, who rose and left the hall. “I have sent him to make an inquiry,” Grewgus explained. “He knows a few of the servants here, and, as I told you, he speaks French like a Frenchman.”
Simmons returned presently and related the result of his visit. “They give out they are Englishwomen, and are known as Mrs. and Miss Glenthorne. No man of the name of Edwards is staying here.”
“Ah, I thought she wouldn’t register as Miss Mayhew,” was the detective’s comment. “I suppose a different name for each job. Well, gentlemen, we’ve got as much here as we can for the present. I don’t think we’ll stay any longer. I propose we adjourn to a café, have a drink and discuss our future plan of action.”
They agreed with his suggestion. In their walk to a café close at hand, Grewgus did not speak much. His mind was no doubt busily working on the situation, and the best way of tackling it.
When they were half-way through their drinks, he spoke. “We can’t hope to do very much this evening. Now what I propose is this, Mr. Lydon. I know Paris rather thoroughly, although I daresay my friend Simmons knows it better. This isn’t exactly a pleasure trip you’ve come on, and you won’t want to spend more money than is absolutely necessary. We must have something to eat, for that light meal at Boulogne wasn’t very satisfactory.”
Lydon laughed. “I am in hearty agreement with you. The long journey has made me feel frightfully hungry.”
“Well, if we go to one of the swagger places, you’ll be charged through the nose. This is the city par excellence of good cooking, and I can take you to a capital little restaurant close by where everything is excellent, and you’ll pay about a third of the price. Their wines are good and reasonable too.”
“I’m in your hands,” said the young man. “I should like you to take me along as soon as possible.” He noticed that Simmons did not appear to be included in the suggestion. The reason was explained when Grewgus turned to his colleague.
“It’s not likely we shall be fortunate enough to do much to-night, as I said just now. We have had one big bit of luck to start with which has saved us a lot of time and trouble. All the same we won’t let our vigilance sleep. I want you to start on the watch at once, Simmons, if this woman and her mother come back. We shall be at the Restaurant Grice for at least a couple of hours. If in the meantime there is anything to report, come to us there. If we have gone, come to the hotel.”
The obedient Simmons finished his drink, rose up and went forth at once to obey his leader’s commands. After a final apéritif, Grewgus led his companion to the Restaurant Grice.
Here they had a most excellent meal, consisting of a good soup, a sole worthy of the Café Royal, followed by some tender veal. They drank with it a white wine recommended by Grewgus.
While they were eating, the detective dwelt regretfully on the vast difference between now and before the war. “If you knew the ropes, it was one of the cheapest places in the world to live in, and whatever you paid, you got splendid value for your money. Of course, very few of the English who came here did know the ropes. I shouldn’t have known them but for a young fellow I met, a student in the Latin Quarter. Gad! What he didn’t know about Paris wasn’t worth knowing.”
After their dinner was over, they sat and smoked to the accompaniment of another bottle of white wine. Grewgus was not keen on spirits. They had promised to wait a couple of hours there in case Simmons had anything to report, and they were as comfortable here as they would have been in their hotel, more so perhaps.
During this period of waiting, Grewgus entertained his host with some more thrilling stories of crooks and crookdom. Lydon found himself much interested. Before he met this reminiscent person he had no idea that there was so much rascality in the world. According to Grewgus, every big city was teeming with it. On the whole, for what he called aristocratic crookdom he was inclined to give the palm to Nice, “where our friend Miss Mayhew appears to hail from,” he observed with a sardonic chuckle.
“She’s a member of some foreign gang, I suppose?” suggested Lydon. “She has a foreign look about her, although I heard her mother was an Englishwoman, apparently an English Jewess.”
Grewgus shook his head. “I should rather fancy an international one. Whitehouse is mixed up with her; we can’t assume him to be ignorant of his niece’s activities, if she is really his niece. Then there is the man Edwards, and of course Stormont, upon whose business she is here, according to that letter. Three Englishmen, you see. Decidedly an international gang by that.”
“What is your reading of it so far, Mr. Grewgus?”
“Well, we can’t say positively till I’ve found out what her game is here. But I should say she is one of the working members of the gang, and Edwards is another. Whitehouse and his friend are probably the controlling spirits who plan and engineer but never come into the open, never execute the dirty work.”
A few minutes before the two hours had expired, Simmons bustled in with an air of importance that told he had something of interest to communicate.
It was briefly this. Mother and daughter had returned to the hotel alone, an hour after they left it. The mother had gone upstairs; Miss Glenthorne had sat in the hall, evidently waiting for somebody. That somebody presently turned up in the shape of an opulent-looking Frenchman, thickly bearded and of middle age. The couple left together and drove to one of the most expensive restaurants in Paris.
Simmons followed them into the expensive restaurant, and had his dinner there, conceiving it to be his duty to spend money in order to watch them. From the waiter who attended on him, he learned that the Frenchman was an old customer, and a wealthy man. He was a partner in the big firm of jewellers, Dubost Frères, located in Marseilles. Every three months he made a trip to Paris to have dealings with firms in the same line of business. On these occasions, the waiter had been told, he brought with him several samples worth thousands of pounds. His name was Monsieur Léon Calliard.
