Old Brown, who was one of the sunniest-natured of men, went gloomy when
the news of his old friend’s dreadful fall came to his ears. It does him
no more than justice to say that he mourned Bommaney senior infinitely
more than the money. He liked to trust people, and had all his life long
been eager to find excuses for defaulters. He could find no excuse here.
The theft was barefaced, insolent, dastardly. He puzzled over it, and
grew more cynical and bitter in his thoughts of the world at large than
he could have imagined himself. But then, when Bommaney junior came
home, and insisted on the restoration of the missing eight thousand from
his own small fortune, old Brown brightened up again. There was such
a thing as honesty in the world, after all. The restoration warmed
his heart anew. At first he fought against it, and would have none
of it--the mere candid and honest offer of it was enough for him; but
Philip was more resolute than himself, and the stronger man won. Phil
should never have cause to repent his goodness, the old fellow declared
to himself a thousand times. He should reap the proper reward of his own
honour. Brown admired and loved Phil out of bounds for this little bit
of natural honesty and justice. He thought there had never been a finer
fellow in the world, and his heart warmed to him as if he had been a son
of his own. As for that rascal of a father--and when he got so far in
his thoughts he fumed so with wrath that he dared go no farther, and was
compelled, for the sake of his own peace, to banish the friend of his
schooldays from his mind a thousand times a week.
It was about a year later than the disgrace of the house of Bommaney
that old Brown, to his daughter’s perplexity and grief, began to show
signs of trouble almost as marked as those he had displayed after his
old friend’s defection. The old boy’s newspaper no longer interested him
of a morning. He began to be lax about that morning ride which he had
once regarded as being absolutely necessary to the preservation of
health in London. He had been impassioned with the theatre, and had
become a diligent attendant at first-night performances. Even these
ceased to have any joy for him, and he neglected, in fine, all his old
sources of amusement He went about sorrowful and grumpy, expressing the
dolefullest opinions about everything. There was going to be war, stocks
were going down, trade was crumbling, there was no virtue in man.
Patty tried her best to coax him from these pessimistic moods, but
the old boy was not to be persuaded. On fine evenings, when there was
nothing better to be done, he had loved greatly, between the quiet
old-fashioned tea and the quiet old-fashioned supper, to dress for out
of doors, and with Patty on his arm to wander into Regent’s Park, and
there inhale the best imitation of country atmosphere that London could
afford. He dropped this amiable and affectionate habit, and took to
rambling out alone, coming home late, and haggard, and not infrequently,
at such times, staring at his daughter with an aspect so sorrowing and
wretched that she knew not what to make of him.
The girl, watching him with a constantly increasing solicitude, could at
last endure this condition of affairs no longer. He came home one night,
leaving neither his stick nor hat in the outer hall, and sat down in the
dining-room, muffled and great-coated, the picture of dejection. Patty,
kneeling before him, removed his hat, smoothed his hair, and began to
unbutton his overcoat.
‘Papa!’ she cried suddenly, ‘what _is_ the matter with you? Why are you
so changed?’
He breathed a great sigh, and laid his hand upon her head. Then he
turned his face away from her--to hide his eyes, she fancied.
‘You are in trouble,’ she went on. ‘It is not kind to keep it from me.
Is it anything that I have done, or anything I could do.’
‘No, no, my darling,’ he said softly, laying his hand upon her head
again.
‘Is it money, dear?’
‘No, no. It isn’t money. Don’t talk about it, my dear. Don’t talk about
it.’
‘Now, papa, you make me think it very grave indeed.’
‘There,’ he said, rising, ‘you shan’t see any more of it, and we’ll say
no more about it Well be gay and bright again, and well hope that things
will turn out for the best.’
The attempt to be gay and bright again resulted in most mournful
failure, and the girl grew frightened. She had nursed her fears for many
days, and had hidden them.
‘Papa!’ she said, trembling ever so little, ‘you must let me know what
it is. Let us bear it together, dear. Whatever it may be it can’t matter
very much if it leaves us two together--and----’
‘Ah! ‘said old Brown, looking at her with a pitying smile.
