Babbacombe's guests departed upon the following day. Cynthia was among
the first to leave. With a flushed face and sparkling eyes she made her
farewells, and even Babbacombe, closely as he observed her, detected no
hint of strain in her demeanour.
Returning from the station in the afternoon after speeding some of his
guests, he dropped into the local bank to change a cheque. The manager,
with whom he was intimate, chanced to be present, and led him off to his
own room.
"By the way," he said, "we were just going to send you notice of an
overdraft. That last big cheque of yours has left you a deficit."
Babbacombe stared at him. He had barely a fortnight before deposited a
large sum of money at the bank, and he had not written any large cheque
since.
"I don't understand," he said. "What cheque?"
The manager looked at him sharply.
"Why, the cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds, which your agent
presented yesterday," he said. "It bore your signature and was dated the
previous day. You wrote it, I suppose?"
Babbacombe was still staring blankly, but at the sudden question he
pulled himself together.
"Oh, that! Yes, to be sure. Careless of me. I gave him a blank cheque
for the Millsand estate expenses some weeks ago. It must have been
that."
But though he spoke with a smiling face, his heart had gone suddenly
cold with doubt. He knew full well that the expenses of which he spoke
had been paid by West long before.
He refused to linger, and went out again after a few commonplaces,
feeling as if he had been struck a stunning blow between the eyes.
Driving swiftly back through the park, he recovered somewhat from the
shock. There must be--surely there would be!--some explanation.
Reaching West's abode he stopped the motor and descended. West was not
in and he decided to wait for him, chafing at the delay.
Standing at the window, he presently saw the man coming up the path. He
moved slowly, with a certain heaviness, as though weary.
As he opened the outer door, Babbacombe opened the inner and met him in
the hall.
"I dropped in to have a word with you," he said.
West paused momentarily before shutting the door. His face was in
shadow.
"I thought so," he said. "I saw the motor."
Babbacombe turned back into the room. He was grappling with the hardest
task he had ever had to tackle. West followed him in absolute silence.
With an immense effort, Babbacombe spoke:
"I was at the bank just now. I went to get some cash. I was told that my
account was overdrawn. I can't understand it. There seems to have been
some mistake."
He paused, but West said nothing whatever. The light was beginning to
fail, but his expressionless face was clearly visible. It held neither
curiosity nor dismay.
"I was told," Babbacombe said again, "that you cashed a cheque of mine
yesterday for two hundred and fifty pounds. Is that so?"
"It is," said West curtly.
"And yet," Babbacombe proceeded, "I understood from you that the
Millsand estate business was settled long ago."
"It was," said West.
"Then this cheque--this cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds--where
did it come from, West?" There was a note of entreaty in Babbacombe's
voice.
West jerked up his head at the sound. It was a gesture openly
contemptuous. "Can't you guess?" he said.
Babbacombe stiffened at the callous question. "You refuse to answer me?"
he asked.
"That is my answer," said West.
"I am to understand then that you have robbed me--that you have forged
my signature to do so--that you--great heavens, man"--Babbacombe's
amazement burst forth irresistibly--"it's incredible! Are you mad, I
wonder? You can't have done it in your sober senses. You would never
have been so outrageously clumsy."
West shrugged his shoulders.
"I am quite sane--only a little out of practice."
His words were like a shower of icy water. Babbacombe contracted
instantly.
"You wish me to believe that you did this thing in cold blood--that you
deliberately meant to do it?"
"Certainly I meant to do it," said West.
"Why?" said Babbacombe.
Again he gave the non-committal shrug, no more. There was almost a
fiendish look in his eyes, as if somewhere in his soul a demon leaped
and jeered.
"Tell me why," Babbacombe persisted.
"Why should I tell you?" said West.
Babbacombe hesitated for an instant; then gravely, kindly, he made
reply:
"For the sake of the friendship that has been between us. I had not the
faintest idea that you were in need of money. Why couldn't you tell me?"
West made a restless movement. For the first time his hard stare shifted
from Babbacombe's face.
