Accept any hospitality proffered from the Grange. Encourage the
young man, Arthur Dompers, to talk, watch Duncombe, and report
on the situation.
"Dull as ditchwater!" I exclaimed, as I tore up the communication in
disgust. "An unprepossessing cub of a boy, whom his tutor permits to be
fleeced at billiards and whom he is probably going to marry to his
sister. Sordid as it can be. Not a thrill in it for us."
"This may be my show," Rose mused, her blue eyes very wide open and
innocent. "I may be able to guide the young man from the matrimonial
noose. I wonder if he is really very rich. Perhaps I'll marry him
myself. I suppose I could keep him on a chain."
I sipped my _apéritif_ gloomily. The taste of true adventures was still
upon my palate, and the obviousness of this one repelled.
Our ideas as to the menacing nature of Arthur Dompers' surroundings were
to some extent modified by our first visit to the Grange, which took
place that night after the performance. Ella Duncombe was a rather
slangy, somewhat unpleasant-looking young woman of apparently twenty-six
or twenty-seven years of age. She had a bad temper, which she scarcely
troubled to conceal, and conducted herself generally towards her
brother's charge with more contempt than toleration. She scarcely
fulfilled one's idea of an adventuress. Major Lethwaite, a guest in the
house whom we had fixed upon as the person accustomed to play Arthur
Dompers for a hundred pounds at billiards whenever finances ran low, was
to all appearance a perfectly harmless person who played sixpenny points
at bridge and thought sixpenny pool excessive. Laura Richardson, a
friend of Ella's, was just an ordinary, fairly well-bred, good-looking
but rather boisterous young person. Mrs. Scatterwell, whose place
apparently was that of chaperon, was a handsome and rather silent woman,
whose sole interest seemed to be centred in Duncombe himself. The
ménage was perhaps a curious one, but scarcely suspicious. Our host
himself appeared to have no reserves except on the subject of his young
charge.
"After the war was a bit of a knock for most of us," he remarked
meditatively, as we men sat in the smoking room of the Grange after a
very excellent supper. "Here are you, Lister, with a game arm, going
round the country entertaining, more or less, I take it, for your
living. I tried every job that was offered me and did very little good
at any of them. Last of all I took this bear-leading on, and, between
you and me, I sometimes wish to God I hadn't!"
"Why?" I asked. "The boy seems amiable enough."
"He seems so," Duncombe assented drily, "but the fact of it is that he
is innately clumsy and innately deceitful. There is no sport for which
he shows the least aptitude. I've tried them all with the same result.
The only thing he can do is swim, and even then it's hard work to get
him into the sea unless the sun shines. He hasn't the slightest taste;
I am bound by the trustees' deed to allow him pocket money at the rate
of a hundred pounds a month, and half of it he spends in buying most
outrageous clothes. You know who he is, I suppose?"
"Not an idea," I replied.
Duncombe's eyebrows were slightly raised. He looked at me keenly.
"Dear me!" he exclaimed. "I took it for granted that you knew the story.
He is the Welsh miner's orphan, who inherited two and a quarter million
from Jacob Dompers of New York. A nice little windfall for a cub like
this, isn't it?"
I remembered reading the story in the newspapers some years ago. So did
Leonard.
"What about his relatives?" the latter asked.
"The only one with whom I have had any communication," Duncombe replied,
"was a Welsh Baptist Minister who declined to have anything to say to
the young man, and who wrote me on half a sheet of brown grocery paper,
pointing out by means of many Biblical texts that no person with a
banking account could hope to escape the flames of the bottomless pit."
"Who placed the boy in your charge, then?" I enquired.
"The London agents for the New York solicitors. I answered an
advertisement. I think they realise," he went on, "that I have done my
best. I have tried to fit him for one or two professions, in vain."
"How long have you had him?" Leonard asked.
Duncombe's long fingers played for a moment with his small black
moustache. There was a quick light in his eyes as he glanced towards
Leonard.
"Three years this June," he answered.
"Then he was sixteen when he came to you?"
Duncombe assented with a little motion of his head.
"You probably think that he is backward now for nineteen," he said. "You
should have seen him when he came to me."
"I suppose he is backward," I admitted, "and yet, to tell you the
truth, I should have thought him older."
"His twentieth birthday is this week," Duncombe told us. "I am getting a
thousand a year and my expenses for looking after him, and I haven't any
prospects of a job when he is out of my hands, but I wish to heavens it
was his twenty-first!--I suppose we ought to see what the others are
doing."