‘Is it anything----?’ She stopped short, and really found no courage to
complete the question.
‘My darling,’ he answered, folding her in his arms, and staring sadly
over her shoulder. She felt the hands that embraced her quiver, and she
knew he had understood her half-expressed query. This frightened her so
much that it gave her boldness.
‘There is something the matter with Phil,’ she said, pushing the old man
away, and holding him at arm’s length. ‘Tell me what it is.’
‘My dear,’ he answered, ‘you shouldn’t leap at conclusions in that way.’
But the disclaimer was altogether too feeble to deceive her. Philip
was the mysterious cause of her father’s trouble. Her wandering, pained
eyes, her parted lips, the terror and inquiry in her face, frightened
the old man. ‘No, no,’ he cried, ‘you must not think it too bad. I’m not
sure of anything. I don’t suppose it’s at all a matter of consequence. I
daresay he’s an old fool. I hope I am.’
These hints and innuendoes were about the last thing in the world to
satisfy a girl who had been made anxious about her lover.
‘Tell me,’ she commanded. ‘I have a right to know. What has happened?’
She was no more inclined to be jealous than girls who are in love
commonly are. She had, indeed, a native fund of confidence, and her
trust in Phil’s loyalty had been of the unquestioning sort, quite
profound and settled. Yet for a moment there rose before her mental
vision the dim picture of some possible rival, and at the mere hint of
this she grew ashamed, and flamed into indignation against herself.
‘Tell me,’ she said; ‘I insist on knowing.’
‘Well, my dear,’ said the old man miserably and reluctantly, I’ve been
told that his father hastened his own ruin with dice and cards.’ It
was the first time he had mentioned Bommaney senior in his daughter’s
hearing for a year. She looked at him with eyes still intent, but
somehow milder and less alarmed. ‘Phil,’ the old boy continued, ‘I’m
afraid that Phil is travelling in his father’s steps.’
‘Phil a gambler!’ she said, with an honest scorn of conviction. ‘I know
better. What makes you think it?’
‘There are a lot of beastly clubs at the West End,’ said the old man,
beginning to struggle with his overcoat, partly because he wished to
avoid the girl’s look, and partly because the motion was a relief
to him. ‘Gambling-places. Places where men meet for no other earthly
purpose than to cheat one another. I’m as fond of a rubber at whist as
anybody; but no honest man would put his head into one of those holes of
infamy if he knew its character.’
‘Are you speaking of Phil, papa?’ she asked. Her voice was low and
tremulous, and there was almost a note of threatening in it. The
gentlest creature will fight for her own--a fact for which some of us
have reason to be grateful.
‘Yes, my dear,’ her father answered with a kind of sullen sadness; ‘I’m
talking about Phil. He’s a member of the vilest crowd of the whole
lot, and he’s there night after night.’ He dashed his overcoat into an
arm-chair with despairing anger, and went marching up and down the room.
‘I saw him one night by accident as he was going in. I knew the place.
You might have knocked me down with a feather. I’ve watched him there
night after night. Don’t tell me I hadn’t the right to watch him. I had
the right My little girl shan’t marry a gambler. I won’t have my fortune
wasted by a gambler, and my child’s heart broken. I took a room,’ he
pursued wrathfully, ‘opposite the place. I’ve sat there in the dark with
the window open, and caught the d---- worst cold I ever had in my life
watching for him. I’ve seen him go in again and again. He’s a lost man,
I tell you,’ he cried in answer to his daughter’s look and gesture; ‘the
man who has that vice in his blood is lost!’
He was storming loudly, for he was one of those in whom emotion must
have expression in noise, but a sudden loud peal at the bell cut short
his harangue, and he and Patty stood in silence to know who it might be
who called so late. As it happened, it was no other than the lost man
himself. He was shown in according to wont and usage without previous
announcement, and entered gay and smiling, elate and tender.
