Transcriber's Notes:
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https://books.google.com/books?id=f0g2AQAAMAAJ
(University of Wisconsin--Madison)
The Black Patch
By the same Author
THE SILENT HOUSE IN PIMLICO
THE CRIMSON CRYPTOGRAM
THE BISHOP'S SECRET
THE JADE EYE
THE TURNPIKE HOUSE
A TRAITOR IN LONDON
THE GOLDEN WANG-HO
WOMAN THE SPHINX
THE SECRET PASSAGE
THE LONELY CHURCH
THE OPAL SERPENT
THE SILVER BULLET
JOHN LONG, Publisher, London
The Black Patch
By
Fergus Hume
Author of "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," etc.
London
John Long
13 and 14 Norris Street, Haymarket
[All rights reserved]
First Published in 1906
CONTENTS
CHAP.
1.
IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
2.
THE HINTS OF DURBAN.
3.
MR. ALPENNY'S PROPOSAL.
4.
SEEN IN THE LIGHTNING.
5.
MRS. SNOW'S DISCOVERY.
6.
THE INQUEST.
7.
THE INQUEST--continued.
8.
THE WILL.
9.
LADY WATSON.
10.
MRS. LILLY'S STORY.
11.
MAJOR RUCK.
12.
VIVIAN EXPLAINS.
13.
THE EX-BUTLER.
14.
MRS. SNOW'S PAST.
15.
A CURIOUS COINCIDENCE.
16.
AN INTERRUPTION.
17.
A STORY OF THE PAST.
18.
WHAT ORCHARD KNEW.
19.
DURBAN SPEAKS AT LAST.
20.
A GREAT SURPRISE.
21.
LADY WATSON'S STORY.
22.
REVELATION.
23.
NEMESIS.
24.
THE NECKLACE.
25.
WATERLOO.
26.
WHAT TOOK PLACE.
The Black Patch
CHAPTER I
IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN
"Of course he's a wretch, dear; but oh!"--with an ecstatic
expression--"what a nice wretch!"
"I see; you marry the adjective."
"The man, Beatrice, the man. Give me a real man and I ask for nothing
better. But the genuine male is so difficult to find nowadays."
"Really! Then you have been more successful than the majority."
"How sarcastic, how unfriendly! I did look for sympathy."
Beatrice embraced her companion affectionately. "You have it, Dinah. I
give all sympathy and all good wishes to yourself and Jerry. May you be
very happy as Mr. and Mrs. Snow!"
"Oh, we shall, we shall! Jerry would make an undertaker happy!"
"Undertakers generally are--when business is good."
"Oh! you are quite too up-to-date in your talk, Beatrice Hedge."
"That is strange, seeing how I live in a dull country garden like a
snail, or a cabbage."
"Like a wild rose, dear. At least Vivian would say so."
"Mr. Paslow says more than he means," responded Beatrice, blushing
redder than the flower mentioned, "and I dare say Jerry does also."
"No, dear. Jerry hasn't sufficient imagination."
"He ought to have, being a journalist."
"Those are the very people who never imagine anything. They find their
facts on every hedge."
"Is that an unworthy pun on my name?"
"Certainly not, Miss Hedge," said the other with dignity; "Jerry
shan't find anything on you, or in you, save a friend, else I shall
be horribly jealous. As to Vivian, he would murder his future
brother-in-law if he caught him admiring you; and I don't want to begin
my married life with a corpse."
"Naturally. You wisely prefer the marriage service to the burial ditto,
my clever Dinah."
"I'm not clever, and I really don't know how to answer your sharp
speeches, seeing that I am a plain country girl."
"Not plain--oh! not plain. Jerry doesn't think so, I'm sure."
"It's very sweet and flattering of Jerry, but he's mercifully
colour-blind and short-sighted. I am plain, with a pug nose, drab
hair, freckles, and teeny-weeny eyes. You are the reverse, Beatrice,
being all that is lovely--quite a gem."
"Don't tell my father that I am any sort of jewel," remarked Beatrice
dryly, "else he will want to sell me at an impossible price."
