THE HEAD WAITER
The letter despatched by Mr. Lane to his lieutenant was directed to
the Brinkstone Arms, Brinkstone, a small Sussex village about five
miles from the sea, which Sellars had made the starting-place of his
investigations.
He had chosen the place because he had learned that Brinkstone Park,
situated a mile and a half from the little village, was the ancestral
home of the Brookes family, of which Sir George was now the head.
Acting on the assumption that the baronet stood in the relation of
brother-in-law to Mrs. Morrice, he thought it probable that not only
would he pick up first-hand information about the man, but might glean
some equally valuable data with regard to the woman whose maiden name
had been the somewhat uncommon one of Larchester.
He had only been established in his quarters a few days, but during
that time fortune had favoured him, and he had picked up some very
useful facts concerning both the lady and gentleman. The Brinkstone
Arms, which was part public-house and part small hotel, was run by a
middle-aged couple who had purchased it a few years ago, and were not
likely to be deeply versed in local knowledge.
But attached to the hostelry was an ancient and very
respectable-looking servitor of the name of Dobbs, who was now verging
on his sixty-fifth year and had been associated with the place in
various capacities from the age of fifteen. Staying guests were few and
far between, but in the summer-time the pretty village of Brinkstone
was a great attraction to excursionists, and in the busy season
luncheons, teas and dinners were served in an attractive room which
had been added on to the old-fashioned main building. In this spacious
apartment Mr. Dobbs officiated as head-waiter, with a subordinate or
two in the strenuous months to assist him.
This genial person, with his highly respectable appearance, his neat
side-whiskers, was purely a local product. He had been born in the
village, as his mother and father were before him, the latter having
been an agricultural labourer, the former in domestic service, and
with the exception of two excursions to London and about a dozen to
Brighton and Eastbourne, he had never been farther than a few miles
from Brinkstone.
Mr. Sellars posed as a literary man in search of local colour. This was
not after all a very great exaggeration of the truth, as he did write
a good deal in a desultory fashion. He had a nice, clear, airy bedroom
which in summer would have been a delightful apartment, overlooking
as it did a beautiful expanse of country, and a small but comfortably
furnished sitting-room. In order to keep up his assumed character, he
religiously strewed the table at judicious intervals with sheets of MS.
which were in reality the opening chapters of a detective story with
which he occupied himself from time to time.
He took long walks, presumably in search of the local colour he
professed to be seeking. But of course the real object of his brief
sojourn in this picturesque but dull little village, was to extract all
the information he could from the pleasant-faced head-waiter with the
neat side-whiskers.
It was an easy task. Dobbs was a genial, garrulous sort of soul with
a great respect for all persons connected with the Arts. What he did
not know about the local gentry for several miles round was not worth
the knowing. Nearly sixty-five years of life had been passed in the
close neighbourhood of Brinkstone, and there was not a piece of local
gossip that was not firmly retained in his retentive memory. It was the
greatest bit of luck, thought Sellars, that he should have come across
the very man for his purpose, full of knowledge and ready to pour it
into the ears of a listening and appreciative guest. The long winter
evenings afforded an unrivalled opportunity. In this, the dull season,
Mr. Dobbs descended somewhat from his exalted position of head-waiter
and made himself generally useful in minor and less dignified posts.
Under pressure of business, he had been known to serve occasionally in
the general bar, for the contemptible failing of false pride had no
place in his honest and manly nature.
Sellars used to mix the old fellow a stiff tot of whisky which he
absorbed with the air of one fairly well acquainted with strong drink.
It refreshed his memory while not in the least clouding his faculties.
The young man heard many details of the various families in the
neighbourhood in whom he was not even slightly interested. Then he got
Dobbs on to the subject of Brinkstone Park and its owners by a casual
observation:—
“I know Sir George Clayton-Brookes a little in London,” he said
carelessly. “I understand he assumed the name of Clayton with some
property he inherited. It seems a very fine place from what I can see
of it from the outside. He doesn’t inhabit it now, they tell me; it’s
let on a long lease to a rich retired merchant. I suppose you know all
about the family?”
This set the talkative Dobbs off at full tilt; he indulged in a
reminiscent chuckle. Was there any family he did not know everything
about within a twenty-mile radius? And Brinkstone Park lay close to
his doors; you could see its chimneys from the hotel door across the
swelling upland.
“I knew the father, old Sir George, and his lady, and of course the
three boys; there were no girls. The old man was very popular and, at
one time, had plenty of money. It was a fine estate when he came into
it, for his father was as thrifty as the son was lavish. He harked back
to some of his forbears—raced, gambled and spent money like water. The
boys were all a wild lot, but they hadn’t their father’s good nature
or kind heart. There were three of ’em, Charles the eldest, George,
now the Baronet, and Archibald. Most people thought Charles was a bit
wanting in the upper storey. Archibald was the wildest and the maddest
of the lot; they had to pack him out of the country to Australia, where
he died. George was pretty wild too, but he wasn’t a fool; far and away
the cleverest of the three.”