"Why go into these details?" he questioned harshly. "I warned you at the
outset what to expect. I am a swindler to the backbone. The sooner you
bundle me back to where I came from, the better. I sha'n't run away this
time."
"I shall not prosecute," Babbacombe said.
"You will not!" West blazed into sudden ferocity. He had the look of a
wild animal at bay. "You are to prosecute!" he exclaimed violently. "Do
you hear? I won't have any more of your damned charity! I'll go down
into my own limbo and stay there, without let or hindrance from you or
any other man. If you are fool enough to offer me another chance, as you
call it, I am not fool enough to take it. The only thing I'll take from
you is justice. Understand?"
"You wish me to prosecute?" Babbacombe said.
"I do!"
The words came with passionate force. West stood in almost a threatening
attitude. His eyes shone in the gathering dusk like the eyes of a
crouching beast--a beast that has been sorely wounded, but that will
fight to the last.
The man's whole demeanour puzzled Babbacombe--his total lack of shame or
penitence, his savagery of resentment. There was something behind it
all--something he could not fathom, that baffled him, however he sought
to approach it. In days gone by he had wondered if the fellow had a
heart. That wonder was still in his mind. He himself had utterly failed
to reach it if it existed. And Cynthia--even Cynthia--had failed. Yet,
somehow, vaguely, he had a feeling that neither he nor Cynthia had
understood.
"I don't know what to say to you, West," he said at length.
"Why say anything?" said West.
"Because," Babbacombe said slowly, "I don't believe--I can't
believe--that simply for the sake of a paltry sum like that you would
have risked so much. You could have swindled me in a thousand ways
before now, and done it easily, too, with small chance of being found
out. But this--this was bound to be discovered sooner or later. You must
have known that. Then why, why in heaven's name did you do it? Apart
from every other consideration, it was so infernally foolish. It wasn't
like you to do a thing like that." He paused, then suddenly clapped an
urgent hand upon the swindler's shoulder. "West," he said, "I'll swear
that you never played this game with me for your own advantage. Tell the
truth, man! Be honest with me in heaven's name! Give me the chance of
judging you fairly! It isn't much to ask."
West drew back sharply.
"Why should I be honest with you?" he demanded. "You have never been
honest with me from the very outset. I owe you nothing in that line, at
all events."
He spoke passionately still, yet not wholly without restraint. He was as
a man fighting desperate odds, and guarding some precious possession
while he fought. But these words of his were something of a revelation
to Babbacombe. He changed his ground to pursue it.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You know very well!" West flung the words from between set teeth, and
with them he abruptly turned his back upon Babbacombe, lodging his arms
upon the mantelpiece. "I am not going into details on that point or any
other. But the fact is there, and you know it. You have never been
absolutely straight in your dealings with me. I knew you weren't. I
always knew it. But how crooked you were I did not know till lately. If
you had been any other man, I believe I should have given you a broken
head for your pains. But you are so damnably courteous, as well as such
an unutterable fool!" He broke off with a hard laugh and a savage kick
at the coals in front of him. "I couldn't see myself doing it," he said,
"humbug as you are."
"And so you took this method of making me suffer?" Babbacombe suggested,
his voice very quiet and even.
"You may say so if it satisfies you," said West, without turning.
"It does not satisfy me!" There was a note of sternness in the steady
rejoinder. "It satisfies me so little that I insist upon an explanation.
Turn round and tell me what you mean."
But West stood motionless and silent, as though hewn in granite.
Babbacombe waited with that in his face which very few had ever seen
there. At last, as West remained stubborn, he spoke again:
"I suppose you have found out my original reason for giving you a fresh
start in life, and you resent my having kept it a secret."
"I resent the reason." West tossed the words over his shoulder as though
he uttered them against his will.
"Are you sure even now that you know what that reason was?" Babbacombe
asked.
"I am sure of one thing!" West spoke quickly, vehemently, as a man
shaken by some inner storm. "Had I been in your place--had the woman I
wanted to marry asked me to bring back into her life some worthless
scamp to whom she had taken a sentimental fancy when she was scarcely
out of the schoolroom, I'd have seen him damned first, and myself
too--had I been in your place. I would have refused pointblank, even if
it had meant the end of everything."