Dinah laughed, but did not reply. Her somewhat flighty brain could
not concentrate itself sufficiently to grasp the subtle conversation
of Miss Hedge, so she threw herself back on the mossy stone seat and
stared between half-closed eyelids at the garden. This was necessary,
for the July sunshine blazed down on a mass of colour such as is
rarely seen in sober-hued England. The garden might have been that of
Eden, as delineated by Martin or Doré, from the tropical exuberance
of flower and leaf. But the buildings scattered about this pleasance
were scarcely of the primitive type which Adam and his spouse would
have inhabited: rather were they expressions of a late and luxurious
civilisation.
And again, they could scarcely be called buildings in the accepted
sense of the word, as they had been constructed to run on iron rails,
at the tail of a locomotive. To be plain, seven railway carriages, with
their wheels removed, did duty for dwellings, and very odd they looked
amidst surroundings alien to their original purpose. A Brixton villa
would scarcely have seemed more out of place in the Desert of Sahara.
Placed in an irregular circle, like Druidical stones, the white-painted
woodwork of these derelicts was streaked fantastically with creepers,
which, spreading even over the arched roofs, seemed to bind them to the
soil. Titania and her fastidious elves might have danced on the smooth
central sward, in the middle of which appeared a chipped sundial,
upheld by three stone ladies, unclothed, battered, and unashamed.
At the back of these ingeniously contrived huts bloomed flowers in
profusion: tall and gaudy hollyhocks, vividly scarlet geraniums, lilies
of holy whiteness, and thousands--as it truly seemed--of many-hued
poppies. The wide beds, whence these blossoms sprang, stretched back
to a girdle of lofty trees, and were aglow with the brilliant flowers
of the nasturtium. The trees which shut in this sylvan paradise from
the crooked lane rose from a tangled jungle of coarse grasses, nettles,
darnels, and oozy weedy plants, whose succulence betrayed the presence
of a small pond gorgeous with water-lilies. Paths led through the
miniature forest, winding in and out and round about, so as to make
the most of the small space; and the whole was bounded by a high brick
wall, mellow and crumbling, but secure for all that, seeing it was
topped with iron spikes and bits of broken bottles. One heavy wooden
gate, at present bolted and barred, admitted the outside world from the
lane into this Garden of Alcinous.
Almost the entire population of the Weald knew of this Eden--that is,
by hearsay--for no one entered the jealous gate, unless he or she
came to do business with the eccentric character who had created the
domain. Jarvis Alpenny was a miser, hence the presence of disused rail
carriages, which saved him the trouble and cost of building a house.
In The Camp--so the place was called--he had dwelt for fifty years,
and he was as much a recluse as a man well could be, who made his
income by usury. It seemed odd, and was odd, that a money-lender
should not only dwell in, but carry on his peculiarly urban profession
in, so rural a locality as the Weald of Sussex. Nevertheless, Alpenny
did as large a business as though he had occupied some grimy office
in the heart of London. Indeed, he really made more money, as the
very seclusion of the place attracted many needy people who wished
to borrow money secretly. As the local railway station was but three
miles distant, these secretive clients came very easily to this rustic
Temple of Mammon. Any one could stay in Brighton without arousing the
curiosity of friends; and it was surely natural to make excursions
into the bowels of the land! Jarvis Alpenny showed a considerable
knowledge of human nature in thus isolating his habitation; for the
more difficult people find it to obtain what they want, the more do
they value that which they obtain.
Alpenny called Beatrice his daughter. He would have spoken more
correctly had he called her his stepdaughter, for that she was. And
apart from the difference in the name, no one would have believed that
the wizen, yellow-faced, sharp-featured miser was the father of so
beautiful a girl. She dwelt in The Camp like an imprisoned princess,
and no dragon could have guarded her more fiercely than did Durban,
the sole servant and factotum of the settlement, as it might truly be
called. Alpenny himself might have passed for the wicked magician who
held the aforesaid princess spell-bound in his enchanted domain. But
as the Fairy Prince always discovers Beauty, however closely confined,
so had Beatrice Hedge been discovered by Vivian Paslow. He was a poor
country gentleman who dwelt in a two-miles distant grange; and his only
sister, confessing to the biblical name of Dinah, was the decidedly
plain girl who had just whispered to Beatrice how she had become
engaged, on the previous day, to Gerald Snow. That Gerald was the son
of a somewhat needy vicar, and possessed an objectionable mother, made
no difference to Dinah, who was very much in love and very voluble on
the subject.
