GILEAD BALM
KNIGHT ERRANT
_His Adventures in Search of the Truth_
BY
BERNARD CAPES
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
BY CYRUS CUNEO
TORONTO
THE COPP CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED
1911
[COPYRIGHT]
[_All Rights Reserved_]
CONTENTS
Prologue
I. The Quest of the Sleeping Beauty
II. The Quest of the Sleeping Beauty (_continued_)
III. The Quest of the Empty House
IV. The Quest of the Dog
V. The Quest of the Marble Statuette
VI. The Quest of the Rose-Ring
VII. The Quest of the Wax Hand
VIII. The Quest of the Red-Morocco Handbag
IX. The Quest of the Registered Parcel
X. The Quest of the Shadow
XI. The Quest of the Veiled Woman
XII. The Quest of the Obese Gentleman
XIII. The Quest of the Obese Gentleman (_continued and concluded_)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“A Little Old Man, shrewd and withered,”
“A Soft, Seal-Like Head was seen driving across the shining Flood,”
“He dabbed at the Reply Form, fuming and sputtering,”
“‘I desire to be put into communication with this,’”
“‘This is a Pleasantry, Mr Balm,’ he said,”
“A Little Monkey-Like Figure of a Man balancing on a Window-sill,”
“The Young Lady gave a scream which ‘shivered to the Stars,’”
“‘Look, Sir,’ he said, ‘Them Cushions where She sat!’”
GILEAD BALM
PROLOGUE
Gilead Balm had most things to recommend him--youth, comeliness, a
bright intelligence, an excellent heart, a flawless digestion; best of
all, an indestructible capacity for interesting himself in the affairs
of the world into which he was born. He was fresh, fair, shapely, and
of that graceful height which, as representing the classic perfection
of symmetry, disposes the vision at the most reasonable level for
contemplating the true stature of things, and their relative, mundane,
proportions. His eyes were calm and fearless, his voice soft, his
courtesy unimpeachable. If he had a weakness, it was for seeing two
sides to a question, one or the other of which was apt to tickle his
sense of humour. But humour, after all, is the saving grace of
mankind, and, without it, there may be much achievement but little
charity.
With all these advantages, pleasantly worn at the age of twenty-four,
Gilead lacked, in the world’s eyes, the crowning advantage of an
income. Or, at least, such an one as he enjoyed was far from
adequately representing the value of his qualities. He was, in fact, a
second division clerk (higher grade) to the Charity Commissioners at
Whitehall, on a salary of two hundred and fifty pounds a year, and to
that, barring promotion, he must look for his living. He was an
orphan; his parents had died--fortunately after launching him on his
career--insolvent; he had no negotiable prospects, so far as he knew,
actual or problematic. But nature had endowed him to his content; and
if, at times, some dream of affluence would come to disturb him, its
motif was as far removed from an unworthy lust of gain, as his soul
was from the ambitions and appetites of the majority of his fellows.
Yet, what of vulgar acquisitiveness lacked in him was supplied
somewhat by the spirit of the romantic quest. His bright soul would
occasionally covet a larger scope for its experiences, and, to that
end, the means--the only earthly means--to their enlargement. If he
ever thought of money, it was as the golden key to the complex heart
of the world.
It was his custom, during the luncheon hour, to read the _Daily Post_.
All government clerks read the _Daily Post_, because it is the organ
of the élite. Gilead differed from the most, however, in that he read
the _Daily Post_ wholly and solely for the sake of its front page
advertisements; and he was wise. Leading articles will be prejudiced,
reporters unscrupulous, foreign telegrams will illustrate the art of
political selection. Only in the calling of wares, the births, deaths
and marriages, the cries of the Agony Column, does Nature speak in
unequivocal terms. It was upon the Agony Column of the _Daily Post_
that Gilead was wont to whet his appetite for the emotional truths of
life.
We all know this Agony Column. It is unique amongst its Daily
fellows--more stirring, more motley, more shrill with the personal
note than any other. It is not that its ciphers are more elegantly
cryptic, that its moneylenders are more large-hearted and open-handed
in a princely unsuspecting sort of way, that its private enquiry
agencies are more distinguished, or its face-creams more modish than
those to be found quoted in other Agony Columns--though, to be sure, a
certain aroma of exclusiveness _might_ be claimed for the sellers of
wares advertised under the ægis of an aristocratic name. It is its
perpetual undaunted appeals to the rich and benevolent, or to the
fashionable and needy, which make it wholly singular among its class.
Reading and pondering these day by day, Gilead came to the conclusion
that the _Daily Post_ was not so much the organ of the Tariff, or of
any other reformers, as the organ of benevolence pure and simple. How
otherwise could this persistent cry for help be maintained in it?
