In order to put the plain, unvarnished truth before you, I must, in the
first place, explain that I, Gilbert Greenwood, was a man of small
means, having been left an annuity by an ascetic Baptist, but somewhat
prosperous aunt, while Reginald Seton I had known ever since we had been
lads together at Charterhouse. The son of George Seton, a lace
warehouseman of Cannon Street and Alderman of the City of London, Reggie
had been left at twenty-five with a heavy burden of debt and an
old-fashioned, high-class but rapidly declining business. Still,
brought up to the lace trade in a factory at Nottingham, Reggie boldly
followed in his father's footsteps, and by dint of close attention to
business succeeding in rubbing along sufficiently well to avoid the
bankruptcy court, and to secure an income of a few hundreds a year.
Both of us were still bachelors, and we chummed in comfortable chambers
in a newly-constructed block of flats in Great Russell Street, while,
being also fond of fox-hunting, the only sport we could afford, we also
rented a cheap, old-fashioned house in a rural village called Helpstone,
eighty miles from London, in the Fitzwilliam country. Here we spent
each winter, usually being "out" two days a week.
Neither of us being well off, we had, as may be imagined, to practise a
good deal of economy, for fox-hunting is an expensive sport to the poor
man. Nevertheless, we were both fortunate in possessing a couple of
good horses apiece, and by dint of a little squeezing here and there,
were able to indulge in those exhilarating runs across country which
cause the blood to tingle with excitement, and rejuvenate all who take
part in them.
Reggie was sometimes kept in town by the exigencies of his deal in
torchon, Maltese and Honiton, therefore I frequently lived alone in the
old-fashioned, ivy-covered house, with Glave, my man, to look after me.
One bitterly cold evening in January Reggie was absent in London, and I,
having been hunting all day, was riding home utterly fagged out. The
meet that morning had been at Kate's Cabin, over in Huntingdonshire, and
after two good runs I had found myself beyond Stilton, eighteen miles
from home. Still, the scent had been excellent, and we had had good
sport, therefore I took a pull at my flask and rode forward across
country in the gathering gloom.
Fortunately I found the river fordable at Water Newton mill, a fact
which saved me the long detour by Wansford, and then when within a mile
of home I allowed my horse to walk, as I always did, in order that he
might cool down before going to his stable. The dusk of the short
afternoon was just deepening into night, and the biting wind cut me like
a knife as I passed the crossroads about half a mile from Helpstone
village, jogging along steadily, when of a sudden a man's burly figure
loomed out of the shadow of the high, holly hedge, and a deep voice
exclaimed--
"Pardon me, sir, but I'm a stranger in these parts, and my daughter here
has fainted. Is there a house near?"
Then, as I drew near, I saw huddled upon a heap of stones at the
roadside the slim, fragile form of a young girl of about sixteen,
wrapped in a thick, dark-coloured cloak, while in the glimmer of light
that remained I distinguished that the man who was addressing me was a
bluff, rather well-spoken, dark-bearded fellow of about forty-five or
so, in a frayed suit of blue serge and peaked cap that gave him
something of the appearance of a seafarer. His face was seamed and
weatherbeaten, and his broad, powerful jaws betokened a strength of
character and dogged determination.
"Has your daughter been taken ill?" I inquired, when I had thoroughly
examined him.
"Well, the fact is we've walked a long way to-day, and I think she's
done up. She became dazed like about half an hour ago, and when she sat
down she fell insensible."
"She mustn't stay here," I remarked, as the fact became plain that both
father and daughter were tramps. "She'll get frozen to death. My house
is over yonder. I'll ride on and bring back some one to help carry
her."
The man commenced to thank me, but I touched my horse with the spur, and
was soon in the stableyard calling for Glave to accompany me back to the
spot where I had left the wayfarers.
A quarter of an hour later we had arranged the insensible girl on a
couch in my warm, snug sitting-room, had forced some brandy down her
throat, and she had opened her eyes wonderingly, and looked round with
childlike temerity upon her unfamiliar surroundings.