"Of course," resumed Miss Paslow, after a pause in the conversation, "I
and Jerry will be horribly poor. Vivian has no money and I have less.
Mr. Snow the vicar has only a fifth-rate living, and Mrs. Snow is a
screw like your father."
"Dinah!" Beatrice winced and coloured at these plain words.
"Well, Mr. Alpenny is a screw, and only your stepfather after all. As
to Mrs. Snow--oh, my gracious"--with expressive pantomime--"I'm glad
Jerry and I won't have to depend upon her for food. Whenever the poor
famished darling comes to Convent Grange, I simply rush to make him a
glass of egg and milk in case he tumbles off his chair."
"That may be emotion, caused by the sight of you Dinah."
"How nasty, how untrue! No! I did the tumbling when he proposed
yesterday. He proposed so beautifully that I think he must have been
reading up. I was in the parlour and Jerry came in. He looked at me
like that, and I looked at him in this way, and afterwards----" Here
Dinah, who was at the silly boring stage of love, told the wonderful
story for the fifth time, ending with the original remark that for
quite three hours after Jerry left her, Jerry's kisses were warm on her
maiden lips.
"Why didn't you bring Mr. Snow in, Dinah?" asked Beatrice, who had
listened most patiently to these rhapsodies.
"Oh, my dear!" fanning a red and freckled face with a flimsy
handkerchief, "he's much better in the lane, minding the horses.
You see he will make me blush with his looks and smiles and
hand-squeezings, when he thinks that no one is looking--which they
usually are," finished Miss Paslow ungrammatically.
"And you came over to tell me. That is sweet of you."
"Well, I did and I didn't, dear, to be perfectly candid. You see, Jerry
and I were going for a ride this morning, just to see if we entirely
understood how serious marriage is; but Vivian is such a prig----"
"He isn't!" contradicted Beatrice indignantly.
"Oh yes, he is," insisted Dinah obstinately; "he doesn't think it quite
the thing that I and Jerry should be too much alone--as though we could
make love in company! He wouldn't like it himself, though he did insist
on my coming here with him, and rode in the middle, so as to part Jerry
and me. So poor, dear, darling Jerry is holding the horses in the lane,
while Vivian is doing business with your father in there," and Miss
Paslow pointed a gloved finger at a distant railway carriage, which was
so bolted and barred and locked and clamped that it looked like a small
dungeon.
A grave expression appeared on the face of Beatrice. "Do you know what
kind of business Mr. Paslow is seeing my father about?"
"Oh, my dear, as though your father--which he isn't--ever did any sort
of business save lend money to people who haven't got any, as I'm sure
we Paslows haven't. We've got birth and blood and a genuine Grange
with a ghost, and Vivian has good looks even if I haven't, in spite of
Jerry's nonsense; but there isn't a sixpence between us. How Mrs. Lilly
manages to feed us, I really don't know, unless she steals the food.
Our ancestors had the Paslow money and spent it, the mean pigs!--just
as though our days weren't more expensive than their days, with their
feathers and lace and port wine."
"Then Mr. Paslow is borrowing money?" remarked Beatrice, when she could
get in a word, which was not easy.
"Mr. Paslow!--how cold you are, Beatrice, when you know Vivian worships
the ground you tread on, though he doesn't say much. Borrowing money,
do you say? I expect he is, although he never tells me his business. So
different to Jerry, who lets me know every time he has a rise in his
salary on the Morning Planet, which isn't often. I think the editor
must be a kind of Mrs. Snow, and she--well----" Dinah again expressed
herself in pantomime.
It was quite useless speaking to Miss Paslow, who was only nineteen
and a feather-head. Besides, she was too deeply in love to bother
about commonplace things. Beatrice felt nervous to hear that Vivian
contemplated borrowing money, as she knew how dangerous it was for
anyone to become entangled in the nets of her stepfather. She would
have liked to question Dinah still further, but thinking she would
get little information from so lovelorn a damsel, it occurred to her
that Jerry Snow should be brought on the scene. Then the lovers could
chatter nonsense, and Beatrice could think her own thoughts, which were
greatly concerned with Mr. Alpenny's client. The means of obliging
Dinah and gaining time for reflection suggested themselves, when a
bulky man showed himself at the door of the carriage which served as
a kitchen. He wore, as he invariably did, summer and winter, a suit
of white linen, and on this occasion an apron, to keep the steaming
saucepan he held from soiling his clothes.