There must be some response to justify its clamour.
He seldom read further than that first page. Its matter perennially
fascinated and haunted him. He would have liked to trace every one of
those essentially human cries to its source, and, according to its
motive, still it, or give it cause to howl on a different note. And,
if he had wealth, he would do it, he told himself. To play the Haroun
Alraschid to suffering worth, to alleviate misery and expose
imposture, by way of the countless channels offered by a popular
‘Daily’--what a rare purpose it would give to unmitigated opulence!
And what an interest! No picture-galleries, no free-libraries, no
lifting of international Cups for ostentation’s sake; but just an
unnoticed pursuit of the individual submerged one, and his quiet
resuscitation and well-comforted dismissal.
But there was another, and even more attractive side to the picture;
and that was the mysteries his quest would penetrate, and of which the
Agony Column of the _Daily Post_ afforded some potential examples. How
might not one gratify here one’s loving-kindness and one’s romanticism
in a breath! The imaginative prospect was quite captivating to Gilead.
He divided the advertisements, generally, into five classes,
_Cosmetic_, _Private Enquiry_, _Situations_ (which revealed some
others of the oddest), _Nondescript_ (including anything from
“Remember the Cats,” to a request to some titled lady to act as
godmother to a gentleman’s child, or a suggestion that a third lady
should join two others in arranging, and paying for, a series of
painful experiments on human subjects), and, last and most numerous of
all, _Requests for Loans_. Many of these found Gilead doubtful. While
the appeals, from clergymen and others, on behalf of poor parishes,
ruined homes, unemployed labour and so forth, affected him so sensibly
that he would have liked to be able to answer every one of them with
help proportionate to the needs it voiced, there were certain piteous
entreaties for cash which left him cold. They smacked too much of the
cunning and versatility of the professional mendicant; somehow they
seemed a little shy of the inquisition of those clear contemplative
eyes of his under their level brows. At the best they were couched in
that key which argued, if not a constitutional absence, at least a
temporary surrender of pride and self-respect. But he was no Pharisee,
and very remote from judging wrung poverty by the standards of comfort
and a competence. The question was the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, and to the pursuit of that he would have
rejoiced to devote whatever fortune the Fates might allot him.
And, perhaps because his aspirations were so singular in a very
ordinary world, taken with the fact that his temperament was even a
curiously calm and virginal one, the Fates, who are a rather spinstery
and spiteful triplet on the whole, were moved to do the unexpected
thing by him--and in a very handsome and appropriate manner--by
causing Messrs Plover, Stone and Company, the respectable solicitors,
to insert an advertisement in the Agony Column of that very _Daily
Post_, inviting the next-of-kin of the late Mr Lemuel Lamb to call
upon them and hear of something considerably to his advantage.
Gilead read the advertisement in due course, and considered it with
characteristic sobriety and an even pulse. “If,” he thought, “there is
anything out of the common in this, I shall not forget my pledge to
the Quest.”
He finished his chop placidly, recalling some traits of the departed
Lemuel, who, he could little doubt (though with a philosophic
reservation for contingencies) had been his sole surviving relative on
the mother’s side. He remembered, with a certain easy gratification,
how this disregarded uncle of his, from being a scapegrace and rather
impossible waster, had been reported--from Australia, whither he had
withdrawn--a reformed character of late years, which he had devoted to
the amassing of a considerable fortune made out of stock--but whether
soup or sheep Gilead did not know. Nor did he care in the least. All
money was dirty stuff in the making. The moral of acquisition was in
the cleansing of the hands that followed.
He brushed a crumb or two from his waistcoat, paid his bill, and
returned to Whitehall to request a short leave of absence. None might
have guessed from his exterior the issues which turned upon that
petition.
It is not my purpose to recount the details of the interview which
followed, or the processes by which identification was secured, and a
claim substantiated. Suffice it to say that ‘Loquacious Lemuel,’ as he
was known in the land of his adoption, had turned his natural
predatory instincts to phenomenal profit during the few years that
opportunity had allotted him for their full play, and had then, in a
mood of magnificent atonement, bequeathed the whole of his gigantic
fortune to the credulous brother-in-law in England whom he had once
been instrumental in impoverishing, and whose sole heir Gilead
remained by will. The young man--to jump formalities, and eschew all
bewildering calculations of figures--entered upon his new world rich,
in the stereotyped phrase, beyond the dreams of avarice--as if avarice
ever had any dreams worth mentioning but of orts and candle-ends. But
he faced his position with a clear brain, and a full appreciation of
the ten thousand rapacities and importunities it would invite. As to
that his plans were quite decided. He would employ a confidential
secretary, and some subordinate agents and amanuenses, and to them
entrust the active business of philanthropy, while he himself would
stand in the background (the unconfessed one, the “nominis umbra,”
like Junius) to direct operations, and give his personal attention to
such cases as seemed to offer scope for the romantic quest.