Sellars of course drank in all this information with greedy ears; he
would be sure to learn something of importance if he listened long
enough. He encouraged the flow of reminiscence with appropriate and
judicious remarks, with the result that Dobbs launched forth into a
full and exhaustive history of the Brookes family.
Charles, who was suspected of not being quite right in the upper
storey, pre-deceased his father. Lady Brookes died a couple of years
later, her death having been hastened, according to general rumour,
by the recklessness of her husband, and the excesses of her children.
Archibald, a young man of a rather common type, a frequenter of the
Brinkstone Arms, a village Don Juan whose scandals affronted the
countryside, who was looked down upon by his equals in station, had
been sent out of the country in the hope that he might lead a new life
when removed from his evil associations. George by the death of the
eldest brother had become the heir to the title and estates.
Then came the death of old Sir George, as Dobbs called him to
differentiate him from the present Baronet. He left little behind him
save debts, and what had once been a fine property was found to be
mortgaged up to the hilt. There was very little left for his successor.
“For the last few years of the old man’s life, during which he was
compelled to live in a rather shabby sort of way on account of the
heavy interest on the mortgages, the present Sir George was very seldom
at the Park,” Dobbs explained. “He lived in London chiefly; I suppose
he had some small allowance from his father, but the general impression
was he lived on his wits. When affairs were gone into, he saw it was
impossible to take his rightful place. And I don’t suppose, if it had
been possible, he would have found it very pleasant. From being one
of the most highly respected families in the neighbourhood, they had
incurred the contempt and ill-will of their neighbours, and he had
always been unpopular from a boy. We heard very little of him here for
some years till the news came that he had inherited a fortune from a
distant relative, and added the name of Clayton to his own. I presume
he could have afforded to come back here, but I don’t expect he had
any fondness for the old place, and in my opinion, sir, it is better
without him. The present tenant is a liberal, open-handed gentleman
and does a lot of good round about.”
“He has a nephew in London, Archie Brookes, I presume a son of the man
who went to Australia. Do you know anything about him, Dobbs?” queried
the amateur investigator.
The respectable-looking waiter paused before replying, searching no
doubt in the caverns of his retentive memory. “No, sir, absolutely
nothing. I think there did come a report that Mr. Archibald married and
had children, or at any rate a child. But I cannot be positive. You
see, interest in them died out very quickly after the old man’s death,
and we are a very stay-at-home lot of folk about here, only odds and
ends of news, as it were, get to us at long intervals.”
This conversation took place about a couple of days before the arrival
of Lane’s letter, and Sellars was of course assuming the accuracy
of the history of the Australian brother as told him by his club
acquaintance, who was an intimate friend of Sir George. Old Dobbs was
not so sure of his facts as usual in this particular case, but he
thought news had reached him of Archibald’s marriage. As far as it went
it was a confirmation of what he had been told.
Having heard pretty well all there was to hear about the Brookes
family, Sellars was about to play his trump card on the garrulous
waiter, and inquire if he had ever known a Miss Lettice Larchester. But
a small incident frustrated him.
He noticed that Dobbs had been rather hurrying over his narrative for
the last few minutes, and had refused a second instalment of whisky
which the young man pressed upon him.
The reasons for his fidgetiness and indifference to alcohol were soon
explained. It happened to be Saturday night, and there was always a
brisk business doing at the end of the week in certain portions of
the house. The hotel proper, at this dead season of the year, had
practically no custom. With the exception of the “literary gentleman
in search of local colour,” who so ostentatiously left his manuscript
about for curious eyes to see, there was no resident.
It had occurred to this honest and faithful servant of the good old
school that he could render sorely needed help downstairs, and was
wasting his employer’s time in pleasant but profitless conversation
with this affable stranger.
“You will excuse me, sir, I am sure,” he said with a little cough of
embarrassment, “but Saturday night is a busy night with us, and we
are short-handed downstairs. Will you forgive me if I run away now,
thanking you very much for the whisky, sir,” he concluded with his
customary old-fashioned courtesy.
“Run away, Dobbs, by all means,” was the cheery answer. “Hope I haven’t
kept you too long, but knowing Sir George just a little, I was awfully
interested in all you told me.”
The old man bowed, and withdrew. After all, to-morrow would do as well
for Sellars to put his question. Mrs. Morrice had come from Sussex, and
instinct, coupled with the association of Sir George Brookes, told him
that he had fixed on just the right spot, and would be able to kill two
birds with one stone as soon as he got Dobbs again into a reminiscent
mood.
