AS BETWEEN GENTLEMEN
"Between gentlemen," said Wallie Hine. "Yes, between gentlemen."
He was quoting from a letter which he held in his hand, as he sat at the
breakfast table, and, in his agitation, he had quoted aloud. Garratt
Skinner looked up from his plate and said:
"Can I help you, Wallie?"
Hine flushed red and stammered out: "No, thank you. I must run up to town
this morning--that's all."
"Sylvia will drive you into Weymouth in the dog-cart after breakfast,"
said Garratt Skinner, and he made no further reference to the journey.
But he glared at the handwriting of the letter, and then with some
perplexity at Walter Hine. "You will be back this evening, I suppose?"
"Rather," said Walter Hine, with a smile across the table at Sylvia; but
his agitation got the better of his gallantry, and as she drove him into
Weymouth, he spoke as piteously as a child appealing for protection. "I
don't want to go one little bit, Miss Sylvia. But between gentlemen. Yes,
I mustn't forget that. Between gentlemen." He clung to the phrase,
finding some comfort in its reiteration.
"You have given me your promise," said Sylvia. "There will be no
cards, no bets."
Walter Hine laughed bitterly.
"I shan't break it. I have had my lesson. By Jove, I have."
Walter Hine traveled to Waterloo and drove straight to the office of
Mr. Jarvice.
"I owe some money," he began, bleating the words out the moment he was
ushered into the inner office.
Mr. Jarvice grinned.
"This interview is concluded," he said. "There's the door."
"I owe it to a friend, Captain Barstow," Hine continued, in desperation.
"A thousand pounds. He has written for it. He says that debts of honor
between gentlemen--" But he got no further, for Mr. Jarvice broke in upon
his faltering explanations with a snarl of contempt.
"Barstow! You poor little innocent. I have something else to do with my
money than to pour it into Barstow's pockets. I know the man. Send him to
me to-morrow, and I'll talk to him--as between gentlemen."
Walter Hine flushed. He had grown accustomed to deference and flatteries
in the household of Garratt Skinner. The unceremonious scorn of Mr.
Jarvice stung his vanity, and vanity was the one strong element of his
character. He was in the mind hotly to defend Captain Barstow from Mr.
Jarvice's insinuations, but he refrained.
"Then Barstow will know that I draw my allowance from you, and not from
my grandfather," he stammered. There was the trouble for Walter Hine.
If Barstow knew, Garratt Skinner would come to know. There would be an
end to the deference and the flatteries. He would no longer be able to
pose as the favorite of the great millionaire, Joseph Hine. He would
sink in Sylvia's eyes. At the cost of any humiliation that downfall
must be avoided.
His words, however, had an immediate effect upon Mr. Jarvice, though for
quite other reasons.
"Why, that's true," said Mr. Jarvice, slowly, and in a voice suddenly
grown smooth. "Yes, yes, we don't want to mix up my name in the affair at
all. Sit down, Mr. Hine, and take a cigar. The box is at your elbow.
Young men of spirit must have some extra license allowed to them for the
sake of the promise of their riper years. I was forgetting that. No, we
don't want my name to appear at all, do we?"
Publicity had no charms for Mr. Jarvice. Indeed, on more than one
occasion he had found it quite a hindrance to the development of his
little plans. To go his own quiet way, unheralded by the press and
unacclaimed of men--that was the modest ambition of Mr. Jarvice.
"However, I don't look forward to handing over a thousand pounds to
Captain Barstow," he continued, softly. "No, indeed. Did you lose any of
your first quarter's allowance to him besides the thousand?"
Walter Hine lit his cigar and answered reluctantly:
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"Oh no, no, not all of it."
Jarvice did not press for the exact amount. He walked to the window and
stood there with his hands in his pockets and his back toward his
visitor. Walter Hine watched his shoulders in suspense and apprehension.
He would have been greatly surprised if he could have caught a glimpse at
this moment of Mr. Jarvice's face. There was no anger, no contempt,
expressed in it at all. On the contrary, a quiet smile of satisfaction
gave to it almost a merry look. Mr. Jarvice had certain plans for Walter
Hine's future--so he phrased it with a smile for the grim humor of the
phrase--and fate seemed to be helping toward their fulfilment.
