UNEXPECTED ENTRANCE OF TWO LADIES
For a moment or two Eustace Charliewood did not return his host's
greeting. He was not only surprised by the curious proceeding of which
he had been a witness, but he felt a certain chill also.
"What the deuce are you up to now, Gouldesbrough?" he said in an uneasy
voice. "Another of your beastly experiments? I wish you wouldn't startle
a fellow in this way."
Sir William looked keenly at the big man whose face had become curiously
pallid.
There was a tremendous contrast in the two people in the room.
Gouldesbrough was a very handsome man, as handsome as Charliewood
himself had been in younger days, but it was with an entirely different
beauty. His face was clean shaved, also, but it was dark, clear-cut and
ascetic. The eyes were dark blue, singularly bright and direct in
glance, and shaded by heavy brows. The whole face and poise of the tall
lean body spoke of power, knowledge, and resolution.
One man was of the earth, earthy; the other seemed far removed from
sensual and material things. Yet, perhaps, a deep student of character,
and one who had gone far into the hidden springs of action within the
human soul, would have preferred the weak, easy-going sensualist, with
all his meannesses and viciousness, to the hard and agate intellect, the
indomitable and lawless will that sometimes shone out upon the face of
the scientist like a lit lamp.
Charliewood sat down in obedience to a motion of his host's hand. He sat
down with a sigh, for he knew that he had been summoned to Sir William
Gouldesbrough's house to perform yet another duty which was certain to
be distasteful and furtive.
Yes! there was no hope for it now. For the last few years the man about
town had been under the dominion of a stronger will than his, of a more
cunning, of a more ruthless brain. Little by little he had become
entangled within the net that Gouldesbrough had spread for him. And the
lure had been then and afterwards a lure of money--the one thing
Charliewood worshipped in the world.
The history of the growth of his secret servitude to this famous man
was a long one. Money had been lent to him, he had signed this or that
paper, he had found his other large debts bought up by the scientist,
and at the end of three years he had found himself willy nilly, body and
soul, the servant of this man, who could ruin him in a single moment and
cast him down out of his comfortable life for ever and a day.
No living soul knew or suspected that there was any such bond as this
between the two men. Even Charliewood's enemies never guessed the
truth--that he was a sort of jackal, a spy to do his master's bidding,
to execute this or that secret commission, to go and come as he was
ordered.
As yet all the services which Charliewood had rendered to Sir William,
and for which, be it said, he was excellently paid, were those which,
though they bordered upon the dishonourable and treacherous, never
actually overstepped the borders.
Gouldesbrough employed Charliewood to find out this or that, to make
acquaintance with one person or another, to lay the foundation, in fact,
of an edifice which he himself would afterwards build upon information
supplied by the clubman. There was no crime in any of these proceedings,
no robbery or black-mail. And what happened after he had done his work
Charliewood neither knew nor cared. Of one thing, however, he was
certain, that whatever the scientist's motives might be--and he did not
seek to probe them--they were not those of the ordinary criminal or
indeed ever bordered upon the criminal at all. All that Charliewood
knew, and realized with impotence and bitterness, was that he had
allowed himself to become a mere tool and spy of this man's, a prober of
secrets, a walker in tortuous by-paths.
"What did you wire to me for?" Charliewood said in a sulky voice. "What
do you want me to do now?"
Sir William looked quickly at his guest, and there was a momentary gleam
of ill-temper in his eyes, but he answered smoothly enough.
"My dear Charliewood, I wish you wouldn't take that tone. Surely we have
been associated too long together for you to speak to me in that way
now. It has suited your convenience to do certain things for me, and it
has suited my convenience to make it worth your while to do them. There
is the whole matter. Please let's be friendly, as we always have been."
Charliewood shrugged his shoulders.
"You know very well, Gouldesbrough," he said, "that I am in your hands
and have got to do anything you ask me in reason. However, I don't want
to insist on that aspect of the question if you don't. What did you wire
to me for?"