As he looked from one to the other the expression of his face changed.
He moved quickly towards Patty, and took her hands in his.
‘There’s something the matter,’ he said gently. ‘You’re in trouble!’
The old boy, glaring at him, growled, ‘We are,’ and snatching up his
overcoat, threw it over his arm, and slipped his hat upon his head with
a gesture which Philip took for one of defiance. As a matter of fact it
expressed no more than wrathful grief, but then gesture and expression
are hard to read unless you have the key to them.
‘We’d better have it out, Phil,’ said the old man, ‘here and now. You’ve
turned gambler, and I’ve found you out.’
‘No,’ Phil answered, with an odd smile; ‘I haven’t turned gambler, I
assure you. You’ve heard that I’ve joined the Pigeon Trap? That’s what
they call it in the City. I prefer to call it the Hawks’ Roost. There
are too few pigeons go there to be plucked to justify the other title,
and I give you my word of honour, Mr. Brown, that I’m not one of them.’
The young man’s air was candid and amused. There was an underlying
gravity beneath the smile, and for people who had believed in him as
devoutly as his two listeners it was hard to disbelieve him now.
‘You’ve gone into the infernal hole,’ said old Brown, more than half
abandoning suspicion, and yet inclined to leave it growlingly, as a dog
might surrender a bone he conceived himself to have a right to. ‘What do
you want there?’
‘I want to do a very important stroke of business there, sir,’ Philip
answered. The smile quite disappeared from his eyes at this moment, and
he looked very grimly resolute. ‘I will tell you this much,’ he added,
‘because you have a right to know it. I am in pursuit of a brace of
scoundrels there. I think I’ve salted the tail of one of ‘em already.
I believe with all my heart, sir, that I’m going to clear my father’s
character, and I would go into worse places than the Pigeon Trap if I
saw my way to doing that.’
Patty of course was clinging to him without disguise by this time,
anxious only to atone for having given an ear to any word against him,
even for a moment. Phil put his arm about her waist and kissed her. He
had never to his knowledge performed this act in the presence of a third
person until now, but he got through it without embarrassment.
‘You think you can clear your father’s character?’ asked his
sweetheart’s father. There was a tinge of scepticism in his voice,
though he tried to hide it.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Phil, his head thrown back a little, and his eyes
gleaming. Nobody had ever looked so handsome to Patty’s fancy as he did
at that moment ‘I know already that there was no real stain upon his
honour, and I’m surprised myself for thinking that there ever could have
been, bad as things looked. My father never took wrongful possession of
your money. He was robbed of it, and I think I can lay my hand upon the
thief.’
There was a prodigious excitement at this declaration, and the young man
was overwhelmed with questions. He could name no names, of course,
and give no clue, but he sketched the story. He contented himself by
describing young Barter as Thief Number One, and he was satisfied to
describe Steinberg as Probable Thief Number Two. He had learned, it
appeared, that Thief Number One had succeeded on his father’s death to
a carefully limited partnership in a business affair in the city. The
guiding spirit in the concerns of Thief Number One had been his father’s
managing clerk. The income of Thief Number One was strictly limited,
and his actual control over the affairs of the firm was non-existent.
Notwithstanding these facts, the young man was guilty of countless
extravagances, and was a reckless gambler. Within the last twelve months
he could hardly have paid away at the club less than a thousand pounds.
He had been extremely hard up before the loss of the money, and it was
in his offices that the roll of banknotes had been lost. As for Probable
Thief Number Two, he played rook to Number One’s pigeon. He had a
visible hold upon him; Number One trembled before him, and did what
he was bidden to do. Number Two had plenty of money, and as shady a
reputation as any man in London who was not among the known criminal
classes. Phil’s belief was that Number Two was disposing of the notes
for Number One, and that this simple fact accounted for his power over
him.
‘And I’m going to follow their track,’ said Phil, tapping the clenched
knuckles of his right hand upon the open palm of his left with a quiet
vehemence, ‘until I find out everything, if I follow it until I am
gray.’