With regard to the young woman, the waiter knew nothing about her. He fancied he recognized her as having been in the restaurant before during his period of service, but he could not say with whom. This was certainly the first time he had seen Monsieur Calliard in her company.
From the restaurant, where they quickly got through their dinner, Simmons followed them to a music-hall, where he had left them when he came to make his report.
“Nobody joined them in the music-hall, no Englishman who might be the man Edwards?” queried Grewgus when his colleague had finished his recital.
“No, so far, Edwards has not appeared upon the scene,” was the answer.
The detective looked at his client. “Looks like a case of blackmail, or perhaps robbery and blackmail,” was his comment. “Anyway the old game.”
“I didn’t know whether you would like to go and have a look at them yourself?” hazarded Simmons.
But Grewgus thought not. He would wait till to-morrow to get on the track of the man Edwards, that is, if he were taking an active part in the affair and still in Paris.
CHAPTER TEN
After breakfast the next morning, Grewgus inquired if Lydon had any intention of making a long stay in Paris.
The young man replied in the negative. His business claimed him, his sweetheart claimed him, although he did not communicate the latter item to the detective. He had, up to the present, said nothing about her, or her relationship to Stormont. Naturally, he shrank from doing so.
“I take it, if I stayed, I could be of little use to you in your proceedings, Mr. Grewgus?” he queried.
The reply was polite, but quite emphatic. “Well, Mr. Lydon, I think not. If I detailed you off on the watching business, you might find it a very difficult job. Shadowing people is an art—of course Simmons and I are quite used to it.”
“I am sure I understand. If I attempted to follow Miss Mayhew about, she would soon spot it. You do it in some mysterious way, so that while observing, you contrive to escape observation.”
Grewgus was pleased to find his client took such a sensible view of the situation. He bestowed on him a cordial smile.
“Everybody to his job, Mr. Lydon. I may say to you that, speaking from a professional point of view, this promises to be an exceedingly interesting case, more especially when we succeed in getting on to the track of the man Edwards who is no doubt about. I don’t fancy the young woman is doing it all off her own bat.”
There was a certain air of satisfaction about Grewgus as he spoke which convinced his client he was engaged in a business after his own heart. There had been aroused in him those sleuth-like instincts, lacking which no man makes a good hunter of criminals.
Grewgus was away all the morning, and Lydon took advantage of his absence to stroll about and renew his rather slight acquaintance with the beautiful city. They met for déjeuner at the same place where they had dined the previous evening.
There was news of some importance to communicate. Simmons had seen Miss Mayhew with a tall, elegant-looking young man in the Bois de Boulogne. They had separated very soon, and, surmising the man to be Edwards, he had followed him to his quarters in an hotel in a different part of the city, close to the Gare du Nord. Discreet inquiries elicited that the young man was registered under his proper name; he had not thought it necessary to change it like Miss Mayhew.
“It looks as he if were in charge of the job, and that the girl is playing her usual rôle of decoy,” remarked Grewgus, when he had imparted this information. “The two meet while this silly old Calliard is doing his business in Paris. No doubt Miss Mayhew and her elderly admirer will spend this evening and other evenings together till it is time to pluck him. The waiter told Simmons he is a married man. If he were not, we might give the young woman the benefit of the doubt, and credit her with the intention of pulling off an advantageous marriage.”
“In that case, the man Edwards wouldn’t be wanted,” observed Lydon, who was quite shrewd in his way. “He will probably appear upon the scene presently as the injured husband, or outraged brother, or something equally terrifying to this poor enamoured old man.”
Later on, Grewgus saw his client off at the station and wished him bon voyage. “I instructed my man in London to send a report of his discoveries with regard to Stormont and Whitehouse, not only to me here, but to you at your private address, as it will save time. I shall keep you posted at this end. Of course, for a day or two I may have nothing to communicate, as so far we have found out a good bit in the short time. We have located Edwards, we have proved beyond the smallest possibility of doubt that Zillah Mayhew and Elise Makris are one, by the presence of the mother. And, of course, our friend at Effington Hall stands revealed by his letter as the prime mover in the affair.”
Lydon arrived in London the same night, and early on the following morning sent a wire to Gloria asking her to meet him at the Savoy for luncheon. On his breakfast table had lain an envelope addressed in an unfamiliar handwriting. It contained a long memorandum headed—“Copy of a report forwarded to Mr. Grewgus in Paris.” Obviously the detective’s agent had lost no time, he must have worked at top speed, as he could only have devoted two days to the inquiries.
The report read as follows: “I could not start as soon as I should have liked, as I had no personal knowledge of Stormont and had to travel down to Effington and hang about there till I had spotted the man, and learned something of his habits. On the next morning I shadowed him at Waterloo, and followed him to Hornby Square in the City. He went into a small suite of offices, on the entrance door of which were marked the names of Robinson & Company, financiers. Further inquiries elicited that his firm kept no staff, that only two men were there, sometimes together, sometimes alone, Stormont and a taciturn, rather unpleasant-looking man whom the porter knew by the name of Whitehouse.