We made our way out into the hall, which was the main living room of the
Grange. Arthur was playing billiards with Lethwaite, playing sullenly
and without interest, and turning around after every stroke to listen to
the conversation between Rose and the other two girls, who were seated
upon a lounge, watching. Lethwaite, just as we appeared, went out with a
stroke which was an obvious fluke. Arthur flung half a crown across the
table and put up his cue ill-humoredly.
"Beastly fluke!" he grumbled. "No one can play against such luck."
He strode over with his hands in his pockets to where Rose was seated.
Miss Duncombe watched him approach with a sombre light in her dark
eyes.
"Bad-tempered again, Arthur?" she observed.
"He's a rotten fluker," the young man rejoined surlily. "He wins all my
pocket money."
For a single moment the whole situation seemed to be commonplace, almost
absurd. Here was a sulky, ill-conditioned boy, pitchforked into the
charge of a very ordinary little company of gentlepeople, who were doing
their best to make him one of themselves. Duncombe's rebuke was free
from all severity, and it was certainly merited.
"Arthur," he said, "you should never accuse your opponent of fluking at
any game. Take your defeat in silence if you cannot be pleasant about
it. Mr. Lister or Mr. Cotton would tell you that I am giving you good
advice."
"It was rather hard lines," Rose remarked, smiling up at him.
The change in the boy's face was almost amazing.
"You see, I was ninety-eight," he explained, "and that's the seventh
half-crown I've lost following, just on the last stroke--Miss Mindel--I
say--would you sing something?"
Rose got up and made her way to the piano, followed by the young man.
For a moment I saw precisely the look in Miss Duncombe's dark eyes as
had flashed in her brother's a few minutes before, a look, I fancied, of
patient but subdued malevolence. Almost as I realised it, however, it
passed. She motioned me to sit by her side.
"Mr. Lister," she said, "I envy you your profession. I think that
anything in the world must be better than being bear-leader to a boy
like Arthur."
"Your brother seems to have quite a great deal of influence over him," I
observed.
"As much as any one could have, perhaps," she agreed. "After all, what
can one expect? You can't make bricks without straw, and it's hard to
give even the appearance of a gentleman to the son of a Welsh miner.
Look at him now!"
Arthur was standing by the piano, listening to Rose, who had commenced
to sing. He was awkward, self-conscious and ill at ease. He kept on
thrusting his hands into his pockets and taking them out again. There
was an expression in his eyes which angered me.
"I suppose he's rather a handful," I said.
Duncombe, who had been strolling about the room, joined us just in time
to hear the last remark.
"He is that," he admitted, "and yet, after all, I suppose I ought not to
grumble. I'm well enough paid for looking after him. A word with you,
Lister."
He drew me away to the farther end of the room. We stepped out of the
open window on to the broad gravel path. It was a soft, dark night, with
jagged masses of black cloud stretched across the sky. Below us was the
sandy beach, and away westwards we could hear the waves crashing amongst
the rocks of the Greymarshes Bay.
"It's like this, you see, Lister," Duncombe began, speaking a little
jerkily and watching me closely. "I've an agreement to look after this
cub for five years--a thousand a year and every mortal expense. I must
say the lawyers are generous about expenses. I don't mind admitting that
they cover the whole cost of my housekeeping, and I'm able to save
practically the lot. I'm going in for fruit farming when the job comes
to an end, but the boy's health is uncertain. I can't help wondering
what would happen to me if he were to die."
"I suppose," I ventured, "that your job would come to an end."
"I couldn't afford that," Duncombe declared. "I want to secure against
it if I can. You're a stranger. You can look at this matter with an open
mind. What do you think about insuring his life for, say, five or ten
thousand pounds?"
"I wouldn't think of it," I told him bluntly, "while the boy is under
your charge."
He seemed disappointed, but he nodded understandingly.
"Strikes you like that, does it?" he sighed. "Well, I was afraid it
might. I expect you're right, too. Reminiscent of the Ardalmont mystery,
and all that sort of thing, eh?"
"As you say," I assented, a little grimly.
The three of us were inclined to be gloomy during our walk home.
"I don't know why," Rose said, "but I detest that household."
"They're all right in their way," Leonard observed dubiously, "but they
seem all of them to hate their job so. If they're paid for looking after
that young cub, they ought to stomach their prejudices and do it."
"I don't like him," Rose pronounced abruptly. "I thought he was just
simple and foolish at first, but I've come to the conclusion that I
don't like him. There isn't a single member of the household I do like.