He advertised, somewhat in the following terms: “Private Secretary
wanted by a gentleman of means. Good salary offered to one willing to
devote himself wholly to the interests of his employer. Address, in
the first instance--” here followed the number of a house in Victoria
Street, a suite of rooms in which Gilead had already furnished and
turned into a central bureau for his operations. The result gave him
food for thought. He received seven hundred and forty-nine replies,
one hundred and sixty-eight of which were delivered on the date of the
advertisement. He recognized at once his single incapacity for dealing
with that vast stack of correspondence, and put on his hat and went to
see Mr Plover in Arundel Street.
Mr Plover’s appearance and expression needed, perhaps, the assurance
of his firm’s time-honoured reputation to make them convincing. He was
a slack-lipped, beautifully white-whiskered old gentleman, wearing
gold-rimmed pince-nez, which, being near the tip of his nose, were
wont occasionally to topple over and get in the way of his speech. One
had to put some force upon oneself to read legal profundity in
features which seemed to betray even an excess of amiable vacuity. But
one knew that the antiquity of the firm and its weighty connexions
stood behind, and so one resigned oneself, like Longfellow’s good
Christian, to a pious confidence in the things which “are not what
they seem.”
Mr Plover applied to the difficulties of this immensely important new
client that Napoleonic method which resolves all complexities by
annihilation.
“Seven hundred and forty-nine!” said he. “Dear, dear! Now, take my
advice, and make a bonfire of the lot, and start afresh.”
“Would that be fair?” said Gilead.
“Only one can succeed, you know,” said Mr Plover. “Make it the seven
hundred and fiftieth.”
He sat back in his chair, tilted his head, and his glasses lost their
balance. “Seven hundred and fiftieth,” he mumbled crookedly behind
their lenses.
“Yes?” said Gilead, calmly inquisitorial.
“I venture to think I know the very man for your purpose,” said Mr
Plover, smiling, with the glasses in place once more.
“Yes?” said Gilead again.
“His name is Nestle,” said the lawyer--“Herbert Nestle. He is a man of
immense industry and capacity, and at present out of a situation.”
“What was his last?” asked the client.
“He was conveyancing clerk,” said Mr Plover, “to Broker and
Borrodaile, since in liquidation. There was some question of trust
funds, and Nestle was scandalously misused. A man with clean hands--he
has my strong personal recommendation, Mr Balm, if that counts for
anything with you.”
“It settles a difficulty,” said Gilead, rising.
He left Mr Plover preparing to draw out and sign several folio pages
of cheques, a task, deputed to him by his partners, which he greatly
enjoyed, and executed with the minutest care and precision, ruling all
the cross lines.
CHAPTER I.
THE QUEST OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
Mr Herbert Nestle, knocking confidently and entering softly, laid
the morning’s _Daily Post_ before his Chief, who had just entered and
was pulling off his gloves.
“Anything especial?” asked Gilead.
“I have thumb-marked one,” said the secretary, “which seemed to me
perhaps worth your personal attention.”
The Bureau--known as _Lamb’s Agency_--was already in working order,
and daily settling into its pace. Its operations so far had seemed
wholly to justify its existence, and its founder was satisfied. During
this first month of its being some score of deserving cases had been
helped, and almost as many shams exposed. The world was happier and
cleaner by that measure; and, for the future, professional cadgers
promised to grow shy of risking the inquisition of a body so merciless
in its penetration, behind which stood a force so mysterious in its
origin, and having, apparently, such inexhaustible funds at its
disposal.
Gilead kept his little private office on the floor above the Agency,
and from that shrouded adytum issued the motive power to the mechanism
below. There he sat, or thence departed, unheard, unapproachable, an
enigmatic, formidable figure to his employés, holding vast destinies
in the hollow of his hand. No one of them, saving the privileged
secretary, was permitted to apply to him on general grounds; and to
his rare appearances in the offices was accorded, particularly by the
two lady typewriters, a hushed deference almost religious in its
character. Much of this was due, no doubt, to the halo of countless
gold which surrounded him; but indeed Gilead’s charm of person,
serene, passionless, clear-eyed as an angel’s, and as coldly
beautiful, had at least its influence on the flutterings of
susceptible hearts.