"I believe you would," Babbacombe said. The sternness had gone out of
his voice, and a certain weariness had taken its place. "But you haven't
quite hit the truth of the matter. Since you have guessed so much you
had better know the whole. I did not do this thing by request. I
undertook it voluntarily. If I had not done so, some other
means--possibly some less discreet means--would have been employed to
gain the same end."
"I see!" West's head was bent. He seemed to be closely examining the
marble on which his arms rested. "Well," he said abruptly, "you've told
me the truth. I will do the same to you. This business has got to end. I
have done my part towards bringing that about. And now you must do
yours. You will have to prosecute, whether you like it or not. It is the
only way."
"What?" Babbacombe said sharply.
West turned at last. The glare had gone out of his eyes--they were cold
and still as an Arctic sky.
"I think we understand one another," he said. "I see you don't like your
job. But you'll stick to it, for all that. There must be an end--a
painless end if possible, without regrets. She has got to realise that
I'm a swindler to the marrow of my bones, that I couldn't turn to and
lead a decent, honourable life--even for love of her."
The words fell grimly, but there was no mockery in the steely eyes, no
feeling of any sort. They looked full at Babbacombe with unflickering
steadiness, that was all.
Babbacombe listened in the silence of a great amazement. Vaguely he had
groped after the truth, but he had never even dimly imagined this. It
struck him dumb--this sudden glimpse of a man's heart which till that
moment had been so strenuously hidden from him.
"My dear fellow," he said at last; "but this is insanity!"
"Perhaps," West returned, unmoved. "They say every man has his mania.
This is mine, and it is a very harmless one. It won't hurt you to humour
it."
"But--good heavens!--have you thought of her?" Babbacombe exclaimed.
"I am thinking of her only," West answered quietly. "And I am asking you
to do the same, both now and after you have married her."
"And send you to perdition to secure her peace of mind? A thousand
times--no!" Babbacombe turned, and began to pace the room as though his
feelings were too much for him. But very soon he stopped in front of
West, and spoke with grave resolution. "Look here," he said, "I think
you know that her happiness is more to me than anything else in the
world, except my honour. To you it seems to be even more than that. And
now listen, for as man to man I tell you the truth. You hold her
happiness in the hollow of your hand!"
West's face remained as a mask; his eyes never varied.
"You can change all that," he said.
Babbacombe shook his head.
"I am not even sure that I shall try."
"What then?" said West. "Are you suggesting that the woman you love
should marry an ex-convict--a notorious swindler, a blackguard?"
"I think," Babbacombe answered firmly, "that she ought to be allowed to
decide that point."
"Allowed to ruin herself without interference," substituted West,
sneering faintly. "Well, I don't agree with you, and I shall never give
her the opportunity. You won't move me from that if you argue till
Doomsday. So, in heaven's name, take what the gods offer, and leave me
alone. Marry her. Give her all a good woman ever wants--a happy home, a
husband who worships her, and children for her to worship, and you will
soon find that I have dropped below the horizon."
He swung round again to the fire, and drove the poker hard into the
coals.
"And find another agent as soon as possible," he said; "a respectable
one this time, one who won't let you down when you are not looking, who
won't call you a fool when you make mistakes--in short, a gentleman.
There are plenty of them about. But they are not to be found in the
world's rubbish heap. There's nothing but filth and broken crockery
there."
He ended with his brief, cynical laugh, and Babbacombe knew that further
discussion would be vain. For good or ill the swindler had made his
decision, and he realised that no effort of his would alter it. To
attempt to do so would be to beat against a stone wall--a struggle in
which he might possibly hurt himself, but which would make no difference
whatever to the wall.
Reluctantly he abandoned the argument, and prepared to take his
departure.
But later, as he drove home, the man's words recurred to him and dwelt
long in his memory. Their bitterness seemed to cloak something upon
which no eye had ever looked--a regret unspeakable, a passionate
repentance that found no place.