"I can get you out of this scrape, no doubt," said Jarvice, turning back
to his table. "The means I must think over, but I can do it. Only there's
a condition. You need not be alarmed. A little condition which a loving
father might impose upon his only son," and Mr. Jarvice beamed paternally
as he resumed his seat.
"What is the condition?" asked Walter Hine.
"That you travel for a year, broaden your mind by visiting the great
countries and capitals of Europe, take a little trip perhaps into the
East and return a cultured gentleman well equipped to occupy the high
position which will be yours when your grandfather is in due time
translated to a better sphere."
Mr. Jarvice leaned back in his chair, and with a confident wave of his
desk ruler had the air of producing the startling metamorphosis like some
heavy but benevolent fairy. Walter Hine, however, was not attracted by
the prospect.
"But--" he began, and at once Mr. Jarvice interrupted him.
"I anticipate you," he said, with a smile. "Standing at the window there,
I foresaw your objection. But--it would be lonely. Quite true. Why should
you be lonely? And so I am going to lay my hands on some pleasant and
companionable young fellow who will go with you for his expenses. An
Oxford man, eh? Fresh from Alma Mater with a taste for pictures and
statuettes and that sort of thing! Upon my word, I envy you, Mr. Hine. If
I were young, bless me, if I wouldn't throw my bonnet over the mill, as
after a few weeks in La Ville Lumière you will be saying, and go with
you. You will taste life--yes, life."
And as he repeated the word, all the jollity died suddenly out of the
face of Mr. Jarvice. He bent his eyes somberly upon his visitor and a
queer inscrutable smile played about his lips. But Walter Hine had no
eyes for Mr. Jarvice. He was nerving himself to refuse the proposal.
"I can't go," he blurted out, with the ungracious stubbornness of a weak
mind which fears to be over-persuaded. Afraid lest he should consent, he
refused aggressively and rudely.
Mr. Jarvice repressed an exclamation of anger. "And why?" he asked,
leaning forward on his elbows and fixing his bright, sharp eyes on Walter
Hine's face.
Walter Hine shifted uncomfortably in his chair but did not answer.
"And why can't you go?" he repeated.
"I can't tell you."
"Oh, surely," said Mr. Jarvice, with a scarcely perceptible sneer. "Come
now! Between gentlemen! Well?"
Walter Hine yielded to Jarvice's insistence.
"There's a girl," he said, with a coy and odious smile.
Mr. Jarvice beat upon his desk with his fists in a savage anger. His
carefully calculated plan was to be thwarted by a girl.
"She's a dear," cried Walter Hine. Having made the admission, he let
himself go. His vanity pricked him to lyrical flights. "She's a dear,
she's a sob, she would never let me go, she's my little girl."
Such was Sylvia's reward for engaging in a struggle which she loathed for
the salvation of Walter Hine. She was jubilantly claimed by him as his
little girl in a money-lender's office. Mr. Jarvice swore aloud.
"Who is she?" he asked, sternly.
A faint sense of shame came over Walter Hine. He dimly imagined what
Sylvia would have thought and said, and what contempt her looks would
have betrayed, had she heard him thus boast of her goodwill.
"You are asking too much, Mr. Jarvice," he said.
Mr. Jarvice waved the objection aside.
"Of course I ask it as between gentlemen," he said, with an ironical
politeness.
"Well, then, as between gentlemen," returned Walter Hine, seriously. "She
is the daughter of a great friend of mine, Mr. Garratt Skinner. What's
the matter?" he cried; and there was reason for his cry.
It had been an afternoon of surprises for Mr. Jarvice, but this simple
mention of the name of Garratt Skinner was more than a surprise. Mr.
Jarvice was positively startled. He leaned back in his chair with his
mouth open and his eyes staring at Walter Hine. The high color paled in
his face and his cheeks grew mottled. It seemed that fear as well as
surprise came to him in the knowledge that Garratt Skinner was a friend
of Walter Hine.
"What is the matter?" repeated Hine.