His establishment comprised, in addition to the secretary and the two
ladies, half a dozen correspondents or book-keepers, and as many
active agents, sound men and sagacious, whose business it was to visit
and report upon the cases. To them was entrusted the investigation of
the ‘Oh, please do help!’ petitions--the five, or fifteen, or fifty,
or five-hundred pound loan-requests, for the saving of a home, or the
buying of a business, or the stocking of a fashionable millinery, or
the settling of debts incurred through Bridge or speculation, or the
enabling a sporting curate to purchase a motor-bicycle, or the
shipping of a promising family to Canada, or the feeding of a
clergyman’s sick aunt on jellies and port wine. The plaints (many from
titled lips) soon became susceptible to classification, and were found
generally weakest on the side which betrayed the most agonized
“derangement of epitaphs” and the most fervent ejaculations. The
result in all ways was instructive, as much in its revelation of the
systematic fraud which battened on timid uninvestigating charity, as
of the pitiful flimsiness of the bulwark which stood between the light
of social respectability, with a name and a number on its door, on the
one side, and the outer darkness, with its obliteration of all
personality, on the other. Gilead’s heart often grew sick, as this
dissected stuff of craft and misery, of shamefulness and
shamelessness, was submitted to his judgment. But his comfort lay in
the sanitary acumen of his Bureau, and so long as that continued to
work unimpaired, he had no intention of taking his hand from the
lever.
The month, so far as his individual quest was concerned, had proved a
dull one, void of romantic incitement. He received, therefore, his
secretary’s statement with some quickening of interest. Quiet and
unemotional in his decisions, he had satisfied himself that Mr
Plover’s eulogium on this man had been justified. He found him acute,
resourceful, penetrative, energetic, humane--such a coadjutor as he
could most have desired. Nestle virtually managed the agency on its
practical side, and possessed his chief’s full confidence. His
features and unjarring personality were pleasant things moreover to
his master, who was habitually fastidious in the matters of conduct
and appearance. The secretary was a very good-looking young man, in a
fair boyish way, and so gentle in voice and manner that one might
never have guessed the spirit of determination which underlay that
soft exterior. In suggestion he was subordinate angel to the other,
though somewhat older, and far more full of worldly wisdom. But the
only visible mundane feature about him was his spectacles.
Gilead sat down in his padded office-chair, and crossing his legs
easily, consulted the paper lying on the desk before him.
“Indeed, Nestle?” he said. “Which is it?”
The secretary, bending respectfully over, ran a fresh white-nailed
finger down the Agony Column, and stopped it at a three-line
advertisement:--
“_Lady_ (_young_) _a victim to persecution, seeks honourable
employment to extricate her from pressing difficulties. Good
typewriter and linguist. Address Viatrix, Rufus Cottage, Knight’s
Hill, West Norwood._”
Gilead read and considered, his hand thoughtfully caressing his chin.
Then he looked up.
“You think it promising?” he said.
The secretary, withdrawn a little, deferred to his employer.
“If I am right, sir, in interpreting your mood.”
Gilead reflected.
“There has been a monotony, I admit, hitherto,” he said. “You
differentiate this, somehow, from the others?”
“It is, if I may use the expression, sir, manly--no cringing. There
are tokens of culture; and the hint of persecution, the mystery, puts
it in another category. Certainly it is a lady--and young.”
“You have misread me, Nestle,” said his master, “if you can hint that
as an objection. I should be a useless agent in this business were I
constitutionally susceptible. The sex has never more than an abstract
attraction for me, and any desire I may have to possess it is limited
to its idealised presentments in art.”
He returned to the advertisement, frowning a little, while the
secretary murmured an apology. Presently he looked up, with decision.
“I will undertake,” he said, “this case in person. You will of course
allow no hint of the fact to escape you.”
“Of course, Mr Balm.”
They spent the subsequent hour or two in discussing the business of
the Bureau, and at two o’clock Gilead, having lunched lightly at
Victoria Station, took a train thence for West Norwood.
Alighted there, and enquiring his way, he found himself in a decent
suburban road, which ascended at a steepish angle between a broken
double line of houses, detached or in ranks. There were terraces, some
shops, many raw modern villas, a few large mansions, of an older date,
standing in their own grounds, and here and there, contemporaneous
with these, a detached cottage or maisonette, almost hidden behind the
shrubs and foliage of its front garden. Reading _Rufus Cottage_ upon
the gate-post of one of these last, situated high on the hill, Gilead
turned into a tiny drive, and rang the door bell of a little sober
brown-brick house built after the sturdy architecture of the fifties.