They're just sordid and peevish. I think the chief might have found us
something better to do."
"Perhaps he looks upon this in the light of a holiday task," I
suggested.
Rose had a flash of inspiration just then. She passed her arm through
mine, and notwithstanding the warm wind, she shivered a little.
"There is just one person in that household," she said, "of whom I am
terrified."
"Who is it?" Leonard asked.
She shook her head.
"Wait," she begged.
A few days later, we were invited to a picnic party at Greymarshes Bay
to celebrate Arthur's supposed twentieth birthday. Duncombe had hired a
little petrol launch, and we took our lunch and bathing clothes along
the coast. It was a hot, almost breathless day, and we entered the water
eagerly for our pre-luncheon bathe. Every one except Mrs. Scatterwell
bathed, and she busied herself with one of the servants, preparing
luncheon in a shady spot. Somehow or other, perhaps because of the
brilliancy of the weather, every one was in better spirits. Even
Duncombe and his pupil seemed to be on quite good terms. They vied with
one another in diving feats, and Arthur, exulting in his one
accomplishment, clambered up the rocks more than once to a considerable
height, before he made his plunge. Presently, however, we all tired a
little of the sport. Rose was already dressing in a convenient cave. I
was lying at full length, enjoying a sun bath on the shingle, when I
heard Duncombe's voice from behind a great rocky promontory jutting out
from the sea a little to my left.
"One more, Arthur. I've found a new place. It's the best of the lot."
I watched the young man climb obediently up the jagged boulder of rock.
The topmost ledge must have been at least twenty or thirty feet high,
and he was well on his way to it, with his back turned to me, when I
became conscious of a queer feeling of apprehension. The space of water
into which Arthur was to plunge was out of my sight, but there was a
little foam at the corner, and I remembered how once on a stormy day I
had stood and seen the broken waves thunder along this opening. I rose
to my feet, waded in as far as I could, and swam on my side towards the
promontory. Arthur by now had reached the summit and was cautiously
scrambling to his feet. There was no sign anywhere of Duncombe. I swam
on a few more strokes, until I was suddenly conscious of a current. I
swam round it, until I was directly facing Arthur, now standing upright
and commencing to poise.
"Wait a moment, Arthur," I called out.
"Get out of the way, then," he replied. "I'm coming over. Where's
Duncombe?"
I looked around but there was no sign of him, yet I knew very well that
he could not be more than a few yards away.
"One moment, Arthur," I shouted back.
He dropped his arms and stood there impatiently. The water beneath me
was a green colour, full and sullen, but there were little eddies which
I could not understand considering the width of the channel. Then, with
a shock which, notwithstanding the hot sun, brought a shiver of fear
through my body, I discovered the truth. Scarcely three feet under water
was a long line of jagged rock. I turned over on my back and held up my
hand.
"Arthur!"
"Get out of the way, will you?" he shouted. "I'm coming."
His hands were already upraised. There was no time for anything but the
truth.
[Illustration: "Don't be a fool," I answered. "There's a submerged rock
right across here." _Page_ 191.]
"Don't be a fool," I answered. "There's a submerged rock right across
here. You couldn't miss it. Climb down, do you hear?"
His arms fell to his sides. For a single moment he stood there,
immovable. Not even his youth, his bathing costume, and the clear
background of blue sky and sunlit air could lend him any grace of form
or outline. He seemed, indeed, from his short neck and hunched
shoulders, as he turned away, almost deformed. I looked all around.
There was no sign anywhere of Duncombe. I raised my voice and shouted.
"Hello, Duncombe!"
I heard a splash, as though he had slipped off the ledge of the rock
behind me. Presently he came swimming round the corner.
"What's the matter?" he shouted. "And where's Arthur?"
"He's climbing down from that rock," I answered, as Duncombe came
alongside. "I've just stopped his diving into this pool."
"Why?"
He was by my side now and I pointed downwards to the dark line of
cruelly jagged rock. He looked for a moment concerned.
"Jove, I've never noticed those!" he muttered.
"They're barely three feet," I answered. "I can reach them."
Duncombe turned over on his back. We were in the shadow, almost
surrounded by rocks. The voices of the others, preparing the lunch,
sounded a long way away. I suddenly felt as though I were cut off, as
though I could read the thoughts at the back of this man's brain, as
though I myself were in danger. All the time he was drawing a little
closer to me.
Leonard and Ella Duncombe suddenly appeared upon the summit of one of
the lower ranges of rocks.
