NUGENT MOVES A PAWN
Mr. Nugent did not seek further private speech with Leslie Chermside
while he remained at the Manor House. He acted in every respect as
though he accepted the young man's renunciation as final, and after a
saunter through the exquisite gardens with his host, asked that his car
might be brought round. Having only reached Ottermouth the previous
evening, he explained there were many things that claimed his attention
at home.
"All right, dear boy," said Montague Maynard in his loud jolly voice.
"Run out and see us whenever you can tear yourself away from golf and
the delights of the Ottermouth Club. Old Sarah Dymmock hates you like
the devil, but she don't bite so long as people don't want to hurt my
little Violet, and she's a good sportswoman. And you're too good a
sportsman yourself to mind an old woman's whims."
"I thoroughly understand Miss Dymmock, and I have the most profound
regard for her," responded Nugent cordially. "There is never likely to
be any serious matter at issue between us, but if there were I should
be very sorry to have to cross swords with her."
Yet his thin lips curled in a dreamy smile as he was whirled away in the
serviceable little Darracq which had been presented to him by a titled
idiot in gratitude for an introduction that had eventually ruined him.
"I hardly think that Miss Sarah Dymmock, useful as she has proved this
morning, will loom on the horizon of present interests," he murmured
softly to himself when he had directed his chauffeur to drive him home.
During the six minutes which it took to cover the distance from the
Manor House into the town Nugent closed his eyes and leaned back,
indifferent to the autumn glories of the fair Devon landscape. The
fern-girt lanes, with occasional peeps of the blue sea and the red point
at the mouth of the river, the golden harvest-fields, the lush orchards
with their drooping loads of cider apples, the old cob-built
farmsteads--all these flashed past him unheeded as he sat with folded
arms wrapped in deepest reverie.
But when the car took the steep dip at the eastern end of the parade,
and the road, first on one side only and then on both, became flanked
with houses, he braced himself for social amenities. People were about
in plenty, mostly known to him, and many of them eager for recognition
by the cool-looking gentleman in the car who had the reputation of being
a personage in London society. Nearly all the ladies of Ottermouth, at
any rate, were proud of their Travers Nugent, and rejoiced greatly that
for a month or two in the year he deigned to sojourn in their midst. And
the dowdier the ladies and the less he had to do with them the prouder
were they.
But the dowdy ladies at Ottermouth were an insignificant minority.
Certainly not to be classed in that category was the winsome maiden,
dressed in immaculate white flannel and carrying a tennis racquet, to
whom Nugent raised his soft grey hat as the car struck into the main
street. A vision of dainty, if very youthful, loveliness, Enid Mallory
was smart from the crown of her well-poised little head to the soles of
her natty shoes. She returned Nugent's bow with a trace of brusqueness,
and immediately turned and made a grimace at the clean-shaven young
fellow who was with her. Nugent, though not intending to do so, saw the
grimace out of the tail of his eye, and frowned slightly when the car
had passed.
"Old Mallory's daughter," he murmured. "She has done her hair up and
lengthened her dress since last year, and she appears to have been
infected with the paternal antipathy. I must not forget that Mr. Vincent
Mallory, formerly of the Foreign Office, is a resident in this Arcadian
spot. He might, under certain circumstances, become a factor to be
reckoned with."
Aloud he said to his chauffeur, who had come down with the car some days
in advance: "Dixon, do you know who that young gentleman was who was
walking with Miss Mallory?"
"It's Mr. Beauchamp, sir," was the reply. "Son of Mrs. Beauchamp, who
lives in Lorne Villas. He's a lieutenant in the Navy, I've heard,
commanding a torpedo-boat at Plymouth. He is at home on leave just at
present, sir."
"Thank you, Dixon; you are always a mine of information," Nugent said
with the suave urbanity he always used towards inferiors.
But under his breath he added, "A curious combination, and one that may
be worth watching."
The house in which Mr. Travers Nugent enjoyed his summer leisure lay on
the hill beyond the western limits of the town. Though he spoke of it as
a cottage, it was really a luxurious bachelor abode, standing in a
secluded garden and removed from the main road to Exmouth by a
serpentine drive, not, of course, to be compared with the noble avenue
at the Manor House, but long enough to separate the owner of The Hut
from the madding crowd by quite a respectable distance.
Descending at his front door, Mr. Nugent passed through a porch
smothered in purple clematis into a small, square hall, deliciously cool
and shaded. Here he was met by a quiet-looking man of middle age, with a
face like a sphinx, and wearing a black cutaway coat. Nugent was not
one to make his confidential servant the receptacle of more secrets than
he could help, but he knew that if he chose to do so this
personification of reticence and discretion would never betray them.
"Well, Sinnett?" he said. They neither of them wasted words at any time
in their communications.
