MAN TO MAN.
The flat was in utter darkness when Harry arrived between nine and ten.
He was disappointed, and yet not surprised. He knew that his mother was
to have returned from the sea by this time, but that was all he did
know. He found the porter, and asked him how he was redirecting the
letters.
The man gave Mr. Walthew's address. Harry groaned.
"Mrs. Ringrose has never been back since she first went away?"
"No, sir."
"You have the key of the flat?"
"Yes, sir; my wife goes up there every day."
"Then get her to go up now and light the gas stove and lay the table.
I'll bring in the provisions if she'll do that and make my bed for me.
Tell her I know it's late, but----"
"That's all right, sir," interrupted the porter, a familiar but
obliging soul; and when Harry returned in ten minutes, with his slices
of pressed beef and his French rolls and butter, from the delightful
shop round a couple of corners, the flat was lighted like a
public-house, and you lost sight of your breath in the minute
dining-room where the asbestos was reddening in the grate.
Yet it was a sorry home-coming, that put Harry painfully in mind of his
last, and he felt very wistful and lonely when he had finished his
supper and written a few lines to his mother. He came in from posting
them with an ounce of birdseye, and dragged an easy chair from under
its dust-sheet in the other room, and so arranged himself comfortably
enough in front of the gas stove. But his first pipe for several weeks
did no more for him than Weber's Last Waltz, which duly welcomed him
through the ceiling. He was unused to solitude, and the morrow's
interview with Lowndes sat heavily on his nerves. His one consolation
was that it would take place before his mother's return. She must know
nothing until he knew all. And he had begged her not to hurry back on
his account.
In the sideboard that was so many sizes too large for the room--the
schoolroom sideboard of the old home--he at last laid hands upon some
whisky, and in his loneliness and suppressed excitement he certainly
drank more than was good for him before going to bed. Immense and
immediate confidence accrued, only to evaporate before it was wanted;
and morning found him nervous, depressed, and dearly wishing that he
had gone hot from Scrafton to Lowndes the day before. But the bravest
man is he who goes trembling and yet smiling into action, and, after
all, it was a sufficiently determined face that Harry Ringrose carried
through the sloppy City streets that foggy forenoon.
In the outer office the same small clerk was perched on the same tall
stool: but Bacchus sat solitary, in his top-coat and with a redder nose
than ever, at the desk in the inner office, the door of which was
standing open.
"Good-morning, Mr. Backhouse," said Harry entering. "Mr. Lowndes is
out?"
"Very much out."
"Doesn't he come here now?"
"No."
"I'm sorry to trouble you, Mr. Backhouse, but can you tell me where I
can find him?"
"Offices of the Crofter Fisheries."
"Where are they?"
"Hartington House, Cornhill."
So brusque was his manner, so different from Harry's recollection of
the red-nosed man, that the young fellow thanked him for his
information with marked stiffness, whereupon the other sprang up and
clapped on his hat.
"I don't mean to be rude to you, Mr. Ringrose, but I'm sick of that
man's name," cried he: "it gives me a thirst every time I hear it.
Didn't you know about the Company? It comes out next week--they're
going to have a solid page in every morning paper on Monday--capital
one million, and everything but Royalty on the board! Lowndes has made
himself General Manager with God knows how many thousand a year, and I
was to be Secretary with five hundred. He promised it to me again and
again--he had the use of these offices rent free for months--and used
to borrow from the housekeeper when I had nothing--and now he gives it
over my head to one of his aristocratic pals. I tell you, Mr. Ringrose,
it makes me dry to think of it! Come and let me buy you a drink."
Harry thanked him but declined, and, on the way downstairs, asked
whether Lowndes still lived at Richmond.
"He may be there still," said Bacchus, "but I hear he's going to move
into an abbey or castle--I forget which--as soon as the Company comes
out. He's renting it furnished from one of these belted blokes he's got
in with. So you won't have the least little split? Well, good-bye then,
Mr. Ringrose, and may Gordon Lowndes prove a better friend to you than
he has to me!"
Harry could not help smiling grimly as he headed for Cornhill. The
grievance of Bacchus was as much his own. Most heartily he wished he
had no worse.
Hartington House proved to be a modern pile with a lift worked by a
smart boy in buttons; and the offices of the Crofter Fisheries,
Limited, occupied the whole of one floor. If Harry had felt nervous
when climbing the familiar stairs in Leadenhall Street, he might well
have been overpowered by the palatial character of the new premises. A
commissionaire with as many medals as a Field-Marshal handed his card
to one gentleman, who passed it on to another gentleman, who carried it
through a ground-glass door. Harry was then conducted into a luxurious
waiting-room in which two or three busy-looking men were glancing
alternately at their watches and at the illustrated papers which
strewed the table. A single gigantic salmon occupied a glass case
running the length of the mantelpiece, while several new oil paintings
hung upon the walls. Harry noticed that the subjects were exclusively
Scottish, and that one at least was by a distinguished Academician, of
whose name the most was made in black letters on a gilt tablet.