Her gaze met mine, and I saw that her countenance was undeniably
beautiful, of that dark, half-tragic type, her eyes rendered the more
luminous by the death-like pallor of her countenance. The features were
well-moulded, refined and handsome in every line, and as she addressed
her father, inquiring what had occurred, I detected that she was no mere
waif of the highway, but, on the contrary, highly intelligent, well
mannered and well educated.
Her father, in a few deep words, explained our abrupt meeting and my
hospitality, whereupon she smiled upon me sweetly and uttered words of
thanks.
"It must have been the intense cold, I think," she added. "Somehow I
felt benumbed all at once, and my head swam so that I couldn't stand.
But it is really very kind indeed of you. I'm so sorry that we've
disturbed you like this."
I assured her that my only wish was for her complete recovery, and as I
spoke I could not conceal from myself that her beauty was very
remarkable. Although young, and her figure as yet not fully developed,
her face was nevertheless one of the most perfect I had ever seen. From
the first moment my eyes fell upon her, I found her indescribably
charming. That she was utterly exhausted was rendered plain by the
painful, uneasy manner in which she moved upon her couch. Her rusty
black skirt and thick boots were muddy and travel-stained, and by the
manner she pushed the tangled mass of dark hair from her brow I knew
that her head ached.
Glave, in no good mood at the introduction of tramps, entered,
announcing that my dinner was ready; but she firmly, yet with sweet
grace, declined my invitation to eat, saying that if I would permit her
she would rather remain alone on the couch before the fire for half an
hour longer. Therefore I sent her some hot soup by old Mrs. Axford, our
cook, while her father, having washed his hands, accompanied me to the
diningroom.
He seemed half-famished, taciturn and reserved at first, but presently,
when he had judged my character sufficiently, he explained that his name
was Burton Blair, that in his absence abroad he had lost his wife ten
years before, and that little Mab was his only child. As his appearance
denoted, he had been at sea the greater part of his life and held a
master's certificate, but of late he had been living ashore.
"I've been home these three years now," he went on, "and I've had a
pretty rough time of it, I can tell you. Poor Mab! I wouldn't have
minded had it not been for her. She's a brick, she is, just as her poor
dear mother was. She's done three years of semi-starvation, and yet
she's never once complained. She knows my character by now, she knows
that when once Burton Blair makes up his mind to do a thing, by Gad! he
does it," and he set those square jaws of his hard, while a look of
determination and dogged persistency came into his eyes, the fiercest I
had ever seen in any man.
"But, Mr. Blair, why did you leave the sea to starve ashore?" I
inquired, my curiosity aroused.
"Because--well, because I had a reason--a strong reason," was his
hesitating reply. "You see me homeless and hungry to-night," laughed
Burton Blair, bitterly, "but to-morrow I may be a millionaire!"
And his face assumed a mysterious, sphinx-like expression which sorely
puzzled me.
Many and many a time since then have I recollected those strange,
prophetic words of his as he sat at my table, shabby, unkempt and
ravenously hungry, a worn-out, half-frozen tramp from the highroad, who,
absurd as it then seemed, held the strong belief that ere long he would
be the possessor of millions.
I remember well how I smiled at his vague assertion. Every man who
falls low in the social scale clings to the will-o'-the-wisp belief that
his luck will change, and that by some vagary of fortune he will come up
again smiling. Hope is never dead within the ruined man.
By dint of some careful questions I tried to obtain further information
regarding this confident hope of wealth which he entertained, but he
would tell me nothing--absolutely nothing.
He accepted a cigar after he had dined well, took brandy with his
coffee, and smoked with the air of a contented man who had no single
thought or care in the world--a man who knew exactly what the future
held for him.
Thus, from the very first, Burton Blair was a mystery. On rejoining
Mabel we found her sleeping peacefully, utterly fagged out. Therefore I
induced him to remain beneath my roof that night, in order that she
might rest, and, returning to the dining-room, her father and I sat
together smoking and talking for several hours.