“I shadowed Whitehouse when he left in the afternoon about four o’clock and found he occupies a flat Number 18 in Ashstead Mansions, off Sloane Square. The family consists of himself, his wife and a niece, Miss Mayhew. Both uncle and niece frequently take journeys abroad. He is known there as Glenthorne.”
Leonard smiled as he read this part. It was evident that the hall-porter at Ashstead Mansions had again been a source of information.
“There seems little or no business doing at Hornby Square, so far as I could gather. There are a very few occasional callers, and a fair amount of correspondence. Taking the aspect of things in a general conjunction, and remembering the suspicious circumstance that the man Whitehouse calls himself Glenthorne in private life, I should say the office in Hornby Square is used as a blind, and that no legitimate business is carried on there.”
There was a letter to Lydon accompanying the report signed John Ross, in which the writer stated that he was forwarding it in compliance with the instructions of his principal, Mr. Grewgus.
Lydon laid the report down, thinking that it fully confirmed his suspicions, and marvelling what an immense amount had come to light in consequence of his sudden determination to open the letter to Zillah Mayhew. If Stormont only knew, how he would curse his sister’s officiousness in getting those letters posted.
As he expected might be the case, he found Gloria very hurt that her sweetheart had not written to her during his brief absence. It was very unkind, she told him: if the positions had been reversed, she would have sent him a long letter every day.
He hated lying to the charming girl, she was always so frank and open herself. But what was he to do under the circumstances? He could not admit that the journey to Glasgow was a myth, that he had really gone to Paris to get evidence against her uncle.
The day might come when he would have to open her eyes as to Stormont’s real character, but it had not arrived yet. He must have stronger evidence than he possessed at the moment.
“My darling, you can’t imagine how busy I was,” he pleaded in excuse of his neglect. “I was rushing about from place to place; when I had a spare second I was ’phoning somebody or writing telegrams.”
Being a very sweet-tempered girl, she was soon placated, and made no further allusion to the distasteful subject. Nothing of any moment had happened at Effington; there had been one dinner party during his absence, and there was to be another one on his next weekly visit, on the Saturday.
“I think uncle is drawing in his horns a bit,” she observed. “He seems to be cutting it down to one dinner party a week instead of two or three. He has been up to London a good deal more lately; he says he has a great deal of business on. So that I daresay consoles him for the comparative lack of gaiety. But, of course, he’s never really happy unless he is entertaining.”
“And I suppose he doesn’t really care twopence for the people on whom he lavishes so much of his money?” queried Lydon.
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” was the answer. “It’s just a form of excitement. That’s the pity of it. I am fond enough of company in a reasonable sort of way, but then I would choose people I really liked for themselves, for their qualities, not because they lived in a big house and were important people in the neighbourhood.”
He rather looked forward with distaste to his next visit to Effington. It would be so difficult to avoid showing a change of manner to Stormont. He knew that a dozen times in the day an almost irresistible impulse would overtake him, prompting him to tell the rubicund hypocrite that he knew him for what he was, the friend and abettor of Elise Makris, the decoy of a gang of blackmailers. The day would come when he must tell him, but for the present he must practise patience.
He must wait till his case was strengthened, so as to leave Stormont no loophole for plausible explanation. If confronted now, how easy for him to say that he knew nothing of the girl’s criminal activities, that he could not be supposed to be aware she was leading a double life. He could hear him rolling out in an unctuous voice some such words as these:
“My dear Leonard, do be reasonable. I made her acquaintance through Whitehouse, a most respectable man with whom I have been associated in business for years. I found she had great aptitude. She is useful to me, with her charm of manner, in many delicate and difficult financial negotiations with important people. The man Edwards is one of my trusted agents. I often send him when I cannot go myself, confident that he will look after my interests faithfully. Your suspicions are the merest moonshine.”
He might even be able to wriggle his way out, with regard to the man John Whitehouse. He would say that he carried on two businesses under two different names for the sake of distinguishing them. That at Hornby Court he was Whitehouse, at his other offices Glenthorne.
No, he must not yet show in his manner that he was on his track. But he would avoid him as much as possible, see as little of him as he could, take long walks and drives with Gloria. To do him justice, the so-called financier did leave the lovers pretty much to themselves; so did Mrs. Barnard, who might or might not be in the secret of her brother’s double life.
Still, he would have to sit through a good many meals with his host, and he would find it trying. He was not very fond of those lavish dinner parties which gave Stormont such keen pleasure, but he felt rather grateful for this particular one which would keep them very much apart for that evening.
On that same Saturday afternoon, a very strange thing occurred. Mrs. Barnard had gone out to luncheon that day, and the three sat chatting together for some little time after the meal was concluded, Lydon being the most silent member of the party.
Presently they went out into the hall together, the young man having suggested to his sweetheart that they should take a stroll in the grounds. A peculiar spectacle met their view.