"I heard the car, sir," was the reply. "I know you like to be prepared
for visitors. Mr. Levison is waiting to see you in the smoke-room."
"Good! I will see him directly," said Nugent, glancing at the closed
door of the room indicated. Then, dropping his voice, he added, "Come
out into the porch a moment."
The effect of this manoeuvre was to place them beyond all chance of
being overheard from the smoking-room, though the conversation was
nevertheless continued with all precaution.
"I want you to go into Exmouth at once," said Nugent. "Dixon will take
you in the car. At the quay you will find one of those French luggers
which come over laden with onions to be peddled about the country by the
crew. Inquire for a man named Pierre Legros, and tell him that I will
buy as many strings of onions as he can carry if he will bring them over
during the evening."
"Very good, sir," replied the manservant, who had absorbed the lucid but
inexplicable instructions without the quiver of an eyelash. "Does Legros
know you, sir?"
"He has never heard of me, nor I of him till this morning. I imagine,
though, that the prospect of a good sale will bring him here. If,
however, he demurs at all you might say that I have news to his
advantage in connection with the Manor House. You understand, of course,
Sinnett, that I am not really in need of onions?"
"You want the man, sir?"
"I must have the man."
With which the master of The Hut turned away in the certainty that he
would get what he wanted, and, recrossing the hall, entered his
cosy-smoking-room.
"Ah, Levison! Sorry to have kept you waiting," was his urbanely offhand
greeting to the little Jew who rose obsequiously from a big easy-chair.
"I have been lunching at the Manor House, and as I met Mr. Chermside
there I am able to forestall your report. He tells me that he intends to
kick over the traces."
"Prethithely what he told me, Mr. Nugent, sir," replied the Hebrew. "And
I reckon he means it. Though I'm only in the pawnbroking line, and an
assistant at that, I flatter mythelf I played the blooming financier up
to the nines, but he was as stubborn as Balaam's talking moke. He ain't
given me his final answer, yet, though. I'm to meet him to-morrow night
for that."
"So he said, and you must keep the appointment and do your level best to
make him change his mind," Nugent went on. "You are a clever little
chap, and I shouldn't be surprised if you succeeded. Mr. Leslie
Chermside is suffering from a qualm of conscience which may be only
transitory if you paint the alternative in sufficiently lurid colours."
"S'elp me, sir, but you can rely on me to rub it in thick."
"I am sure of that, though, by the way, I heard to-day that you have not
been without your relaxations here while acting as my spy-glass,"
rejoined Nugent with an amused laugh. "How about the pretty lady's-maid
at the Manor House, eh?"
Mr. Levison gazed at the speaker in blind consternation, but, finding
nothing but playful tolerance in his employer's manner, he admitted the
soft impeachment--boastfully, as is the way of such vulgar
lady-killers.
"You're a fair caution, sir," he sniggered. "It licks me how you got
hold of that; but there! you get hold of most things. The time was
'anging a bit 'eavy, you see, sir, and she's a dressy little bit of
French goods. No 'arm done, I spothe, as it didn't interfere with
business?"
"No harm whatever, Levison," said Nugent kindly. "I only mentioned it to
show you what a paternal interest I take in your doings. Those who serve
me well have no cause to be dissatisfied with the rewards they earn, and
you will be no exception to the rule. Only don't relax your efforts with
Chermside. Keep the appointment with him to-morrow night, and turn the
screw till he squirms. Maybe he'll see reason yet."
And having fortified his visitor with whisky and a good cigar, Mr.
Nugent put a graceful finish to his hospitality by conducting him to a
side gate that led from the garden on to the moor.
"You came in this way?" he said carelessly as he opened the gate. "That
is right. I want you to be particular about that whenever you have
occasion to see me. It might complicate matters if your connection with
me got to be talked of in this gossipy place."
"Dull little 'ole, I call it," commented Mr. Levison as he prepared to
cross the purple heather. "Couldn't have stuck it for a week, I don't
think, if it hadn't have been for Louise Aubin. A gent must amuse
himself, and one misses the music-'alls. Well, so long, sir; I'll let
Chermside 'ave it 'ot to-morrow night."
Nugent watched the mean-looking figure go stumbling along the moorland
track on a detour towards the town, and then, the acid smile on his
lips in curious contrast with the thoughtful frown on his brows, he
turned back into the house. He was the most abstemious of men, but on
reaching his den he poured out a fairly strong brandy and soda and drank
it at a draught.
"It's a big stake for reclaiming the rebel," he muttered. "But I think
it will work out right if Sinnett's mission pans out properly."
But presently, when the laconic manservant returned with his report that
Pierre Legros would deliver several strings of onions during the
evening, there was nothing in the manner of the master to denote whether
he was satisfied or not.
"Thank you, Sinnett. Take care that he does not go away without my
seeing him," was all that Mr. Travers Nugent vouchsafed in reply.