"Now then, old josser, where are you coming to? have you bought the
whole room or only half, eh?"
The time was the middle of the morning, the place the saloon bar of the
Golden Crown in Bassingham, and the speaker Bob Calmour, who had been
indulging in more John Walker than was good for him, incidentally at the
expense of an opportune friend. The man thus unceremoniously
expostulated with was a tallish man with a weather-beaten face and a
white beard, who had committed the grave indiscretion of being there
what time the unsteady Bob had lurched backward, thus cannoning against
him. We have seen him twice before for a short space--once at Hilversea
Court and once in Hilversea park.
"See here, young man," was the answer, drily given, "I think it's time
you went home."
"See here, old cock, when I want to know what you _think_ I'll ask; till
then I'll trouble you to keep it to yourself."
And the tone was particularly aggressive and insulting.
"If you don't keep a civil tongue in your head I shall be under the
necessity of starting you on the first homeward stage by firing you into
the street," said the stranger with the most provoking tranquillity.
That white beard proved Bob's undoing. He associated it with age, and
age with decrepitude.
"Will you?" he yelped. "You couldn't do it--no, nor three of you."
"Not, eh?" said the stranger; and then Bob Calmour hardly knew what had
happened, except that some irresistible force had got him by the scruff
of the neck and was propelling him rapidly towards the swing doors. The
latter swung, and Bob shot down the steps outside, and would have fallen
bang on his nose but that he cannoned into a passing stranger just in
time.
"Here! Hi! Hold up! Why the devil don't you look where you're going,
you silly young ass!" cried the latter angrily as he collared him. All
the swagger and bounce had evaporated from the luckless Bob. The
whimpered apology died away into a sort of yelp of terror, and his pasty
face went ashy white as he realised that he had run bang into no less
formidable a person than Haldane. And in the hand of the latter was a
riding-crop. Visions of the ghastly thrashing he had deserved at that
individual's hands, and would certainly receive, finished him off, and
he dropped limply on to the pavement in a sitting posture, half
fainting.
"Awfully sorry, sir," he was just able to whine; "but I've been
violently assaulted by a ruffian in there, and--er--couldn't see where
I--I--was going."
Haldane looked at him with a sort of good-natured contempt, seeing
before him just an ordinary raffish young pup who had probably got
quarrelsome in his cups and come off worst.
"Well, you'd better go away home," he said shortly, and passed on,
leaving the unspeakable Bob to pick himself up with feelings akin to
those of a criminal reprieved on the very drop itself, then as one
condemned afresh as he saw Wagram cross the road and join Haldane. The
two stood talking together, then, turning, they looked at him. Of
course, Wagram was giving him away, decided the terror-stricken Bob,
whose every instinct now was flight--headlong flight; wherefore, having
shuffled rapidly round a friendly corner, he sprinted for cover all he
knew, nor stopped till he found himself, panting, within the--for once
welcome because protective--offices of Pownall and Skreet. Nor did he
more than half hear the acrid jobation to which Pownall, who had seen
him arrive, treated him by reason of having taken so long about the
business upon which he had been sent out.
Here again came in the strange, mysterious workings of Fate--or
Providence. Had the African adventurer been a little more roused to ire
it is conceivable that, not content with throwing the offensive Bob into
the street, he might even have kicked him along a section of the same,
which, of course, would have befallen exactly what time Haldane was
passing. In which event the whole course of this history might have
been changed; in fact, we will go as far as to say that it certainly
would have been. And it has been recorded that Haldane seldom came to
Bassingham.
"Hope I haven't been the means of spoiling custom," said Develin Hunt
pleasantly as he returned to where he had been standing, "because, if
so, I hope that all here will put a name to theirs and join me by doing
something to make up for it."
"Oh, that's all right, Mr Hunt," said the landlord, who, attracted by
the scuffle, short as it was, had come in. "Not much `custom' about
that young waster."
"Who is he?"
"Young Calmour, a clerk at Pownall and Skreet's. I only wonder they
haven't given him the sack long ago."
"I must say he brought it upon himself," said the man who had been
"standing" him. "Bob can be pretty abusive when he's got anything on
board. Mine? Oh, thanks; another Scotch, I think. Here's luck."
The landlord's answer had given Develin Hunt food for thought, not for
astonishment; he had seen too many queer phases of life to be astonished
at anything. So this egregious young pup stood in the relationship of
brother to the exceedingly pretty and even refined-looking girl he had
seen with Wagram and his party in Hilversea park some Sundays ago! It
seemed hardly credible, but then, as we have said, he was astonished at
nothing.
He had not spent all the intervening time in Bassingham, where at the
Golden Crown he was very popular, and instrumental in an increase of
custom; for he was open-handed in setting up "rounds," and could tell
strange, wild stories of strange, wild lands and stranger, wilder
people, and this led to an increasing roll up of the good citizens of
Bassingham of an evening. But he had not as yet made acquaintance with
old Calmour, for the very good reason that that worthy had transferred
his custom elsewhere, from motives that may be readily divined.
Now, although Haldane had not seen Develin Hunt the latter had seen
Haldane. It was a mere glimpse snatched between the swing doors as they
let out the obnoxious Bob; but in the school which had afforded the
African adventurer his life training a mere glimpse to him was as good
as half-an-hour's scrutiny to most men, and to this one and his plans it
now made all the difference in the world.
"Who was the man I shot that young pup against?" he said. "Tallish man,
sunburnt face, and riding-gaiters?"
"Squire Haldane, worse luck!" answered the landlord.
"Why `worse luck'?"
"He's a magistrate. He don't often show up in Bassingham, and now, when
he does, get's nearly knocked down by a chump fired out of my bar in the
middle of the morning. Maybe he'll have a word to say, when licensing
day comes round, that I keep my house rowdy."
"Shouldn't think he'd do that, Smith, he looks too much of a sportsman.
I'll bet drinks all round that man has been in countries where firing
anyone out doesn't constitute the liveliest side of a bar worry."
"I won't take you, then, because he has," replied Smith. "But what made
you think so?"
"Quite simple. He never got painted that colour by any sun that only
shone over the British Isles."
"Here, I say, sir, excuse me," struck in the young man who had brought
in Bob, "you're not Sherlock Holmes, are you?"
"No. Who's he?"
"Who's he? Never heard of Sherlock Holmes?"
"Now you're trying to get at me, young man. I suppose you're going to
answer he was a chap who'd forgotten that everybody's glass had been
empty too long. All right. Set 'em up again, Smith, for all hands."
There was a big laugh at this, and three persons started in to explain
at once.
"Come to think of it, I had heard of the party, but I'd forgotten," said
Hunt with his usual easy good humour. "But about this one, the one we
were talking about--where did you say he'd been, Smith?"
"Squire Haldane? Oh, everywhere. Mostly in South Africa, I believe.
He lives out Fulkston way--a goodish step from here."
Assimilating this piece of information, which, from the point of view of
his purposes, was satisfactory, the adventurer easily and imperceptibly
switched the conversation on to other matters, and shortly retired to
his own quarters.
He sat down to think. He had made an important discovery that day--
important to the last degree. Haldane in the neighbourhood, and a
resident at that! Heavens! what a near thing it had been that they had
not run right into each other! The adventurer's hard face grew quite
moist at the thought of it, and of what a volcano he had been sitting
over during his sojournings in Bassingham the last few weeks. This
discovery had clean altered his plans, and now in their altered stage he
must proceed to put them into operation without a moment of unnecessary
delay.
And yet throughout that day, until after dark, Develin Hunt never
ventured outside the doors of the Golden Crown.