A bronzed-looking, elderly man, with a shaggy beard and moustache, rather shabbily dressed, was standing inside close by the door. A smart-looking young footman stood near to him, with rather the air of mounting guard. Duncan, the butler, was advancing in the direction of the dining-room, but halted when he saw the party approaching.
He spoke in his grave, respectful voice, in which there seemed just a tinge of surprise. “A—a—person wishes to see you, sir. He declines to give his name, says he wants to surprise you.”
Stormont started for a second, then advanced towards the new-comer whom he could not see very distinctly, as he was afflicted with short-sight. Then, when he got close to him, his face went pale under its tan, and the words dropped from his lips slowly, as if they were forced from him. “Tom Newcombe, by all that’s wonderful.”
The shabby-looking man burst into a loud laugh and extended a hand. Lydon noticed it was not over-clean, and the other took it with evident embarrassment.
“Tom Newcombe it is, your old pal. Glad to see you again, Howard, and to find things are so well with you. That gentleman is quite right, I wouldn’t give my name, I wanted to give you a surprise.” He glanced at the footman. “I think this young fellow has got an idea I’m a burglar or something of the sort; he’s been looking at me suspiciously ever since I came in.”
There was an awkward pause. Stormont’s agitated countenance showed that he was very much upset by this unexpected arrival of his “old pal.” The footman disappeared rapidly. Duncan retreated with his slow, majestic step, his grave face looking graver than ever. Before he came to Effington, he had lived all his life in refined and aristocratic families. Never had he known, in his respectable experience, such an occurrence as this—a shabby-looking stranger entering the house and greeting the owner as “your old pal.” There is no doubt the dignified butler was thoroughly shaken.
Lydon was very generous-hearted, and in spite of the altered feelings with which he now regarded Stormont, he could not but feel a wave of pity for the man, subjected to such a rude shock in the very midst of his splendour, before the eyes of his astonished servants. Thinking the most tactful course was to withdraw, he touched Gloria lightly on the arm.
“Let us go for our stroll,” he said, and she, understanding his object, nodded her head. They went out and left the agitated Stormont to deal with Mr. Tom Newcombe.
When they were in the grounds, she turned to him, a look of surprise, Lydon fancied a faint hint of trouble, in her clear, candid blue eyes. “What can it mean, Leonard? Such a common fellow too, his way of talking! Not a broken-down gentleman. You heard him speak of uncle as his ‘old pal.’ Where in the name of wonder could he have known him?”
“Do you know anything of your uncle’s past, of his life as a young man?” As her sweetheart put the question, his thought was that she probably knew as little of the past as she did of the present.
The girl answered him with her usual frankness. “Nothing. From some little things father dropped, I gathered that he was rather wild in his youth. I don’t fancy they had ever been very good friends as young men. I am sure you have noticed how little Uncle Howard ever talks about himself, about his business or his past. I know nothing about these things. Auntie may know more about them than I do, but I don’t fancy very much. He is so strangely reticent. He certainly told her he was going to borrow money from you, but I expect he did so because he thought you might let it out to one of us. If he had been sure of your silence, she would never have heard a word about it, I am convinced.”
After a short pause, she resumed the subject. “I cannot understand it, the man is obviously of such a common class. The Stormonts come from very homely stock, I know, but they are miles above this. I don’t think I have ever told you much about the family history, which I learned from my father, not my uncle. I don’t think I have ever heard him allude to his family. He is as reticent about them as he is about himself.”
She proceeded to tell him about the past Stormonts. Her grandfather was a small tradesman in a Midland town, his family consisted of two sons, Howard and Jasper. Although not ambitious for himself, he was for his children, and he stinted and screwed to give them a good education to enable them to do better in the world than their father.
That education had stood them in good stead and developed their native brains. Jasper, the elder of the two, was a very clever fellow, although he had made nothing like the money his brother had done. This, in Gloria’s opinion, was simply due to lack of opportunity, to that absence of luck which plays such a large part in human affairs. And what money Jasper did make he took good care of.
“But although he has never tried to make any show, father’s career has been one of steady success,” she concluded with an air of pardonable pride. “And he is one of the most upright men, with high ideals of duty. He has not got Uncle Howard’s robust geniality, but he has most lovable qualities. I should be so pleased for you to meet him.”
They strolled about for a long time before they returned to the house. Before they went in, Gloria had confided to her lover her perplexity as to what Stormont would do with his unwelcome guest. Mr. Newcombe certainly could not join the ultra-respectable dinner party that would assemble in the evening.
This problem was presently solved by Stormont himself, who later on came into the billiard-room to find them.
He had recovered a good deal from the shock, but it was easy to see by his nervous, jerky manner, that he was still very ill at ease over this disconcerting experience, and the necessity of furnishing some explanation of it.
He tried to carry it off in his usual hearty bluff way, but Lydon knew that he would have given a big sum of money for it not to have happened.
“Strange after all these years, very strange! Poor old Tom Newcombe to have come down so; he was fairly prosperous at one time. A rough diamond, but one of the best, one of the very best.” It was obvious to both there was no real heartiness in his voice as he pronounced these warm eulogies on the shabby-looking man.