As he waited, he had time to observe that the scrap of lawn behind the
shrubs was weed-grown and neglected, and the general atmosphere of the
place fuscous and wet-smelling like an over-ripe walnut. And the next
instant the door was opened by a weeping servant maid.
“I am sorry,” said Gilead, chivalrous to all. “Is anything the
matter?”
She was small and moist, of the “tweenie” breed; and her emotion had
inflamed her little nose and shaken her cap awry. She gazed at him
open-mouthed, seeing an angel alighted on her step; but she answered
nothing.
“I called about the advertisement,” he began tentatively; “but, of
course--”
She caught at a sob to interrupt him.
“I was to show anyone in as did. O! dear, dear, I doesn’t know what to
do!”
The mystery, it seemed, was already crying on the threshold. That was
quite as he would have had it.
“Come,” he said; “I am here to help. Tell me what is wrong, child.”
“A telegram come for her,” said the girl, gasping and wiping her eyes
on her apron; “and she’d no sooner read it but what she gave a ’eave
and fell down flat on the sofy; and there’s she’s laid ever since.”
“You are speaking of?” said Gilead.
“My mistress,” answered the girl.
“How long ago was that?”
“More’n half an hour. O, dear! and I’m all alone with her; and I can’t
get her to speak or move; and I doesn’t know what to do.”
“Hadn’t you better run for the doctor?”
The girl hesitated.
“Who’s to look after her while I’m gone?”
“I will,” said Gilead.
She gaped at him aghast, blinking her swollen lids.
“You?” she whispered; then added, “please, what’s your name?”
He told her. Something in the answer, vaguely associating it with a
Sunday-school memory of peace and righteousness, appeared to reassure
her. She backed against the wall to let him enter. He found himself in
a cool dark little hall, having a door ajar and a flight of stairs to
the left, and a closed door in front. This last the girl approached,
snuffling and on tiptoe, and opening it softly, revealed a pleasant
green-toned room which gave, through French windows, upon a square of
embowered garden. She peeped fearfully round the door-edge, hesitated,
then re-emerged and beckoned the visitor.
“There she is,” she whispered hysterically, “jest as she went down.”
Gilead stepped gently into the room. It was quite warm and cosy and
still--like a bower almost to the little green pleasance beyond. And,
in keeping with its vernal privacy, it had its sleeping nymph. She lay
upon a green sofa, like a waxen figure upon a “property” bank.
Gilead’s first thought was of the lovely St. Amaranthe in the Tussaud
exhibition, which had once haunted his childish dreams. Only the
artificial figure had seemed to breathe more naturally than this.
There were here, however, the same beautiful immobile face, the same
rose-petal complexion--cream just rounding into pink under the closed
eyes--the same ripe perfection of form, the same suggestion of eternal
restfulness. That other figure, he remembered, had always stood to his
innocent mind for the embodiment of the Sleeping Beauty; and here she
was, incarnated out of wax. Her dress--of velvet, or velveteen, a
deeper shade of green than the sofa--fell in a slumberous bloom of
folds; one milk-white arm, half buried under a coil of brown hair,
cushioned her head; the other, limp and motionless, trailed its
relaxed fingers upon the carpet, whereon lay a telegraph form.
Gilead stood some moments regarding the beautiful picture with the
enthusiasm of a virtuoso. “It would be a black shame,” was something
of his thought, “to let this fine work fall into the clutches of a
Vandal!” The terms of the advertisement were in his mind.
“It looks like a cataleptic seizure,” he said to the girl. “Is she
subject to them, do you know?”
The tweenie shook her poor little watery noddle.
“I’ve never known her do the like,” she said, “since I come here.”
“How long ago was that?”
“A week, sir,” said the girl. “I’ve been with her ever since she took
the ’ouse a week ago.”
“Well,” he said, “you’d better go for the doctor at once.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the girl gasped:
“I see her lids twitch! She’s a’comin’ to!”
It appeared that she was right. Some perceptible emotion stirred under
the wax-like surface; the flush of pink deepened in the rounded
cheeks. The suddenness of the change confirmed Gilead in his
suspicion. “These instant recoveries,” he thought, “are characteristic
of the complaint.”
He backed towards the door.
“She mustn’t find me here,” he whispered. “The shock might cause a
relapse. I’ll wait outside. Let me know by and by if she wishes, or
does not wish, to see me.”
Even as he spoke, a deep sigh issued from the sleeper’s lips, and he
went hastily from the room, closing the door behind him.
He had, not, however, lingered, the most scrupulous of intruders, ten
minutes in the little cold hall, when the girl came out to him
radiant.
“She’d like to see you now, sir, if you please,” she said.