"It's nothing," replied Mr. Jarvice, hastily. "The heat, that is all."
He crossed the room, and throwing up the window leaned for a few moments
upon the sill. Yet even when he spoke again, there was still a certain
unsteadiness in his voice. "How did you come across Mr. Garratt
Skinner?" he asked.
"Barstow introduced me. I made Barstow's acquaintance at the Criterion
Bar, and he took me to Garratt Skinner's house in Hobart Place."
"I see," said Mr. Jarvice. "It was in Garratt Skinner's house that you
lost your money, I suppose."
"Yes, but he had no hand in it," exclaimed Walter Hine. "He does not know
how much I lost. He would be angry if he did."
A faint smile flickered across Jarvice's face.
"Quite so," he agreed, and under his deft cross-examination the whole
story was unfolded. The little dinner at which Sylvia made her
appearance and at which Walter Hine was carefully primed with drink; the
little round game of cards which Garratt Skinner was so reluctant to
allow in his house on a Sunday evening, and from which, being an early
riser, he retired to bed, leaving Hine in the hands of Captain Barstow
and Archie Parminter; the quiet secluded house in the country; the new
gardener who appeared for one day and shot with so surprising an
accuracy, when Barstow backed him against Walter Hine, that Hine lost a
thousand pounds; the incidents were related to Mr. Jarvice in their
proper succession, and he interpreted them by his own experience.
Captain Barstow, who was always to the fore, counted for nothing in the
story as Jarvice understood it. He was the mere creature, the servant.
Garratt Skinner, who was always in the background, prepared the swindle
and pocketed the profits.
"You are staying at the quiet house in Dorsetshire now, I suppose. Just
you and Garratt Skinner and the pretty daughter, with occasional visits
from Barstow?"
"Yes," answered Hine. "Garratt Skinner does not care to see much
company."
Once more the smile of amusement played upon Mr. Jarvice's face.
"No, I suppose not," he said, quietly. There were certain definite
reasons of which he was aware, to account for Garratt Skinner's
reluctance to appear in a general company. He turned back from the window
and returned to his table. He had taken his part. There was no longer
either unsteadiness or anger in his voice.
"I quite understand your reluctance to leave your new friends," he said,
with the utmost friendliness. "I recognize that the tour abroad on which
I had rather set my heart must be abandoned. But I have no regrets. For I
think it possible that the very object which I had in mind when proposing
that tour may be quite as easily effected in the charming country house
of Garratt Skinner."
He spoke in a quiet matter-of-fact voice, looking benevolently at his
visitor. If the words were capable of another and a more sinister meaning
than they appeared to convey, Walter Hine did not suspect it. He took
them in their obvious sense.
"Yes, I shall gain as much culture in Garratt Skinner's house as I should
by seeing picture-galleries abroad," he said eagerly, and then Mr.
Jarvice smiled.
"I think that very likely," he said. "Meanwhile, as to Barstow and his
thousand pounds. I must think the matter over. Barstow will not press you
for a day or two. Just leave me your address--the address in
Dorsetshire."
He dipped a pen in the ink and handed it to Hine. Hine took it and drew a
sheet of paper toward him. But he did not set the pen to the paper. He
looked suddenly up at Jarvice, who stood over against him at the other
side of the table.
"Garratt Skinner's address?" he said, with one of his flashes of cunning.
"Yes, since you are staying there. I shall want to write to you."
Walter Hine still hesitated.
"You won't peach to Garratt Skinner about the allowance, eh?"
"My dear fellow!" said Mr. Jarvice. He was more hurt than offended. "To
put it on the lowest ground, what could I gain?"
Walter Hine wrote down the address, and at once the clerk appeared at the
door and handed Jarvice a card.
"I will see him," said Jarvice, and turning to Hine: "Our business is
over, I think."
Jarvice opened a second door which led from the inner office straight
down a little staircase into the street. "Good-by. You shall hear from
me," he said, and Walter Hine went out.
Jarvice closed the door and turned back to his clerk.
"That will do," he said.