After the old waiter’s departure, Sellars set himself to weigh the
value of the information he had gleaned. Was it worth much? On the
death of the father, the son had succeeded to a barren inheritance;
he could not cut any dash on the revenue derived from this deeply
mortgaged estate. And yet, so long as Sellars had known him, he was
making a brave show. Well, of course that fortune left by a distant
relative accounted for this, if the tale of that fortune were true.
Who and what was this benevolent relation? That might be a subject for
further investigation. His club acquaintance might again prove useful.
Two days elapsed before he saw the communicative Dobbs again. The good
old fellow suffered from some internal trouble which laid him up now
and then, and he had one of these attacks late on the Saturday night.
By the time he was ready to resume his duties the letter from Lane had
arrived. Needless to say, Sellars was much surprised at the information
it contained, and also at his friend’s insight in having pounced
upon this particular portion of the story as requiring verification.
Sellars was pretty cute in his own way, but he had to admit that in the
qualities of imagination and intuition he had to give pride of place to
the older and more experienced man.
It opened out a new region of speculation. There could be assumed a
close connection between Mrs. Morrice and the elegant man-about-town,
from the fact that they were said to be related pretty closely by
marriage. But if this cable spoke the truth, that marriage was a myth
and had been invented by a pair of conspirators from some motive which
could not at present be defined. Truly, as Lane had remarked in the
closing passage of his brief note, there was a mystery in the Morrice
household which it was necessary to unravel in the course of their
general researches.
Mr. Dobbs looked a little pale and shaken by the suffering he had been
through, but he was as attentive and genial as usual, and he accepted
with alacrity the good dose of whisky which Sellars now always supplied
him with.
When he removed the last of the dinner-things and it was evident he was
quite ready for one of those long chats which had become a feature of
their relations, Sellars put his question carelessly as he always did,
not to excite the suspicion that he was not what he seemed, a literary
man come to this quiet spot just for a short visit.
“By the way, Dobbs, I wonder if you ever came across a Miss Larchester,
Lettice Larchester. I fancy she came from this part of the country. I
don’t know her exact age now, but I suppose she would be getting on for
fifty.”
Before he finished speaking, he knew by the gleam in the old waiter’s
still bright eyes that he was on the right track—his intuition that
in looking for Sir George Clayton-Brookes he would come on traces of
Lettice Larchester, was correct.
“I should think I did, sir, and a bonnier, handsomer young girl I never
came across. Of course, she never came here, but I got to know her a
bit by meeting her often in the village, and she always had a cheerful
‘Good-morning, Mr. Dobbs,’ and a bright smile for me. Her father we
often saw; he was one of our regular customers, a jolly, pleasant
fellow when all right, but apt to show a rather ugly temper in his
cups. And that I am sorry to say was very frequently.”
Mr. Dobbs lifted his tumbler to his lips with an expressive gesture and
took a deep draught. “Too fond of this, sir. Many a night he’s gone
home to that poor girl in a shocking state. I used to pity her from the
bottom of my heart. And no mother, sir; she died when her daughter was
born. Only them two, in that little cottage at the end of the village;
Vine Cottage, it is called; you may have noticed it in your walks.”
Yes, Sellars had noticed it; in taking up the investigating business he
had trained himself to very close habits of observation, of noting the
most trivial details.
He settled himself comfortably in his easy-chair and proceeded to fill
a large briar pipe.
“Fire away, Dobbs, and tell me all you know of this Miss Larchester.
It’s not Saturday night, you know, and we can’t do better than a yarn
and a drink.”
But before embarking on a fresh history which he was always pleased to
do, the man put a question himself with a rather deprecating air; for
he was a very delicate-minded old fellow, and although he was always
ready to satisfy the curiosity of other persons, he hated to appear
curious himself.
“Excuse me, sir, but do you know the lady now? I _should_ like to know
all is well with her. I was so afraid what her fate might be with that
careless father.”
Sellars explained glibly that she had married well and seemed quite
happy. Fortunately Dobbs was too well-mannered to ask for further
information, to inquire her name and station, for instance. But, if he
had, there is no doubt the young man would have proved himself equal
to the occasion. He certainly would not have let him know that Lettice
Larchester, the handsome daughter of an evidently disreputable father,
was the wife of a financier of great eminence.
Sellars took deep pulls at his pipe, as the old man proceeded with his
reminiscences. He felt very pleased with the turn things had taken.
Nobody had ever seemed to know anything about Mrs. Morrice except,
of course, Sir George, who kept that knowledge in his own breast,
imitating, in that respect, the reticence of the lady herself. Sellars
was now going to learn a good deal from the lips of this garrulous
waiter, with his old-world air and respectable side-whiskers.