In such surroundings the visitor found it a little difficult to
rehearse what he had determined to say to Lowndes, and it was no
misfortune that kept him waiting the better part of an hour. The delay
gave him time to gather his wits and to recollect his points. It
prepared him for a new Gordon Lowndes. It steadied his feet when they
sank into the rich carpet of a still more sumptuous apartment, in the
middle of which stood the most magnificent desk he had ever seen; it
kept his eye from being distracted from the resplendent gentleman who
sat at the desk, the gentleman with the orchid in the silken lapel of
his frock-coat, and with everything new upon him but the gold
eye-glasses that bridged the twitching nose.
Before his mouth opened beneath his waxed moustache, Harry felt
convinced that Lowndes had seen Scrafton, and was fully prepared for
this visit.
"Well, Ringrose, what can I do for you?" he cried, as Harry advanced,
and his tone was both cold and sharp.
"Ask your typist to step into another room," replied Harry, glancing
towards the young girl at the clicking Remington.
Lowndes opened his eyes. Indeed, Harry had begun better than he himself
expected, and his confidence increased as the other turned to his
typist.
"Be good enough to leave us for a minute, Miss Neilson; we shan't be
longer," said Lowndes pointedly. "Now," he added, "kindly take a seat,
Ringrose."
But Harry came and stood at the other side of the magnificent desk.
"I want to ask you two or three questions, Mr. Lowndes," said he
quietly.
"About the Company, eh?"
"No, not about the Company, Mr. Lowndes."
"Then this is neither the time nor place, and it will have to be a very
short minute. But blaze away."
"What is there between you and that man Scrafton?" asked Harry, and for
the life of him he could steady his voice no longer. His very lip was
trembling now.
"Which man Scrafton?" asked Lowndes, beginning to smile.
"You know as well as I do!" Harry almost shouted. "The other master in
the school at Teddington--the man whose existence you pretended not to
know of when I met you that afternoon on Ham Common. I ask you what
there is between you. I ask you why you pretended there was nothing
that Saturday afternoon--that Monday morning when you came to intercept
him and pretended you had come to see me. I ask you what there was
between that ruffian and--my father!"
His voice was almost breaking in his passion and his agony, but he was
no longer nervous and self-conscious. That agony of doubt and of
suspicion--that passionate determination to know the truth--had already
floated him beyond the shoals of self. Lowndes waved a soothing hand,
and his tone altered instantly. It was as though he realised that he
was dealing with a dangerous fellow.
"Steady, Ringrose, steady!" said he. "You must answer me one question
if you want answers to all those."
And there was a touch of the old kindness in his tone, a strange and
disconcerting touch, for it sounded genuine.
"As many as you like--_I_ have nothing to hide," cried Harry. And he
had the satisfaction of making Lowndes wince.
"What makes you think I am acquainted with the man you mention?"
"What makes me think it?" echoed Harry, with a hard laugh. "Why, I've
seen you together!"
"When?" cried Lowndes.
"The very day I saw you last. I came over to tell you something I'd
heard the fellow say. I wanted to consult you of all men! And there
were the two of you walking up and down your garden path."
"Was it the evening?"
"Yes, it was, and you walked up and down by the hour--like
conspirators--like confederates!"
Lowndes had started up and was leaning across his desk. His hands
gripped the edge of it. His face was ghastly.
"Spy!" he hissed. "You listened to what we were saying."
"I didn't," retorted Harry. "You knew one gentleman even then."
There were several sorts of folly in this speech: no sooner was it
uttered than Harry saw one. Had he been less ready to deny the
eavesdropping he might have learnt something now. By pretending to know
much he might have learnt all. He had lost a chance.
And Gordon Lowndes--that arch-exponent of the game of bluff--was quick
as lightning to appreciate his good fortune. The blood rushed back to
his face, his hands came away from the mahogany (two little tell-tale
dabs they left behind them), and he sank back into his luxurious
chair--with a droop of the eyelids and ever so slight a shake of the
head--an artist deploring the inartistic for art's sake while he
welcomed it for his own.
Harry was furious at his false move, and at this frank though tacit
recognition of the lost advantage.
"I wish I had listened!" he cried. "God knows what I should have heard,
but something you dare not tell me, that I can see. There! I have been
fool enough to answer your questions; now it's your turn to answer
mine, and to tell me what there is between you and Scrafton."