He went on in the same jerky, unconvincing manner, addressing himself rather more directly to his niece. “I suppose you are wondering how I came to know him?”
“I think we are,” said Gloria, speaking with her usual directness. “He spoke as if you had been on very intimate terms.”
“So we were, so we were,” was the reply. “I must reveal a little bit of my life that I have said nothing to you about before. Even your aunt and father know very little of it. When I was quite a youngster, I was a bit inclined to kick over the traces. And, in one of my wild moods, I went out to Australia in the hope of making my fortune quickly. It was there I met Tom Newcombe, who had been lucky and made quite a respectable pile. In that land of democratic equality we chummed up together. After a few years I left, having made no headway. But during that trying time Newcombe was a splendid pal to me, let me share with him when I was wanting a meal. I have never set eyes on him since. And now poor old Tom has turned up, broke to the world. One of the saddest things I know.”
Lydon was firmly convinced the man was lying, that he had invented this explanation of his acquaintance with the rough-looking stranger. Even Gloria looked somewhat doubtful.
“What are you going to do with him, uncle? Will he stay here?” she asked quickly.
“Of course. Could I turn out a man who befriended me as he did?” answered Stormont with a fine show of virtuous rectitude. “A pity we have got that party on to-night. I should have been proud to have such a fine fellow at my table, in spite of the fact that he is not quite of our—er—class. But he is a sensible chap and sees things clearly. He has no evening clothes, and none of mine would fit him. He will have his dinner in my study, and I shall instruct the servants to show him the greatest respect. There will be nobody here to-morrow, and he can then join us.”
He was carrying it out very bravely, as well as anybody could, turning the rough Tom Newcombe into almost a hero. But Lydon disbelieved every word he said, as he naturally would, and Gloria did not seem very convinced.
“You are going to help him, of course?” she said in the same quiet tone.
A generous glow seemed to animate Stormont’s whole manner as he replied to her. And Lydon was more than ever convinced that the man was acting for all he was worth.
“I should think so. I have heaps of faults, but want of humanity, thank Heaven, is not one of them. I shall help poor old Tom as long as he wants help, as he helped me when I was in need.”
With the utterance of these noble sentiments, the conversation ended. Stormont went away to shut up with his guest till dinner-time. The respectable people of the neighbourhood came to the banquet and did full justice to it, in ignorance that not far from them, in the host’s study, a shabby-looking man, waited upon by a rather supercilious footman, was partaking in solitude of the same rich viands and choice wines.
When the last carriage had rolled away, Mrs. Barnard went to bed, explaining that she was tired with her long day. Was it because she wished to avoid any conversation with her niece about the unexpected guest?
Stormont went to look after Newcombe. He promised to join them shortly in the billiard-room, as the night was still young.
He came in looking rather relieved, and proposed a three-handed game. “I’ve set the poor chap in front of a bottle of whisky; it will do him good after his privations,” he said genially. “I hope, though, he won’t take too much; he has a little weakness in that direction.”
They had not played more than half an hour when the door opened, and the shabby figure of Mr. Newcombe appeared. His face was very flushed, there was no doubt about his condition. His gait was uncertain, and his voice was decidedly thick.
Advancing towards the billiard-table, he looked at his host with a very unfriendly expression, in which Lydon saw, or perhaps fancied he saw, a hint of menace.
“Look here, Stormont, my boy. Old pal as you may have been, I’m not going to stand much more of this sort of thing. I’m being treated in a way I don’t like. It’s devilish unhandsome, to say the least of it.”
The more than half-drunken man was meditating a scene in revenge for some real or fancied grievance. Gloria paled and reddened by turns and looked apprehensively at her uncle.
Lydon waited developments. Would this fellow in his cups, and without the least control over his faculties, blurt out something that would give the lie to Stormont’s hastily concocted story?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Stormont himself seemed quite taken aback by this almost savage onslaught, almost as deprived of self-control as Newcombe himself. “What are you complaining of?” he asked, in a voice that was scarcely audible.
The man whom his accent declared to be a Colonial, answered in his thick utterance: “I don’t say anything about not being asked to dine with your swell friends, they’re not my kidney, and I’d rather have their room than their company. But after they’d all gone, you might have introduced me to your family.”
He pointed a shaking forefinger at the shrinking Gloria, who was immensely afraid of a drunken man. Stormont was pretty liberal in his potations, but he never got into anything approaching this condition.
“This pretty girl, I take it, is your niece. And this, I suppose, is her young man you told me about. Looks a bit stuck-up, I fancy, like the young feller who brought me my dinner. But I daresay I shall find him a good sort when we’re better acquainted.”
He walked with his unsteady gait towards the table on which the ever-thoughtful butler had placed refreshments.
The action seemed to rouse Stormont from his trance. “Stop it,” he shouted in a voice of thunder. “Stop it. You’ve had more than you can carry already.”
But he was too late, Newcombe had already filled a tumbler half-full of raw whisky and tossed it down his throat as if it had been water. Having done this, his manner seemed to change. From a mood very nearly approaching ferocity, he lapsed into one of maudlin sentimentality. A weak smile overspread his bearded countenance.