"Well," Sir William said, passing a cigar-box over to the other, though
he did not smoke himself, "there is a certain man that I am interested
in. I don't know him personally, though I know something about him. I
want to know him, and I want to know everything I can about him too."
"I suppose," Charliewood answered, "that there is no difficulty for you
in getting to know anybody you want to?" He said it with a slight sneer.
"Oh, of course not," Sir William answered, "but still in this case I
want you to get to know him first. You can easily do this if you wish,
you are sure to have some mutual acquaintances. When you get to know him
make yourself as pleasant as you can be to him--and nobody can do that
more gracefully than yourself, my dear boy. Become his intimate friend,
if possible, and let me know as much as you can about his habits and
objects in life. I don't want you to spare any expense in this matter if
it is necessary to spend money, and of course you will draw upon me for
all you require in the matter."
Charliewood held up his cigar and looked steadily at the crust of white
ash which was forming at the end.
"What's the man's name?" he asked without moving his eyes.
"His name," said Sir William lightly, "is Rathbone, a Mr. Guy Rathbone.
He is a barrister and has chambers in the Temple. A youngish man, I
understand, of about seven and twenty."
At the name Charliewood gave a momentary start. He allowed a slight
smile to come upon his lips, and it was not a pleasant smile.
Gouldesbrough saw it, flushed a little and moved uneasily, feeling that
although this man was his servant there were yet disadvantages in
employing him, and that he also could sting when he liked.
Directly Sir William had mentioned the name of the person on whose
actions and life, not to put too fine a point on it, he was ordering his
henchman to become a spy, Charliewood knew the reason. He realized in an
instant what was the nature of the interest Sir William Gouldesbrough
took in Mr. Guy Rathbone, barrister-at-law.
The famous scientist, long, it was said in society, a man quite
impervious to the attractions of the other sex and the passion of love,
had but a few months ago become engaged.
Wealthy as he was, distinguished, handsome and attractive in his manner,
there had not been wanting ladies who would have very gladly shared and
appropriated all these advantages. Like any other unmarried man in his
desirable position, the scientist had been somewhat pursued in many
drawing-rooms. Of late, however, the pursuit had slackened. Match-making
mothers and unappropriated daughters seemed to have realized that here
was a citadel they could not storm. Six months ago, therefore, society
had been all the more startled to hear of Sir William's engagement to
Miss Marjorie Poole, the only daughter of old Lady Poole of Curzon
Street.
Marjorie Poole was the daughter of a rather poor baronet who had died
some years before, the title going to a cousin. Lady Poole was left with
a house in Curzon Street and a sufficient income for her own life, but
that was all. And among many of the women who hunt society for a husband
for their daughters, as a fisherman whips a stream for trout, the
dowager was one of the most conspicuous.
It was said that she had angled for Sir William with an alertness and
unwearying pursuit which was at last crowned by success. More charitable
people, and especially those who knew and liked Miss Poole, said that
the girl would never have lent herself to any schemes of her mother's
unless she had been genuinely fond of the man to whom she was engaged.
There had been much talk and speculation over the engagement at first,
a speculation which had in its turn died away, and which during the last
few weeks had been again revived by certain incidents.
Eustace Charliewood, whose whole life and business it was to gather and
retail society gossip, was very well aware of the reason which made
people once more wag their heads and hint this or that about the
Gouldesbrough engagement.
Mr. Guy Rathbone had appeared upon the scene, a young barrister of good
family but of no particular fortune. Several times Mr. Rathbone had been
seen skating with Miss Poole at Prince's. At this or that dance--Sir
William Gouldesbrough did not go to dances--Rathbone had danced a good
deal with Miss Poole. Many envious and linx-like eyes had watched them
for some weeks, and men were beginning to say in the clubs that "young
Rathbone is going to put the scientific Johnny's nose out of joint."