There was no client waiting at all. Mr. Jarvice had an ingenious
contrivance for getting rid of his clients at the critical moment after
they had come to a decision and before they had time to change their
minds. By pressing a particular button in the leather covering of the
right arm of his chair, he moved an indicator above the desk of his clerk
in the outer office. The clerk thereupon announced a visitor, and the one
in occupation was bowed out by the private staircase. By this method
Walter Hine had been dismissed.
Jarvice had the address of Garratt Skinner. But he sat with it in front
of him upon his desk for a long time before he could bring himself to use
it. All the amiability had gone from his expression now that he was
alone. He was in a savage mood, and every now and then a violent gesture
betrayed it. But it was with himself that he was angry. He had been a
fool not to keep a closer watch on Walter Hine.
"I might have foreseen," he cried in his exasperation. "Garratt Skinner!
If I had not been an ass, I _should_ have foreseen."
For Mr. Jarvice was no stranger to Walter Hine's new friend. More than
one young buck fresh from the provinces, heir to the great factory or the
great estate, had been steered into this inner office by the careful
pilotage of Garratt Skinner. In all the army of the men who live by their
wits, there was not one to Jarvice's knowledge who was so alert as
Garratt Skinner to lay hands upon the new victim or so successful in
lulling his suspicions. He might have foreseen that Garratt Skinner would
throw his net over Walter Hine. But he had not, and the harm was done.
Mr. Jarvice took the insurance policy from his safe and shook his head
over it sadly. He had seen his way to making in his quiet fashion, and at
comparatively little cost, a tidy little sum of one hundred thousand
pounds. Now he must take a partner, so that he might not have an enemy.
Garratt Skinner with Barstow for his jackal and the pretty daughter for
his decoy was too powerful a factor to be lightly regarded. Jarvice must
share with Garratt Skinner--unless he preferred to abandon his scheme
altogether; and that Mr. Jarvice would not do.
There was no other way. Jarvice knew well that he could weaken Garratt
Skinner's influence over Walter Hine by revealing to the youth certain
episodes in the new friend's life. He might even break the
acquaintanceship altogether. But Garratt Skinner would surely discover
who had been at work. And then? Why, then, Mr. Jarvice would have upon
his heels a shrewd and watchful enemy; and in this particular business,
such an enemy Mr. Jarvice could not afford to have. Jarvice was not an
impressionable man, but his hands grew cold while he imagined Garratt
Skinner watching the development of his little scheme--the tour abroad
with the pleasant companion, the things which were to happen on the
tour--watching and waiting until the fitting moment had come, when all
was over, for him to step in and demand the price of his silence and hold
Mr. Jarvice in the hollow of his hand for all his life. No, that would
never do. Garratt Skinner must be a partner so that also he might be an
accessory.
Accordingly, Jarvice wrote his letter to Garratt Skinner, a few lines
urging him to come to London on most important business. Never was
there a letter more innocent in its appearance than that which Jarvice
wrote in his inner office on that summer afternoon. Yet even at the
last he hesitated whether he should seal it up or no. The sun went
down, shadows touched with long cool fingers the burning streets;
shadows entered into that little inner office of Mr. Jarvice. But still
he sat undecided at his desk.
The tour upon the Continent must be abandoned, and with it the journey
under canvas to the near East--a scheme so simple, so sure, so safe.
Still Garratt Skinner might confidently be left to devise another. And he
had always kept faith. To that comforting thought Mr. Jarvice clung. He
sealed up his letter in the end, and stood for a moment or two with the
darkness deepening about him. Then he rang for his clerk and bade him
post it, but the voice he used was one which the clerk did not know, so
that he pushed his head forward and peered through the shadows to make
sure that it was his master who spoke.
Two days afterward Garratt Skinner paid a long visit to Mr. Jarvice, and
that some agreement was reached between the two men shortly became
evident. For Walter Hine received a letter from Captain Barstow which
greatly relieved him.
"Garratt Skinner has written to me," wrote the 'red-hot' Captain, "that
he has discovered that the gardener, whom he engaged for a particular
job, is notorious as a poacher and a first-class shot. Under these
circumstances, my dear old fellow, the red-hot one cannot pouch your
pennies. As between gentlemen, the bet must be considered o-p-h."