WHAT HAPPENED AT WINDSOR.
“Yes,” repeated Richard Thornton, “I have reason to believe that
the will witnessed by your husband is a very unpleasant piece of
literature in the estimation of Launcelot Darrell, for I fancy that
it gives a death-blow to all his expectations, and leaves him without
even the meagre consolation of that solitary shilling which is usually
inherited by unhappy elder sons.”
“But tell me why you think this, Richard.”
“I will, my dear Mrs. Monckton. The story is rather a long one, but I
think I can tell it in a quarter of an hour. Can you dress for dinner
in the other quarter?”
“Oh, yes, yes!”
“What a nuisance civilization is, Nelly. We never dressed for dinner
in the Pilasters; indeed, the fashion amongst the leading families
in that locality leans rather the other way. The gentlemen in the
cab and chimney line generally take off their coats when the mid-day
meal is announced, in order to dine coolly and comfortably in their
shirt-sleeves.”
“Richard, Richard!” cried Eleanor, impatiently.
“Well, well, Mrs. Monckton, seriously, you shall have my Windsor
adventures. I hate this man, Launcelot Darrell, for I believe he is a
shallow, selfish, cold-hearted coxcomb; or else I don’t think I could
have brought myself to do what I’ve done to-day. I’ve been playing
the spy, Eleanor, for a couple of hours at least. The Duke of Otranto
used to find plenty of people for this kind of work—artists, actors,
actresses, priests, women, every creature whom you would least suspect
of baseness. But they manage these things better in France. We don’t
take to the business so readily upon this side of the water.”
“Richard!”
The girl’s impatience was almost uncontrollable. She watched the hands
of a little clock upon the chimney-piece: the firelight flashed every
now and then upon the dial, and then faded out, leaving it dark.
“I’m coming to the story, Nell, if you’ll only be patient,”
remonstrated Mr. Thornton. He was getting over that secret sorrow which
he had nursed for such a long time in the lowest depths of a most true
and faithful breast. He was growing reconciled to the Inevitable, as
we all must, sooner or later; and he had resumed that comfortable
brotherly familiarity which had been so long habitual to him in his
intercourse with Eleanor. “Only be patient, my dear, and let me tell
my story my own way,” he pleaded. “I left here early this morning in
your husband’s dog-cart, intending to drive over to Windsor and amuse
myself by exploring the town, and the castle, if possible, to see if
there was anything in my way to be picked up—donjon keeps, turret
staircases, secret corridors, and so on, you know. You remember what
sort of a morning it was, bleak and dismal enough, but until twelve
o’clock no rain. It was within a quarter of an hour of twelve when I
got into Windsor, and the rain was just beginning, spiteful drops of
rain and particles of sleet, that came down obliquely and cut into your
face like so many needlepoints. I stopped at an inn in a perpendicular
street below the castle, which looks as if it means to topple down
and annihilate that part of the town some of these days. I put up the
dog-cart, and asked a few questions about the possibility of getting
admission to the royal dwelling-place. Of course I was informed that
such admission was to-day utterly impracticable. I could have seen the
state apartments yesterday. I could see them, most likely, by the end
of next week; but I couldn’t see them when I wanted to see them. I
hinted that my chief desire was to see secret passages, donjon keeps,
moats, and sliding panels; but neither the landlord nor the waiter
seemed to understand me, and I sat down rather despondently by the
window of the tavern parlour to wait till the rain was over, and I
could go out and prowl upon the castle terrace to study wintry effects
in the park.”
“But Launcelot Darrell, Richard—where did you meet Launcelot Darrell?”
“I am coming to him presently. The perpendicular street wasn’t
particularly lively upon this wretched February day; so, as there
weren’t any passers-by to look at, I amused myself by looking at the
houses facing the inn. Immediately opposite to me there was a house
very superior to the others in style—a red brick house of the Georgian
era, modernized by plate-glass windows and green blinds—not a large
house, but eminently respectable. A dazzling brass plate adorned the
door, and upon this brass plate, which winked and twinkled in the very
face of the rain, I read the name of Mr. Henry Lawford, solicitor.”
“The lawyer whose clerk made Mr. de Crespigny’s will?”
“Precisely. Upon one side of the door there was a bell-handle inscribed
‘Visitors,’ on the other a duplicate handle inscribed ‘Office.’ I
hadn’t been looking at the house above five minutes, when a young man,
with a slender silk umbrella, struggling against the wind, rang the
office-bell.”
“The young man was Launcelot Darrell?” Eleanor cried, quickly.
“He was. The door was opened by a boy, of whom Mr. Darrell asked
several questions. Whatever the answers were, he walked away, and
the door was shut. But from his manner of strolling slowly along the
street, I was convinced that he was not going far, and that he meant
to come back. People don’t usually stroll in a sharp rain that comes
down obliquely and seems to drift in your face from every point of the
compass. He’ll come back presently, I thought; so I ordered a bottle of
pale ale, and I waited.”
“And he came back?”