It was this knowledge which caused the little sneering smile to appear
on Charliewood's face, and it gave him pleasure to detect the human
weakness of jealousy in the inscrutable man who held him so tightly in
his grip.
"Well, all right," Charliewood said at length. "I'll do what you want."
"That's a good fellow," Sir William answered, smiling genially, his
whole face lighting up and becoming markedly attractive as it did so,
"you've always been a good friend to me, Charliewood."
"My banking account is very low just at present," the other went on.
"Then I'll write you a cheque at once," Sir William answered, getting up
from his chair and going to the writing-table in the corner of the room.
Charliewood's face cleared a little. Then he noticed his cigar had been
burning all down one side. He dropped it into an ash-tray and put his
hand in his coat pocket to find a cigarette.
He took out an ordinary silver case, when his eye fell upon the crest
engraved upon the cover. He started and looked again, turning it so that
the light fell full upon it.
The crest of the Charliewood family was a hand with a battle-axe and the
motto, "Ne Morare," and in the usual custom it was engraved upon
Charliewood's own case.
But this was not the Charliewood crest. It was a wyvern charged on a
shield, and the motto consisted of the single word "GARDEZ."
He gave a startled exclamation.
"What's the matter?" Sir William said, turning round sharply.
"I've got some other fellow's cigarette-case," Charliewood answered in
amazement, opening it as he did so.
There was only one cigarette in the case, but there were several
visiting-cards in one compartment, and moreover the name of the owner
was cut in the inside of the lid.
The case dropped from Charliewood's fingers with a clatter, and he grew
quite pale.
"What is it?" his host inquired again.
"Have you been playing some infernal trick on me, Gouldesbrough?"
Charliewood said.
"No; why?"
"Because this cigarette-case, by some strange chance, is the
cigarette-case of the man we've been talking about, this Guy Rathbone!"
He stood up, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of the fur coat
as he did so. Then he pulled out a letter, stamped and addressed and
obviously ready for the post.
"Good heavens!" he said, "here's something else. It's a letter for the
post."
"Who is it addressed to?" Sir William asked in a curious voice.
Charliewood looked at it and started again.
"As I live," he answered, "it's addressed to Miss Poole, 100A, Curzon
Street!"
There was a curious silence for a moment or two. Both men looked at
each other, and mingled astonishment and alarm were on the face of
either. The whole thing seemed uncanny. They seemed, while concocting
something like a plot, to have trodden unawares into another.
Suddenly Charliewood stamped his foot upon the ground and peeled off his
overcoat.
"I've got it," he cried. "Why, of course I've seen the very man myself
this morning. This is his coat, not mine. I went to a hairdresser's this
morning and left my coat in the ante-room while I was going through a
massage treatment. When I came out there was a man waiting there for his
turn, and I must have taken his coat in exchange for mine. And the man
was this Mr. Guy Rathbone, of course. You know these dark blue coats
lined with astrachan are quite ordinary, everybody is wearing them this
year. And I noticed, by Jove, that the thing seemed a little tight in
the cab! It's about the oddest coincidence that I've ever come across in
my life!"
Sir William bowed his head in thought for a minute or two.
"Well, this is the very best opportunity you could have, my dear
fellow," he said, "of making the man's acquaintance. Of course you can
take him back the coat and the cigarette-case at once."
"And the letter?" Charliewood said swiftly. "The letter to Miss Poole?"
Sir William looked curiously at his guest.
"I think," he said slowly, "that I'll just spend half-an-hour with this
letter first. Then you can take it away with the other things. I assure
you that it will look just the same as it does now."
Charliewood shrugged his shoulders.
"Have it your own way," he said contemptuously, "but don't ask _me_ to
open any letters to a lady, that's all."
Sir William flushed up and was about to make an angry reply, when the
door of the study was suddenly thrown open and they saw the butler
standing there.
There was a rustle of skirts in the passage.
"Lady Poole and Miss Poole, sir," said the butler.