He told me of his hard, rough years at sea, of strange adventures in
savage lands, of a narrow escape from death at the hands of a band of
natives in the Cameroons, and of how, for three years, he acted as
captain of a river-steamer up the Congo, one of the pioneers of
civilisation. He related his thrilling adventures calmly and naturally,
without any bragging, but just in that plain, matter-of-fact manner
which revealed to me that he was one of those men who love an
adventurous life because of its perils and its vicissitudes.
"And now I'm tramping the turnpikes of England," he added, laughing.
"You must, no doubt, think it very strange, Mr. Greenwood, but to tell
you the truth I am actively prosecuting a rather curious quest, the
successful issue of which will one day bring me wealth beyond my wildest
dreams. See!" he added, with a strange wild look in his great dark
eyes, as swiftly undoing his blue guernsey and delving beneath it he
drew forth a square, flat piece of soiled and well-worn chamois leather
in which there seemed to be sewed some precious document or other.
"Look! My secret lies here. Some day I shall discover the key to it--
maybe to-morrow or next day, or next year. When, it is quite
immaterial. The result will be the same. My years of continuous search
and travel will be rewarded--and I shall be rich, and the world will
wonder!" And, laughing contentedly, almost triumphantly within himself,
he carefully replaced his precious document in his chest, and, rising,
stood with his back to the fire in the attitude of a man entirely
confident of what was written in the Book of Fate.
That midnight scene in all its strange, romantic detail, that occasion
when the tired wayfarer and his daughter spent their first night as my
guests, rose before me when, on that bright, cold afternoon following
the inquest up at Manchester, I alighted from a cab in front of the big
white house in Grosvenor Square, and received word of Carter, the solemn
manservant, that Miss Mabel was at home.
The magnificent mansion, with its exquisite decorations, its genuine
Louis Quatorze furniture, its valuable pictures and splendid examples of
seventeenth century statuary, home of one to whom expense was surely of
no account, was assuredly sufficient testimony that the shabby wayfarer
who had uttered those words in my narrow little dining-room five years
before had made no idle boast.
The secret sewed within that dirty bag of wash-leather, whatever it may
have been, had already realised over a million, and was still realising
enormous sums, until death had now so suddenly put an end to its
exploitation. The mystery of it all was beyond solution; and the enigma
was complete.
These and other reflections swept through my mind as I followed the
footman up the wide marble staircase and was shown ceremoniously into
the great gold and white drawing-room, the walls of which were panelled
with pale rose silk, the four large windows affording a wide view across
the Square. Those priceless paintings, those beautiful cabinets and
unique _bric-a-brac_--all were purchased with the proceeds from that
mysterious secret, the secret which had in that short space of five
years been the means of transforming a homeless, down-at-heel wanderer
into a millionaire.
Gazing aimlessly across the grey Square with its leafless trees, I stood
undecided how best to break the sad news, when a slight _frou-frou_ of
silk swept behind me, and, turning quickly, I confronted the dead man's
daughter, looking now, at twenty-three, far more sweet, graceful and
womanly than in that first hour of our strange meeting by the wayside
long ago.
But her black gown, her trembling form, and her pale, tear-stained
cheeks told me in an instant that this woman in my charge had already
learnt the painful truth. She halted before me, a beautiful, tragic
figure, her tiny white hand nervously clutching the back of one of the
gilt chairs for support.
"I know!" she exclaimed in a broken voice, quite unnatural to her, her
eyes fixed upon me, "I know, Mr. Greenwood, why you have called. The
truth has been told to me by Mr. Leighton an hour ago. Ah! my poor dear
father!" she sighed, the words catching in her throat as she burst into
tears. "Why did he go to Manchester? His enemies have triumphed, just
as I have all along feared they would. Yet, great-hearted as he was, he
believed ill of no man. He refused always to heed my warnings, and
laughed at all my apprehensions. Yet, alas! the ghastly truth is now
only too plain. My poor father!" she gasped, her handsome face blanched
to the lips. "He is dead--and his secret is out!"