“Yes, he came back in about half an hour; but, ten minutes or so
before he returned, I saw a shabby-genteel, elderly man let himself
in with a latch-key at a small green side door with ‘Clerks’ Office’
painted in white letters on the panel. I knew by the look of this man
that he must be a clerk. There’s a look about an attorney’s clerk that
you can’t mistake, even when he doesn’t carry a blue bag; and this man
did carry one. Ten minutes afterwards Launcelot Darrell returned. This
time he knocked with the handle of his umbrella at the green door,
which was opened by the boy, who went to fetch the elderly clerk.
This elderly clerk and Mr. Darrell stood on the door-step talking
confidentially for about five minutes, and then our friend the artist
went away: but this time again strolled slowly through the rain; as if
he had a certain interval to dispose of, and scarcely knew what to do
with himself.
“I suppose the amateur detective business fills a man’s mind with all
manner of suspicious fancies, Eleanor. However that may be, I could
not help thinking that there was something queer in these two visits
of Launcelot Darrell to the red brick house opposite me. What did he
want with a lawyer in the first place? and if he did want a lawyer, why
didn’t he go straight to Mr. Lawford, who was at home—for I could see
his head across the top of the wire blind in one of the plate-glass
windows as he bent over his desk—instead of tampering with small boys
and clerks? There was something mysterious in the manner of his hanging
about the place; and as I had been watching him wearily for a long time
without being able to find out anything mysterious in his conduct, I
determined to make the most of my chances and watch him to some purpose
to-day.
“‘He’ll come back,’ I thought, ‘unless I’m very much mistaken.’
“I was very much mistaken, for Launcelot Darrell did not come back; but
a few minutes after the clock struck one, the green door opened, and
the elderly clerk came out, without the blue bag this time, and walked
nimbly up the street in the direction that Launcelot Darrell had taken.
“‘He’s going to his dinner,’ I thought, ‘or he’s going to meet
Launcelot Darrell.’
“I put on my hat, and went out of the house. The clerk was toiling up
the perpendicular street a good way ahead of me, but I managed to keep
him in sight and to be close upon his heels when he turned the corner
into the street below the towers of the castle. He walked a little way
along this street, and then went into one of the principal hotels.
“‘Ah, my friend!’ I said to myself, ‘you don’t ordinarily take your
dinner at that house, I imagine. It’s a cut above your requirements, I
should think.’
“I went into the hotel, and made my way to the coffee-room. Mr.
Launcelot Darrell and the shabby-genteel clerk were sitting at a table,
drinking sherry and soda-water. The artist was talking to his companion
in a low voice, and very earnestly. It was not difficult to see that he
was trying to persuade the seedy clerk to something which the clerk’s
sense of caution revolted from. Both men looked up as I went into the
room, which they had had all to themselves until that moment; and
Launcelot Darrell flushed scarlet as he recognized me. It was evident,
therefore, that he did not care to be seen in the company of Mr.
Lawford’s clerk.
“‘Good morning, Mr. Darrell,’ I said; ‘I’ve come over to have a look
at the castle, but I find strangers are not admitted to-day, so I’m
obliged to content myself with walking about in the wet for an hour or
two.’
“Launcelot Darrell answered me in that patronizing manner which renders
him so delightful to the people he considers inferior to himself. He
had quite recovered from the confusion my sudden appearance had caused,
and muttered something about Mr. Lawford, the attorney, and ‘business.’
Then he sat biting his nails in an uncomfortable and restless manner,
while I drank another bottle of pale ale. That’s another objection to
the detective business; it involves such a lot of drinking.
“I left the hotel, and left Mr. Darrell and the clerk together; but
I didn’t go very far. I contrived somehow or other to be especially
interested in that part of the exterior of the castle visible from the
street in which the hotel is situated, and, in a manner, kept one eye
upon the stately towers of the royal residence, and the other upon
the doorway out of which Launcelot Darrell and Mr. Lawford’s clerk
must by-and-by emerge. In about half-an-hour I had the satisfaction of
seeing them appear, and contrived, most innocently, of course, to throw
myself exactly in their way at the corner of the perpendicular street.
“I was amply rewarded for any trouble I had taken; for I never saw a
face that so plainly expressed rage, mortification, disappointment,
almost despair, as did the face of Launcelot Darrell, when I came
against him at the street corner. He was as white as a sheet, and he
scowled at me savagely as he passed me by. Not as if he recognized me;
the fixed look in his face showed that his mind was too much absorbed
by one thought for any consciousness of exterior things; but as if
in his suppressed fury he was ready to go blindly against anybody or
anything that came in his way.”
“But why, Richard, why was he so angry?” cried Eleanor, with her hands
clenched and her nostrils quivering with the passage of her rapid
breath. “What does it all mean?”
“Unless I’m very much mistaken, Mrs. Monckton, it means that Launcelot
Darrell has been tampering with the clerk of the lawyer who drew up
Mr. de Crespigny’s last will, and that he now knows the worst——”
“And that is——”
“The plain fact, that unless that will is altered the brilliant Mr.
Darrell will not inherit a penny of his kinsman’s fortune.”
The second dinner-bell rang while Richard was speaking, and Eleanor
ran away to make some hurried change in her toilette, and to appear
in the drawing-room, agitated and ill at ease, ten minutes after Mr.
Monckton’s punctilious butler had made his formal announcement of the
principal meal of the day.