“Mr. Temple Barholm seems in better spirits,” Lady Mallowe said to
Captain Palliser as they walked on the terrace in the starlit dusk
after dinner.
Captain Palliser took his cigar from his mouth and looked at the
glowing end of it.
“He mayn’t exactly like all this, but he’s getting something out of it.”
“He is not getting much of what he evidently wants most. I am out of
all patience,” said Lady Mallowe. “Joan treads him in the mire and
sails about professing to be conducting herself flawlessly. She is too
clever for me,” she added with bitterness.
Palliser laughed softly and said:
“She has got something up her sleeve, and so has he.”
“He!” Lady Mallowe quite ejaculated the word. “She always has. That’s
her abominable secretive way. But he! T. Tembarom with something up his
sleeve! One can’t imagine it.”
“Almost everybody has. I found that out long years ago,” said Palliser,
looking at his cigar end again as if consulting it. “Since I arrived
at the conclusion, I always take it for granted, and look out for it.
I’ve become rather clever in following such things up, and I have taken
an unusual interest in T. Tembarom from the first.”
Lady Mallowe turned her handsome face, much softened by an enwreathing
gauze scarf, toward him anxiously.
“Do you think his depression, or whatever it is, means Joan?” she asked.
“If he is depressed by her, you need not be discouraged,” smiled
Palliser. “The time to lose hope would be when, despite her
ingenuities, he became entirely cheerful. But,” he added after a pause,
“I have an idea there is some other little thing.”
“Do you suppose that some young woman he has left behind in New York
is demanding her rights?” said Lady Mallowe, with annoyance. “That is
exactly the kind of thing Joan would like to hear, and so entirely
natural. Some shop-girl or other.”
“Quite natural, as you say; but he would scarcely be running up to
London and consulting Scotland Yard about her,” Palliser answered.
“Scotland Yard!” ejaculated his companion.
“Scotland Yard has also come to him,” he went on. “Did you chance to
see a red-faced person who spent a morning with him last week?”
“He looked like a butcher, and I thought he might be one of his
friends,” Lady Mallowe said.
“I recognized the man. He is an extremely clever detective, much
respected for his resources in the matter of following clues which are
so attenuated as to be scarcely clues at all.”
“Clues have no connection with Joan,” said Lady Mallowe, still more
annoyed. “All London knows her miserable story.”
“Have you--” Captain Palliser’s tone was thoughtful--“has any one ever
seen Strangeways?”
“No. Can you imagine anything more absurdly romantic? A creature
without a memory, shut up in a remote wing of a place like this, as if
he were the Man with the Iron Mask. Romance is not quite compatible
with T. Tembarom.”
“He leaves everything to one’s imagination,” remarked Palliser. “All
one knows is that he isn’t a relative; that he isn’t mad, but only
too nervous to see or be seen. Queer situation. I’ve found there is
always a reason for things; the queerer they are, the more sure it is
that there’s a reason. What is the reason Strangeways is kept here, and
where would a detective come in? Just on general principles I’m rather
going into the situation. There’s a reason, and it would be amusing to
find it out. Don’t you think so?”
[Illustration]
He spoke casually, and Lady Mallowe’s answer was casual, though she
knew from experience that he was not as casual as he chose to seem. He
was clever; and Temple Barholm as the estate of a distant relative and
T. Tembarom as its owner were not assets to deal with indifferently.
“It’s quite natural that you should feel an interest,” she answered.
“But the romantic stranger is too romantic, though I will own Scotland
Yard is a little odd.”
“Yes, that is exactly what I thought,” said Palliser.
He had in fact thought a good deal and followed the thing up a good
deal in a quiet amateur way, though with annoyingly little result.
Occasionally he had felt rather a fool for his pains, because he
had been led to so few facts of importance and had found himself
so often confronted by T. Tembarom’s entirely frank grin. His own
mental attitude was not a complex one. Lady Mallowe’s summing up
had been correct enough on the whole. Temple Barholm ought to be
a substantial asset, regarded in its connection with its present
owner. Little dealings in stocks--sometimes rather large ones when
luck was with him--had brought desirable returns to Captain Palliser
throughout a number of years. Just now he was taking an interest in
a somewhat imposing scheme, or what might prove an imposing one if
it were managed properly and presented to the right persons. If T.
Tembarom had been sufficiently lured by the spirit of speculation to
plunge into old Hutchinson’s affair, as he evidently had done, he
was plainly of the temperament attracted by the game of chance. There
had been no reason but that of temperament which could have led him
to invest. He had found himself suddenly a moneyed man and had liked
the game. Never having so much as heard of Little Ann Hutchinson,
Captain Palliser not unnaturally argued after this wise. There seemed
no valid reason why, if a vague invention had allured, a less vague
scheme, managed in a more businesslike manner, should not. This
Mexican silver-and-copper-mine was a dazzling thing to talk about.
He could go into details. He had, in fact, allowed a good deal of
detail to trail through his conversation at times. It had not been
difficult to accomplish this in his talks with Lady Mallowe in his
host’s presence. Lady Mallowe was always ready to talk of mines, gold,
silver, or copper. It happened at times that one could manage to
secure a few shares without the actual payment of money. There were
little hospitalities or social amiabilities now and then which might
be regarded as value received. So she had made it easy for Captain
Palliser to talk.
T. Tembarom had at the outset seemed to present, so to speak, no
surface. Palliser had soon ceased to be at all sure that his social
ambitions were to be relied on as a lever. Besides which, when the old
Duke of Stone took delighted possession of him, dined with him, drove
with him, sat and gossiped with him by the hour, there was not much one
could do for him. Strangeways had at first meant only eccentricity. The
veriest chance had led Palliser to find himself regarding the opening
up of possible vistas.
From a certain window in a certain wing of the house a much-praised
view was to be seen. Nothing was more natural than that on the occasion
of a curious sunset Palliser should, in coming from his room, decide to
take a look at it. As he passed through a corridor Pearson came out of
a room near him.
“How is Mr. Strangeways to-day?” Palliser asked.
“Not quite so well, I am afraid, sir,” was the answer.
“Sorry to hear it,” replied Palliser, and passed on.
When returning, he walked somewhat slowly down the corridor. As he
turned into it he thought he heard the murmur of voices. One was that
of T. Tembarom, and he was evidently using argument. It sounded as if
he were persuading some one to agree with him, and the persuasion was
earnest. He was not arguing with Pearson or a housemaid. Why was he
arguing with his pensioner? His voice was as low as it was eager, and
the other man’s replies were not to be heard. Only just after Palliser
had passed the door there broke out an appeal which was a sort of cry.
“No! My God, no! Don’t send me away! Don’t send me away!”
One could not, even if so inclined, stand and listen near a door while
servants might chance to be wandering about. Palliser went on his way
with a sense of having been slightly startled.
“He wants to get rid of him, and the fellow is giving him trouble,” he
said to himself. “That voice is not American. Not in the least.” It set
him thinking and observing. When Tembarom wore the look which was not a
look of depression, but of something more puzzling, he thought that he
could guess at its reason. By the time he talked with Lady Mallowe he
had gone much further than he chose to let her know.