“Well, my boy, we mustn’t quarrel, we’ve been too dear old pals for that.” He laughed with the disconcerting hilarity of a drunken man. “Lord, what fine games we’ve had in our day, Howard, haven’t we? Do you remember that glorious day we followed up old Billy Stiles——?”
Again Stormont’s voice rang out, and there was a note of almost agony in it. “Stop, Newcombe, for Heaven’s sake stop. You forget there is a woman present.”
The appeal seemed momentarily to sober the wretched man. He turned his bleary eyes in the direction of Gloria. “Sorry, miss, I’m sure; I forgot you were here. No offence meant, Howard, my dear old pal. I haven’t said anything; you’ve noticed that.”
It was time to end the disgusting scene. Stormont turned to the young man. “Very sorry, but you’d better take Gloria away. I’ll deal with this drunken creature and get him to bed.”
As he spoke, he turned a very malevolent glance on the huddled-up Newcombe, who had closed his eyes after his last speech, and appeared to be falling asleep. There was positive hatred in that glance, Lydon felt assured. And yet a few hours ago he had spoken of the man as a splendid fellow, as one of the very best. The young man doubted if there was much love lost on either side, in spite of Newcombe’s reference to his friend as a dear old pal.
The lovers went into the drawing-room. Gloria still looked pale, and not a little indignant. “What a perfect brute!” she cried. “Why has uncle put up with him for five minutes? You could see the sort he was at the first glance, a rough savage. Why did he not give him some money, and make him go?”
Almost before he was aware of it, the words slipped out of her sweetheart’s mouth, words that voiced his inmost thoughts.
“Depend upon it, dear, Mr. Stormont has some good reasons for not wishing to offend this uncouth fellow.”
The girl looked up with a startled glance, one which had fear in it as well as surprise. “Leonard, what is in your mind? Do you suggest”—her voice faltered for a second—“that he knows anything to Uncle Howard’s discredit?”
Lydon felt he had gone a bit too far at the present juncture. He shrugged his shoulders and spoke in indifferent tones.
“I don’t suppose young men who go out to Australia and mix with a rough crowd lead very saintly lives. I daresay Newcombe is acquainted with a few episodes that would be better suppressed in your uncle’s family circle. Don’t worry, darling.”
“But I can’t help it,” replied the ever-frank Gloria. “The whole thing is so mysterious, and somehow uncle’s explanation seemed to me lame and halting. Did it strike you in the same way?”
Leonard hesitated for a moment. It would be easy to say that he had accepted that statement in perfect good faith, in short, to tell an absolute lie. But he thought it better on the whole that Gloria should be allowed to nurse her suspicions. The blow would fall lighter on her when it had to come. He told her, therefore, that the same impression had been made on him.
“I wonder what he was going to say when he was stopped!” she remarked, after a brief pause. “When he was going to tell something about a man they had followed up. Uncle seemed in an agony of apprehension. I almost wish it had come out; I shall only be speculating what it was. I do hope he is not making an indefinite stay here.”
But on this point Lydon thought he could see his way to give her some comfort. Stormont was much too clever a man to allow Newcombe to exhibit himself to his neighbours; he had been disturbed quite enough by the fact that he had been seen by the family and servants.
“Your uncle is a resourceful man, Gloria, I am sure he will soon see a way of getting rid of him without hurting his feelings. And when the fellow gets sober again I daresay he will have the sense to perceive that Effington Hall is hardly a fit milieu for him.”
The next morning the Colonial did not come down to breakfast; probably it was too severe a task after the potations of the previous evening. He appeared in Stormont’s study about twelve o’clock, Lydon and the ladies having gone to church. What passed between the pair, they had no means of knowing. Newcombe lunched with them, and his demeanour was very chastened. He ate heartily, but drank very sparingly. Perhaps his host had given him a lecture on the fatal effects of intemperance. And during the meal he scarcely opened his lips.
Gloria and her sweetheart went out for their afternoon walk. When they came back to tea, neither Stormont nor Newcombe was visible. Mrs. Barnard said that her brother had driven the visitor up to London, where he intended to find a lodging.
Lydon drew a breath of relief: had the Colonial stayed, there might have been another disagreeable scene. Gloria openly expressed her satisfaction. “Loathsome creature, I hope he has gone for good,” she ejaculated fervently. “Have you ever seen him before, aunt?”
“Never, my dear, nor do I want to see him again. It must have amazed your uncle very greatly. Of course in a wild place such as he went to as a young man, you cannot pick and choose the people you are forced to associate with. But it is distinctly unpleasant when they turn up in after life and remind you of the old acquaintance.”
Had Stormont told her the same tale he had told to them, or did she know more about that sinister visitor than they did? Nothing in her demeanour enabled Lydon to determine the point.
Stormont returned in time for dinner, having deposited his visitor somewhere. No further allusion was made to him by any member of the party, but his advent had created an uncomfortable feeling which was not wholly allayed by his departure.
