That evening, when John Manton stepped off the boat at Lymington, a
heavy summer rain was falling. In the town itself the streets appeared
to be deserted, and it was some minutes before he encountered a workman
hurrying home, with upturned collar. He inquired the way to Sade Road,
and five minutes later came upon a row of small workmen's cottages with
little gardens in front. Counting the houses until he came to number
fifteen, he entered the garden gate, and, striking a match, discovered
that he had halted at the right address. A woman came to the door in
answer to his knock, and stood in the dark, looking out at him, opening
the door only a few cautious inches.
"What do you want?"
Manton, with collar turned up and hat drawn over his brows, answered
that he brought a letter for Lieutenant Treves.
"You'd better go up to him, then," said the woman, drawing open the
door. "It's the front room at the top of the stairs."
There was a candle at the stair-head, and Manton passed her, ascended
the single flight of steps and halted at the door. The smallness of the
house, the shabbiness of the woman who had admitted him, depressed his
spirits. He liked Captain Gilbert, with his sleek and buoyant
confidence. This plan of his suddenly struck Manton as the wildest
piece of quixotism.
He lifted his hand and knocked quietly upon the door. A voice from
within instantly invited him to enter. A moment later he stood in a
small lamp-lit bedroom. The room was littered with trunks, suit-cases,
boxes and a general confusion of other articles. The close air reeked
with the smell of Turkish cigarettes, and at a table near the window,
with a lamp before him, sat a young man, busily occupied scribbling
figures on a sheet of paper.
Bernard Treves, whose back was towards the door, wore mufti, and Manton,
in the moment of entering, noticed that he was well dressed and that his
hair was smooth and dark.
"If that's my supper, Mrs. Dodge," said Treves, "put it on the bed." He
spoke without looking round, took a drink of whisky from a glass at his
side, then went on with his figures.
Manton, standing near the door, coughed to attract his attention.
"Hallo!" exclaimed Treves, and turned swiftly. In an instant at sight
of Manton his expression changed. He sprang to his feet in what appeared
to be a state of terror, and stood staring at his visitor without
uttering a word. With brows drawn together, he passed a hand over his
eyes, then he turned, and, lifting his lamp from the table, held it
aloft.
"Who are you?" he demanded savagely, "and what the devil do you want?"
John Manton took the letter from his pocket.
"I have come with a letter from your friend, Captain Gilbert," he
answered quietly.
With his eyes still fixed on Manton, Treves lowered the lamp and
replaced it on the table.
"A letter," he repeated, "from Gilbert? Give it to me." He held out
his hand. "God!" he exclaimed, as he snatched the envelope, "coming in
like that, you gave me a devil of a start. I thought that I was looking
into my own face! Come nearer; come into the light."
Manton advanced farther into the room.
"I suppose these figures I've been poring over," went on Treves, "have
made my eyes a bit wrong, but I've never seen anything like it." His
nerve was gradually returning, and his astonishment was turning to
amusement at the intensity of the resemblance between them.
"Look into the mirror there," he said. "Don't you think the likeness is
amazing?"
Manton looked into the mirror, and then again at the young man, who had
replaced the lamp on the table, and was tearing open Gilbert's envelope.
As he scrutinised Treves's face and figure he, too, was astonished. He
began to understand now something of Captain Gilbert's strange behaviour
of the day before. But Manton had never been occupied over much with
his own appearance; he took himself for granted, and after the first
momentary flash of curiosity he thought no more of the resemblance.
Besides, there was, after all, a difference. Treves wore a black
moustache; his complexion was flushed, whereas Manton, as a result of
gas poisoning at the Front, was still pale. Treves's eyes, moreover,
were evasive and furtive in expression. Nevertheless, it would have been
difficult to tell the two men apart.
"Sit down, Sergeant," Treves said. "Help yourself to a drink." He
waved towards the whisky bottle and a siphon on the table. Upon Manton
refusing the drink, Treves pushed towards him a box of cigarettes. Then
read Captain Gilbert's missive through a second and a third time, and
seemed to be considering it deeply with brows drawn together. "Do you
know what is in this letter?" he questioned at last.
"No."
"Captain Gilbert told you nothing?"
"Nothing whatever, beyond saying that you might be willing to make some
sort of offer."
"Well, he makes an extraordinary suggestion," went on Treves, leaning
back in his chair. "It's all brought about by your resemblance to me."
His eyes sought the letter again. "He tells me you are a public school
boy and all that, and gives me here an outline of your little trouble at
Scarthoe Head. Well, for certain reasons known to himself and to me, he
thinks you may be able to make yourself useful to me. That is," he
added, "if you are willing to undertake a somewhat delicate piece of
work."
Manton looked inquiringly at Treves; he was not sure of the young man.
"Perhaps you will let me know the nature of the work."
"The fact of the matter is, Manton," Treves resumed, dropping his voice
confidentially, "I am in want of help. Owing to certain peculiar
circumstances, I want somebody to make use of my name and my personality
for a short time."
He took up his whisky and Manton observed an almost imperceptible tremor
of his fingers as they closed about the glass.
"Now, your extraordinary likeness to me, and the fact that you are in
need of cash--well, do you see the point?"
"I'm afraid not," remarked Manton quietly.
Treves made a gesture of impatience.
"It's pretty plain, I should think. You need cash, I need some one to
step into my shoes; somebody who must take the name of Bernard Treves.
Now, do you understand?"
"Your suggestion is that I should pass myself off as you?"
"That's it exactly!"
His visitor stared at him in amazement.
"But I don't see," said he, "any advantage in that for either of us."
"Perhaps not. How much money are you in need of?" Treves inquired
pointedly.
"Nearly one hundred and fifty pounds."
Treves whistled.
"Lot of money," he said.
John Manton agreed with him, and for a space there was silence. John's
hopes that had risen fell to zero.
Then Treves poured himself another glass of whisky, and drank it down.
He wiped his lips with a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.
"All right," he said at length; "carry out my wishes and you shall have
it."
"Then you are serious?"
"I was never more serious in my life. You are to take everything that
is mine, and in return you shall have the money you need."
A vague doubt stirred in Manton's mind; then he thought of Gilbert. The
Captain was most obviously a man of honour.
"If I accept, can I still enlist?"
"Enlist by all means."
"It seems to me to be an easy way of earning the money, but what about
your rank in the army?"
Treves flashed a suspicious glance at him; there was a questioning
expression in his eyes.
"If you accept my offer we can go into details later, and as regards my
rank, I--I happen to be leaving the army."
"In that case," said Manton, "I am much obliged to you; the money will
be a great boon to me."
"You accept?"
"Like a bird!" smiled Manton. "But there is one thing I would like to
ask."
"Well?"
"The terms are generous enough," he said, "but what is to happen to my
name; is that to disappear too?"
Bernard Treves lit a cigarette, and looked at him with the expression of
one from whose mind has been lifted a heavy burden. He made an
expressive gesture with his hand.
"For the time being," he answered, "the name of Sergeant Manton will
vanish into thin air."