"Come along to lunch," the former shouted.
The moment had passed. Duncombe began to swim vigorously for the shore.
He was quite himself when he stepped out on to the sand.
"I wouldn't make a fuss about that, if I were you, Lister," he
suggested. "It looks as though I weren't careful enough. As a matter of
fact, I don't think the boy would have come to any harm."
Arthur was seated by himself on the sands, his arms clenched around his
knees, his face turned away from all of us. He seemed to have ignored
the summons to prepare for lunch.
"Probably not," I answered, trying to speak in as unconcerned a tone as
possible. "Boys and drunken men have a wonderful knack of avoiding
accidents."
We strolled up the beach together. Duncombe paused and spoke to Arthur.
"Come along," he said, "they're waiting luncheon for us."
Arthur turned and looked at him. I could not say that there was anything
either malicious or reproachful in that look, and yet it worried me. He
made no answer in words. A few moments later, however, he scrambled to
his feet and went to the rock behind which his clothes were lying.
Duncombe seemed determined that nothing which had happened should
interfere with the success of the picnic. He abandoned all his reserve,
related anecdotes, chaffed everybody in turn, opened wine, and
absolutely created an atmosphere of pleasure. Leonard told stories and
Rose sang to us and danced upon the sands. Arthur, after a preliminary
fit of gloom, drank far too much champagne for his age and became, in
his rather clumsy way, as light-hearted as the rest. He and Ella sat for
some time apart from the others, his arm drawn through hers, until
presently they wandered off together to look for Venetian shells, the
spoils of some long-forgotten shipwreck. On the whole, the excursion
which I had seen foredoomed to failure, turned out a great success.
Duncombe only once, during the rest of the afternoon, referred to the
disturbing subject.
"You don't suppose," he suggested, "that Arthur is thinking any more
about that little affair, eh?"
"Why should he?" I answered coolly. "He must know that you made a
mistake."
"Naturally," Duncombe assented. "I still don't think he'd have come to
any harm unless he bungled his dive, but I'm glad, all the same, that
you noticed the rocks."
That marked the end of the incidents worthy of note connected with the
picnic, except that Arthur and Ella stayed away for over an hour, and
that when they returned she was clinging to his arm with an almost
protective air. That night, for the first time, not a single member from
the Grange turned up at our performance.
Somehow or other, when I started for my customary early morning walk on
the following day, I knew that there was tragedy in the air. A strange
mist, presage of storm and heat, hung like an oppressive curtain over
the land and stretched out seawards. I almost regretted, as I stood at
the end of the little jetty, that I had not departed from my usual
custom and bathed. The thought made me look back towards the shore.
Duncombe, in his dressing gown, had just left the gardens of the Grange
and was descending the shingle to the sands. I watched him throw off his
gown and wade into the water. Presently he turned on his side and began
swimming slowly out. Watching him, I felt more than ever inclined to go
and fetch my own bathing clothes. Then, as I hesitated, I noticed
Arthur, following through the Grange gardens, scramble down the shingle,
throw off his dressing gown and also plunge into the sea. Something a
little furtive about the manner in which he made his way across the
lawn, keeping always to the side of the hedge as though to escape
observation, and his subsequent almost crawling progress along the
shingle, puzzled me. I had been down here many mornings, but I had never
seen Arthur bathing before. He was in the water now, and swimming out
with long, powerful strokes towards Duncombe.
Whilst Arthur was still almost undistinguishable in the sea, and
Duncombe was lying lazily on his back, as yet unconscious of his pupil's
approach, I began to feel my first misgivings. There was something
unnatural in the very atmosphere that morning, the sulphurous gloom, the
entire absence of sunshine, the still, oily water. I found myself
straining my eyes to catch a nearer glimpse of the boy's face, asking
myself all the time why he had chosen this particular morning to bathe
for the first time before breakfast. Nearer and nearer he came. He
passed me within a matter of fifty yards, but he took no notice of my
shout of greeting. Then, as he rolled from side to side, I caught a
glimpse of his face. He seemed to be swimming in entire unconsciousness
of any physical effort. His chin was a little protruded, his eyes were
fixed in an unnatural stare upon the spot where Duncombe lay floating.
For a moment or two I felt a queer sensation of helplessness. I called
out again, and I knew this time, although I would not acknowledge it to
myself, that my cry was meant to be a warning to Duncombe. He heard me,
turned over on his side, and to my horror began to swim away from the
approaching form, to swim away like a man in fear.