Leonard guessed that Mr. Newcombe had taken away with him either a good sum in cash or a substantial cheque. He had no doubt in his own mind that the Colonial knew something damaging about Stormont, and that his visit had been made for the purpose of extorting hush-money. If so, there was a grim irony in the situation. The man who, according to all the present evidence, was a blackmailer, was being blackmailed himself, and maintaining his position as the opulent owner of Effington by the grace of this rough and down-at-heel Colonial.
After dinner Stormont shut himself up in his study. During dinner he had been very quiet, quite unlike his usual genial, rather boisterous self; it was evident that Newcombe had left a disturbing influence behind him. Mrs. Barnard went to her own particular sanctum, and the young people had the drawing-room to themselves.
“It may have been my fancy,” remarked Gloria, “but I thought I detected a subtle difference in Duncan’s manner to-day. I saw his face drop in the hall when that creature spoke of himself as being an old pal of uncle’s. I shouldn’t wonder if he has made up his mind that it is no longer a respectable establishment to remain in and intends to give notice.”
She had diagnosed the state of the dignified butler’s feelings correctly, for the next day Duncan intimated his wish to leave. When pressed for a reason, he murmured something evasive about his desire for a change. It was a decided shock to his employer, as it showed him what an unfavourable impression had been created by the unwelcome visit of this rough stranger.
Lydon did not know this when he left. Duncan had not delivered his bombshell till later in the morning. There had been considerable excitement at the breakfast-table. Something had happened which temporarily drove Mr. Newcombe out of the minds of every member of the family. Stormont had received a letter from his brother Jasper, dated from the Hotel Cecil.
Gloria’s father and mother were staying there, having arrived in London early on the Sunday. They had given no previous intimation of their intended visit, as they wanted it to come as a complete surprise to their relatives. Would they come and see them on the Monday if they had no previous engagement which it was impossible to put off? Of course they would dine with them, and in this invitation Leonard was included. Gloria must stay with them at least a week if not longer.
The unpleasant atmosphere created by the late happenings seemed very much cleared by this pleasant news. Stormont and his sister seemed quite pleased, in spite of the fact that the brothers had not been very great friends in their youth. He remarked with a touch of his former geniality that it would be very pleasant to see good old Jasper again, a sentiment fully endorsed by Mrs. Barnard. Gloria clapped her hands together in her frank delight.
“How lovely!” she cried. “It was on the tip of my tongue to say I wish they had let us know beforehand. But I think I am rather glad they have taken us by surprise. It is such a sensation.”
She turned impetuously towards her sweetheart. “I am sure you will like my father very much, Leonard. He is one of the dearest men, and very fond of young people, who all take to him. He is awfully liked out there by everybody, and he has the highest reputation for integrity and highmindedness.”
Did Howard Stormont look just a little glum as he listened to this sincere praise of his elder brother, or was it Lydon’s fancy? Had the man’s conscience, deadened as it must be, suddenly awakened to fresh life and pricked at him as he thought of the difference between Gloria’s father and himself?
Lydon was pleasurably excited at the prospect of meeting with Jasper Stormont, of whom his daughter had always spoken with love and the greatest respect. She had often told him how attached to him she had been as a child, and what grief she had suffered at parting from her parents. And time and the generous treatment of her aunt and uncle had never weakened that early affection.
When the young man met them in the hall of the Cecil, a few minutes before the time fixed for dinner, he was very favourably impressed by the appearance of both mother and father. Mrs. Stormont was a very handsome woman, and her slim elegant figure made her look remarkably young. She had preserved herself wonderfully, and might have passed for her daughter’s elder sister. It was easy to see the husband was very proud of his youthful-looking wife.
In appearance, Jasper Stormont was quite unlike his younger brother, his junior by two years. He was tall and spare, with an aristocratic bearing. His face, if not exactly handsome, was pleasant to look upon and his features were refined. His manner was quietly genial, without that bluff boisterousness which distinguished the so-called financier. It exhaled an air of old-world courtesy which stood out in marked contrast to some modern manners.
He welcomed the young man with a cordiality that was perfect under the circumstances, not too effusive or overdone. Lydon was prepared to think that everything about the man was genuine; he seemed a perfect type of the commercial aristocracy.
“Delighted to see you, Mr. Lydon; later on I shall come to the more familiar Christian name. But to such a long exile—we have been over only once before since I left England—everything seems strange, and in some cases I must confess, of course not in the present one, a little out of tune. I am glad to see my little girlie looking so well; certainly her uncle and aunt have taken great care of her and made her very happy. She is staying here with us for a week, and at the end of that my brother Howard insists that we must shift our quarters to Effington.”
There was something a little formal in his words, in his diction, that Lydon rather liked. There was also about the man an ease, an unconscious air of authority that pleased him. Beside him his brother, Howard Stormont, with his supposed great wealth, appeared plebeian.