"There's Durban," said Beatrice, rising and crossing over; "he can hold
the horses and Mr. Snow can come in."
Dinah gave a faint squeal of delight, and shook the dust from her
shabby riding-habit while Beatrice explained what she wanted.
Durban was of no great height, and so extremely stout that he looked
even less than he really was. His lips were somewhat thick, his nose
was a trifle flat, and his hair had that frizzy kink which betrays
black blood. Even a casual observer could have told that Durban had
a considerable touch of the tar-brush--was a mulatto, or perhaps one
remove from a mulatto. Apparently he possessed the inherent good-humour
of the negro, for while listening to his young mistress he smiled
expansively, and displayed a set of very strong white teeth. Nor was
he young, for his hair was touched at the temples with grey, and his
body was stout with that stoutness which comes late in life from a
good digestion and an easy conscience. He aped youth, however, for he
carried himself very erect, and walked--as he now did to the gate--in
an alert and springy manner surprising in one who could not be less
than fifty years of age. It seemed remarkable that so kindly a creature
as the half-caste should serve a sour-faced old usurer; but, in truth,
Beatrice was his goddess, and her presence alone reconciled him to an
ill-paid post where he was overworked, and received more kicks than
halfpence. He would have died willingly for the girl, and showed his
devotion even in trifles.
Before returning to Dinah, whose eyes were fixed in an hypnotic way
on the gate through which her beloved would shortly pass, Beatrice
cast an anxious glance at the dungeon which did duty as Mr. Alpenny's
counting-house. The girl had never been within, as Jarvis was not
agreeable that she should enter his Bluebeard chamber. For the rest he
allowed her considerable freedom, and she could indulge in any fancy
so long as the fancy was cheap. But she was forbidden to set foot in
Mammon's shrine, and whether the priest was without, or within, the
door was kept locked. It was locked now, and Vivian Paslow was closeted
with the usurer, doubtless handing over to Alpenny the few acres that
remained to him for a sum of money at exorbitant interest. That the man
she loved should be a fly in the parlour of the money-lending spider
annoyed Beatrice not a little. Her attention was distracted by another
squeal from Dinah, whose emotions were apt to be noisy.
"Jerry! oh Jerry!" sighed the damsel, clasping her hands, and in came
Mr. Snow, walking swiftly across the grass, apparently as frantic for
Dinah as Dinah was for him. At the moment neither lunatic took notice
of the amused hostess.
"My Dinah! my own!" gasped Jerry, devouring his Dulcinea with two
ardent eyes, the light of which was hidden by pince-nez.
Jerry assuredly was no beauty, save that his proportions were good,
and he dressed very smartly. He possessed a brown skin which matched
well with brown hair and moustache, and had about him the freshness of
twenty-two years, which is so charming and lasts so short a time. Dinah
with her freckles, her drab hair, and nose "tip-tilted like the petal
of a flower"--to mercifully quote Tennyson--suited him very well in
looks. And then love made both of them look quite interesting, although
not even the all-transforming passion could render them anything but
homely. Beside the engaged damsel, Beatrice, tall, slender, dark-locked
and dark-eyed, looked like a goddess, but Jerry the devoted had no
eye for her while Dinah was present. Had he been Paris, Miss Paslow
decidedly would have been awarded the apple. Not having one, he stared
at Dinah and she at him as though they were meeting for the first time.
Beatrice, impatient of this oblivion to her presence, brought them from
Heaven to earth.
"I have to congratulate you, Mr. Snow," she remarked.
"Mr. Snow!" echoed Dinah, jumping up as though a wasp had stung her;
"you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Beatrice! Haven't you known Jerry
for--oh! for ever so long?
"For quite three years, dear; but, you see, I don't visit at the
Vicarage," and Beatrice spoke with some bitterness, as Jerry's mother
had always been unkind to the lonely girl, for reasons connected with
what Mrs. Snow regarded as her anomalous position.
Jerry coloured and blinked behind his glasses. "I know what you mean,
Miss Hedge," he said regretfully, "but don't worry. Call me Jerry as
usual; what does it matter what mother thinks?"