I really did all that a man could do. Attached by a rope to the end of
the jetty were several rowing boats. I unfastened one, clambered down
some steps and jumped into it. As I swung it round, I was just in time
to see the boy alter his pace a little, as though to intercept
Duncombe, who had made for the jetty. Duncombe, seeing himself cut off,
hesitated. I held up my hand and shouted.
"Hullo, there!" I bawled. "Hullo! Duncombe, I'm coming to take you in."
Arthur took not the slightest notice of me. He was now within a yard or
so of Duncombe, and he suddenly seemed to raise himself from the water.
I had no doubt whatever then but that this was tragedy. His mouth was
opened, and his rather prominent teeth showed in a wholly animal
fashion. His eyes seemed like specks of fire. He was by the side of
Duncombe now, and from where I was I can only say that it seemed to me
as though he sprang at him just as a sea cat might have done, if such a
creature had ever existed. His arms went round the other man's neck, his
legs around his loins. Then for the first time Duncombe cried out, a
horrible cry, the cry of a man face to face with a hideous death, a cry
which died away only as the water filled his mouth. Very slowly,
Duncombe struggling in the other's pitiless clasp like a weakling in the
grip of an octopus, the two bodies disappeared. I rowed about for more
than half an hour without seeing a sign of either. They were washed up
two days later.
* * * * *
The supper at a Midland Hotel, where our chief bade us meet him a few
evenings later, was one of the least festive of all our meetings. Our
depression was so noticeable that he presently commented upon it.
"For whom this sorrow?" he enquired coldly. "For the tutor or his
charge?"
"For the boy," Rose declared. "After all, he was very young."
"I'm sorry for Duncombe," Leonard admitted frankly. "Whatever he'd been
up to, it was the most horrible death any one could die."
"I'm sorry for both," I insisted. "I think that somehow we ought to have
prevented it."
Mr. Thomson looked at us, one by one, out of his bright piercing eyes.
It was obvious that he was out of sympathy with us.
"I continually forget," he said coldly, "that I have to deal with
sentimentalists. No person who looked upon life from a sane point of
view, and who possessed full knowledge of all the facts, could possibly
regret the departure of either of them."
"Was Duncombe's story really true?" Rose asked.
"This one is, at any rate," our host replied. "Arthur Dompers was the
orphan son of a Welsh miner. When he was fourteen years of age, a
relative in America died intestate and this boy was discovered to be the
heir. Some lawyers in London were entrusted with the charge of him. He
was sent to four private schools, from each one of which he was
expelled. Three tutors one by one relinquished the task of training him
up in the way he should go. Duncombe was the fourth."
"Tell us about Mr. Duncombe, please," Rose begged.
"Duncombe was one of those criminals who are too clever to come under
the ban of the law," Thomson continued. "He was also a person against
whom I had a very strong grievance. When I heard that the boy, Arthur
Dompers, had been committed to his charge, I felt that, if carefully
watched, Duncombe's time had come at last. By some irony of fate, the
fortune left to Arthur Dompers became trebled and quadrupled in the
hands of his trustees. Duncombe's appetite for plunder, already
insatiable, must have become a fever. He was clever, though. He bided
his time. For three years he had charge of Arthur Dompers, and during
that three years he improved him immensely. It was perfectly clear what
he was waiting for--for the only period when the boy could be of real
service to him--namely after his twenty-first birthday. He made his
plans a long way ahead. With great cunning he kept secret the day of the
boy's majority. You attended a picnic, I think--a birthday party?"
"It was supposed to be his twentieth birthday," Leonard observed.
"In reality his twenty-first," Thomson went on. "On the morning of that
day, the boy made his will, leaving the bulk of his estate to Ella
Duncombe, and large legacies to the rest of the family. He also left a
letter addressed to Ella Duncombe, in which he made clear the relations
between them and spoke of their impending marriage. With those
documents in his possession, Duncombe had no more use for the boy. There
is no doubt, from your report, Lister, that he deliberately made his
first attempt upon his life on that very morning. There is no doubt,
also, that the boy, half-witted though he was, in his sullen way saw
through the whole thing. His hate for Duncombe became a slow-burning
passion--and there, I think, is the story of the tragedy."
"And the will?" I asked.
"It was committed to the flames on the morning of the tragedy by
Duncombe's sister--also the letter. The estate goes to the Crown."
Rose sighed.
"All that money and no one any better off!"
Mr. Thomson shrugged his shoulders.
"The lawyers to the estate," he told us, "have made over ten thousand
pounds to the Duncombe family."