He learned afterwards from Gloria that the elder brother was much the superior in mentality. He might not have the money-making instinct so strongly developed, but he had taken far greater advantage of the good education their father had bestowed upon them. He was a very cultivated man, passionately fond of art and music and an omnivorous reader. Howard was essentially a man of the world and nothing more; the arts did not interest him, and the daily newspapers were almost his sole literature.
It was a very pleasant dinner. Jasper Stormont was an exceedingly good talker, but he led the conversation without any attempt to monopolize it, giving everybody a chance to contribute to the common fund of entertainment.
Howard Stormont and his sister were staying the night at the hotel, returning to Effington on the morrow. Leonard left early, good taste suggesting that he should not intrude himself too long on what was a family conclave. There must be many things they would wish to discuss alone.
The liking between the two men seemed mutual. Jasper Stormont shook Leonard’s hand very warmly when they parted. “As I told you, Gloria is going to give herself to us for a week, and I should like you to come very often. To dinner every night if you can.”
He gave him a very charming smile when the young men protested that this was taking undue advantage of his position. “Not at all, my dear young friend. I am afraid my motive is a rather selfish one. I want to become well acquainted with my future son-in-law.”
Gloria saw him off; the others with commendable tact did not intrude upon the tender farewell of the lovers.
“You like my dear old dad, don’t you, Leonard? He has a heart of gold,” asked Gloria as they said good night.
And Leonard was able to say honestly that he had taken a great liking to Jasper Stormont. He was quite convinced, even on this short acquaintance, he was a white man through and through.
It followed that, being so pressed, the young man did dine at the Cecil every evening of that week. The Stormonts had a small private sitting-room, but Jasper often took Lydon down into the smoking-room for a private chat. He had openly avowed his wish to become better acquainted with his future son-in-law, and these informal intimate conversations would help him quickly to that knowledge.
He told Leonard first of his future plans. He expected to retire in about five years from now and would come back to spend his declining years in England. He was nothing like so rich a man as his brother Howard, so he said, but he would be able to live comfortably on the interest of what he had saved.
He went on to speak of Gloria’s childhood, and the unhappy time when they had to part with her.
“It was one of the greatest griefs of our life,” he said in his simple, straightforward way. “But there was no help for it. We had the best medical advice, and the verdict was unanimous, she could not live in the East. My other child, a son, has thrived there—difference of constitution, of course.”
He paused a moment, before resuming this portion of his daughter’s history, a good deal of which the young man had gathered from his sweetheart.
“Just to go back a moment. Howard and I had not been very attached brothers in our youth, I should hesitate to say with whom the fault lay. Enough that with regard to most things we did not see eye to eye.”
Jasper Stormont did not say what those things were. And Lydon, dearly as he would have liked to know, did not think it seemly to ask him.
“But we kept up a rather desultory, if brief correspondence. When this trouble came upon us, I wrote to him in an agony of spirit as it were, telling him that we had to part with one of our beloved children. In writing that letter, I had no ulterior motive in my mind. From what I knew of my brother’s character, I should have considered him the last man in the world to consider anything but his own comfort, to disturb the mode of life which he had mapped out for himself.”
Lydon gathered this much from those words: namely, that Howard Stormont was judged to be, in reality, a selfish creature, who lived for himself, who only studied himself.
“To my intense surprise, I received an answer which caused me to take a totally different view of him. He wrote me that having remained a bachelor so long, there was practically no chance of his exchanging his estate. He had prospered greatly in the world; he lived with our widowed sister, Maud Barnard, who had a small income of her own. The house was at times a bit dull; he thought it would be brightened by the presence of a child, in whom they could take an interest and find an object of affection. He offered to adopt Gloria, and make her welfare his solemn charge. Anyway, let the experiment be tried, for say a couple of years. If, at the end of that time, Gloria found she was not happy, her father could make other arrangements.”
Jasper Stormont paused a little time before he resumed. “But, fortunately, that did not happen. They spoiled the girl from the day she went into her new home, and the spoiling has gone on, but I think I can say my dear girl is none the worse for it. And now, my dear Leonard, I come to a somewhat delicate topic.”
“I think I can guess the nature of it,” interjected Lydon.
“Ah, of course Gloria has told you. I gathered as much from her. Naturally, grateful as she is to her uncle for his care of her, his kindness and generosity, she would conceal nothing from us. She has told me of that loan of a thousand pounds, which of course throws a very clear light upon my brother’s financial position. We are both men of business; it tells the same story to both. I know nothing of the nature of Howard’s business, but it must be a very precarious one, since he is up to-day and down to-morrow. I don’t suppose he will leave anything behind him.”
“I feel quite certain he will not,” Lydon agreed. “But when I asked Gloria to be my wife, I never took any expectations of that sort into account.”
“I quite believe you; you loved my dear daughter for herself. Well, Leonard, I should like to tell you this. When I and her mother die, whatever I may have to leave will be divided equally between my children. Gloria will not be an heiress, but neither will she be a pauper.”
Leonard bowed his head in acknowledgment of this intimation, conveyed with such delicacy and courtesy.
Howard Stormont might be a scoundrel, a mover in crooked ways, as his connection with Elise Makris proved, but his brother was certainly an honest man.