"Well, he's a man I've had a slight acquaintance with for a year or
two. He lodges--or he did lodge--in Richmond. I scraped acquaintance
with him because his face interested me. But it isn't more interesting
than the man himself, who is the one genius I know--the one walking
anachronism----"
"I know all about that," interrupted Harry. "Why did you pretend you
knew nothing about him? That's what I want to get at. You don't deny
you led me to think you had never heard of him?"
"No--I did my best to do so."
"You admit it now! And why did you do your best? What was the meaning
of it? What had you to gain?"
"Nothing."
"Then why did you do it?"
"My good fellow, that's my business."
"Mine too," said Harry thickly. "This man knows something of my father;
you know something of this man; and first you pretend you don't--and
then you try to prepare him for meeting me. I suppose you admit it was
Scrafton you came to see that morning?"
"Well, I confess I wanted to put salt on the fellow; and, as he'd left
Richmond, that was my only way."
"Exactly!" cried Harry. "You wanted to put salt on him because there
was some mystery between the two of you and my father, and you were
frightened he'd let something out. By God, Lowndes, there's some
treachery too, if there isn't crime! Sit still. I'm not going to stop.
Ring your bell if you like, and I'll tell every man in the office--I'll
tell every big-wig on the board. There's treachery somewhere--there may
be crime--and I've suspected it from the beginning. Yes, I suspected
you the first time I set eyes upon you. I suspected you when we talked
about my poor father in his own room and in the train. You looked a
guilty man then--you look a guilty man now. Confess your guilt, or, by
the living Lord, I'll tell every director of this Company! Ah, you may
laugh--that's your dodge when you're in a corner--you've told me so
often enough--but you were white a minute ago!"
The laugh had stopped and the whiteness returned as Lowndes sprang up
and walked quickly round the desk to where Harry stood. He laid a hand
on Harry's arm. The boy shook it off. And yet there was a kindness
behind the other's glasses--the old kindness that had disconcerted
Harry once already.
"Consider what you are saying, Ringrose," said Lowndes quietly. "You're
going on like a young madman. Pull yourself together and just consider.
You talk of telling tales in a way that is neither nice nor wise. What
do you know to tell?"
This simple question was like ice on the hot young head.
"Enough, at any rate," he stammered presently, "to put me on the track
of more."
"Then I advise you to find out the more before you make use of
threats."
"I intend to do so. I'll be at the bottom of your villainy yet!"
Lowndes darkened.
"Do you want to force me to have you turned out?" he asked fiercely.
"Upon my word, Ringrose, you try the patience of the best friend you
ever had. Didn't I stand by you when you landed? Didn't I do the best I
could for you when I was on the rocks myself? Now I'm afloat again I
want to stand by you still, but you make it devilish difficult. I
honestly meant to make you Secretary of this Company, but when the chap
who helped me to pull it through asked for the billet, what could I do?
Here's an envelope that will show you I haven't forgotten you; take it,
Ringrose, and look at it at your convenience, and try to think more
charitably of an old friend. Recollect that I was your father's friend
first."
"So you say," said Harry, taking the long thick envelope and looking
straight through the gold-rimmed glasses. "I will believe you when you
tell me where he is."
"I know no more than the man in the moon."
"You were at the bottom of his disappearance!"
"I give you my word that I was not."
"You know whether he is dead or alive!"
"I do not, Ringrose."
"Then tell me where you saw him last!"
"You sicken me," cried Lowndes, losing his temper suddenly. "I told you
the whole story six months ago, and now you want me to tell it you
again so that you may challenge every point. I'll answer no more of
your insolent questions, and I'll tell the commissionaire to mark you
down and never to admit you again. You hold in your hand fifty shares
in this Company. Next week they will be worth a hundred pounds--next
month perhaps a thousand--next year very likely five. Take them for
your mother's sake, if not for your own, and for God's sake let me
never see your face again!"
"From the man who may be at the bottom of our disgrace? No, thank
you--not until you tell me what you did with my father--you and
Scrafton between you!"
"I have already answered you."
"Then so much for your fifty shares."
The long envelope spun into the fire. Lowndes darted to his desk,
caught the electric bell that dangled over it, and pressed the button.
Harry stalked to the door, turned round, and faced him for the last
time.
"You will not tell me the truth; very well, I will find it out. I will
find it out," cried Harry Ringrose in a breaking voice, "if I have to
spend my whole life in doing so. And if you have wronged my father I
will have no mercy on you; and if you have not--all I ask is--that
you--have no mercy on me!"