"Ah," said Dinah, quivering with alarm, "what does she think of us?"
"Well, she"--Jerry hesitated, and finally answered the question with a
solemn warning--"I don't think I'd call at the Vicarage for a few days,
Dinah sweetest. She--she--well, you know mother."
"Why does Mrs. Snow object?" asked Beatrice very directly.
"I know oh, none better!" almost shouted Dinah; "no money!"
Jerry nodded, with an admiring glance at her cleverness. "No money."
"I thought so; and Mrs. Snow wants you to marry a millionairess?"
Jerry nodded again. "As though a millionairess would look at the likes
of me!" said he, with the chuckle of a nestling.
"I wouldn't give even the plainest of them a chance!" cried Dinah
jealously; "you could marry anyone with the way you have, Jerry dear."
Miss Hedge laughed gaily. "Show me the way you have, Jerry dear!" she
mimicked, whereat the young lover blushed redder than the poppies.
"Oh, what rot! See here, girls both, we're all pals."
"Dinah is something more than a pal since yesterday," observed Beatrice
pointedly.
"Oh, you know what I mean. Well, then father is pleased and would marry
us himself, to save fees; but mother--oh, Lord!"
"Will she part us, Jerry?" demanded Dinah in a small voice.
Bashful as he was, Mr. Snow rose to the occasion, and taking her in his
strong arms kissed her twice.
"That's what I think!" said he, with the air of Ajax defying the
lightning. "We'll be cut off with a shilling by mother; but we shall
marry all the same, and live on the bread and cheese and kisses
provided by the Morning Planet."
"Thank you," said Miss Paslow tartly, "I provide my own kisses."
"No, darling heart!" gurgled the ardent Jerry, "I do that!" and was
about to repeat his conduct when the ceremony was interrupted.
From the dungeon came the sound of a shrill voice indulging in abusive
language. A few moments later and the narrow door was flung violently
open. Vivian Paslow came out quietly enough, and was followed by a
bent, dried-up ape of a man who was purple with fury. The contrast
between the money-lender and his client was most marked. Alpenny was
the missing link itself, and Vivian appeared beside him like one of a
higher and more human race. Without taking any notice of the furious
old creature, he walked towards the startled Beatrice and shook her by
the hand.
"Good-bye, Miss Hedge," he said loudly; then suddenly sank his voice to
a hurried whisper. "Meet me to-night at seven, under the Witches' Oak."
"Leave my place!" cried Alpenny, hobbling up, to interrupt this
leave-taking; "you shall not speak to her."
Paslow took his amazed sister on his arm and crossed to the gate, while
Jerry, blinking and puzzled, followed after. Beatrice, as startled by
Paslow's request as she was by the scene, remained where she was, and
her stepfather chased his three visitors into the lane with opprobrious
names. But before he could close the gate, Vivian turned suddenly on
the abusive old wretch.
"I came to do you a service," said he, "but you would not listen."
"You came to levy blackmail. You asked----"
"Silence!" cried Paslow, with a gesture which reduced Alpenny to a
stuttering, incoherent condition. "I never threatened you."
"You did--you do! You want your property back, and----"
Vivian, with a swift glance at Beatrice, silenced the man again. "If I
lose my property, I lose it," said he sternly; "but the other thing I
refuse to lose. And, remember, your life is in danger."
Alpenny spluttered. "My life, you--you scoundrel!"
"Father! Father!" pleaded Beatrice, approaching anxiously.
Paslow took no notice, but still looked at the angry old man with a
firm and significant expression. "Remember the Black Patch," said he
in a clear, loud voice. The effect was instantaneous. Alpenny, from
purple, turned perfectly white; from swearing volubility, he was
reduced to a frightened silence.
Beatrice looked at him in amazement, and so--strange to say--did
Vivian, who had spoken the mysterious words. For a moment he stared at
the shaking, pale-faced miser, who was casting terrified looks over his
shoulder, and then went out of the gate. Alpenny stood as though turned
into stone until he heard the clatter of the retreating horses. Then he
raised his head and looked wildly round.
"The third time!" he muttered; and Beatrice was sufficiently near to
notice his abject fear. "The third time!"