TIDINGS FROM THE CAPE
Wrayson paused for a moment in his work to answer the telephone which
stood upon his table.
"What is it?" he asked sharply.
His manager spoke to him from the offices below.
"Sorry to disturb you, sir, but there is a young man here who won't go
away without seeing you. His name is Barnes, and he says that he has just
arrived from South Africa."
It was a busy morning with Wrayson, for in an hour or so the paper went
to press, but he did not hesitate for a moment.
"I will see him," he declared. "Bring him up yourself."
Wrayson laid down the telephone. Morris Barnes had come from South
Africa. It was a common name enough, and yet, from the first, he was sure
that this was some relative. What was the object of his visit? The ideas
chased one another through his brain. Was he, too, an avenger?
There was a knock at the door, and the clerk from downstairs ushered in
his visitor. Wrayson could scarcely repress a start. It was a younger
edition of Morris Barnes who stood there, with an ingratiating smile upon
his pale face, a trifle more Semitic in appearance, perhaps, but in other
respects the likeness was almost startling. It extended even to the
clothes, for Wrayson recognized with a start a purple and white tie of
particularly loud pattern. The cut of his coat, the glossiness of his hat
and boots, too, were all strikingly reminiscent of the dead man.
His visitor was becoming nervous under Wrayson's close scrutiny. His
manner betrayed a curious mixture of diffidence and assurance. He seemed
overanxious to create a favourable impression.
"I took the liberty of coming to see you, Mr. Wrayson," he said, twisting
his hat round in his hand. "My name is Barnes, Sydney Barnes. Morris
Barnes was my brother."
Wrayson pointed to a chair, into which his visitor subsided with
exaggerated expressions of gratitude. He had very small black eyes, set
very close together, and he blinked continually. The more Wrayson studied
him, the less prepossessing he found him.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Barnes?" he asked quietly.
"I have just come from Cape Town," the young man said. "Such a shock it
was to me--about my poor brother! Oh! such a shock!"
"How did you hear about it?" Wrayson asked.
"Just a newspaper--I read an account of it all. It did give me a turn and
no mistake. Directly I'd finished, I went and booked my passage on the
_Dunottar Castle._ I had a very fair berth over there--two quid a week,
but I felt I must come home at once. Fact is," he continued, looking down
at his trousers, "I had no time to get my own togs together. I was so
anxious, you see. That's why I'm wearing some of poor Morris's."
"Are you the only relative?" Wrayson asked.
"'Pon my sam, I am," the other answered with emphasis. "We hadn't a
relation in the world. Father and mother died ten years ago, and Morris
and I were the only two. Anything that poor Morris possessed belongs to
me, sure! There's no one else to claim a farthing's worth. You must know
that yourself, Mr. Wrayson, eh?"
"If, as you say, you are the only relative, your brother's effects, of
course, belong to you," Wrayson answered.
"It's a sure thing," the young man declared. "I've been to the landlord
of the flat, and he gave me up the keys at once. There's only one
quarter's rent owing. Pretty stiff though--isn't it? Fifty pounds!"
"Your brother's was a furnished flat, I believe," Wrayson answered. "That
makes a difference, of course."
The young man's face fell.
"Then the furniture wasn't his?" he remarked.
Wrayson shook his head.
"No! the furniture belongs to the landlord. There will be an inventory,
of course, and you will be able to find out if anything was your
brother's."
It was obvious that Mr. Sydney Barnes had not as yet entered upon the
purpose of his visit. He fidgeted for a moment or two with his hat, and
looked up at Wrayson, only to look nervously away again. To set him more
at his ease, Wrayson lit a cigarette and passed the box over.
"Thank you, Mr. Wrayson! Thank you, sir!" his visitor exclaimed. "You
see I'm a smoker," he added, holding up his yellow-stained forefinger.
"That is, I smoke when I can afford to. Things have been pretty dicky
out in South Africa lately, you know. Terrible hard it has been to make
a living."
"Your brother was supposed to have done pretty well out there," Wrayson
remarked, more for the sake of keeping the conversation alive than
anything. The effect of his words, however, was electrical. Mr. Sydney
Barnes leaned over from his chair, and his little black eyes twinkled
like polished beads.
"Mr. Wrayson," he declared, "a week before he sailed for England, Morris
was on his uppers! He was caught in Johannesburg when the war broke out,
and he had to stay there. When he turned up in Cape Town again, his own
mother wouldn't have known him. He was in rags--he'd come down on a
freight--he hadn't a scrap of luggage, or a copper to his name. That was
Morris when he came to me in Cape Town!"
Wrayson was listening attentively; he almost feared to let his visitor
see how interested he was.
"He was fair done in!" the young man continued. "He never had the pluck
of a chicken, and the night he found me in Cape Town he cried like a
baby. He had lost everything, he said. It was no use staying in the
country any longer. He was wild to get back to England. And yet, do you
know, sir, all the time I had the idea that he was keeping something back
from me. And he was! He was, too! The--!"
He stopped short. The vindictiveness of his countenance supplied
the epithet.
"You'll excuse me if I'm a bit excited, Mr. Wrayson," he continued. "I'll
leave you to judge how I've been served when you hear all. He got over
me, and I lent him nearly half of my savings, and he started back to
England. He took this flat at two hundred pounds a year the very week he
got back, and he's lived, from what I can hear, like a lord ever since.
Will you believe this, sir! He sent back the money he borrowed from me a
quid at a time, and wrote me to say he was saving it with great
difficulty--out of his salary of three pounds a week. When he'd paid back
the lot, I never heard another line from him. I was doing rotten myself,
and he knew well enough that I should have been over first steamer if I'd
known about his two hundred a year flat, and all the rest of it. What do
you think of my brother, sir, eh? What do you think of him? Treated me
nicely, didn't he? Nine pounds ten it was I lent him, and nine pounds ten
was all I had back, and here he was living like a duke, and lying to me
about his three pounds a week; and there was I hawkering groceries on a
barrow, selling sham diamonds, any blooming thing to get a mouthful to
eat. Nice sort of brother that, eh? What?"
Wrayson repressed an inclination to smile. There was something grimly
humourous about his visitor's indignation.
"You must remember," he said, "that your brother is dead, and that his
death itself was a terrible one. Besides, even if you have had to wait
for a little time, you are his heir now."
The young man was breathing hard. The perspiration stood out in little
beads upon his forehead. He showed his teeth a little. He was becoming
more and more unpleasant to look upon as his excitement increased.
"Look here, Mr. Wrayson!" he exclaimed. "I'm coming to that. I've been
through his things. Clothes! I never saw such a collection. All from a
West End tailor, too! And boots! Patent, with white tops; pumps,
everything slap up! Heaven knows what he must have spent upon his
clothes. Bills from restaurants, too; why, he seems to have thought
nothing of spending a quid or two on a dinner or a supper. Photographs
of ladies, little notes asking him to tea; why, between you and me, Mr.
Wrayson, sir, he was living like a prince! And look here!"
He rose to his feet and planked down a bank-book on the desk in front
of Wrayson.
"Look here, sir," he declared. "Every three months, within a day or two,
cash--five hundred pounds. Here you are. Here's the last: March
27--cash, £500! Look back! January 1--By cash £500! October 2--cash,
£500! There you are, right back to the very day he arrived in England.
And he left South Africa with ten bob of mine in his pocket, after he'd
paid his passage! and from what I can hear, he never did a day's work
after he landed. And me over there working thirteen and fourteen hours a
day, and half the time stony-broke! There's a brother for you! Cain was
a fool to him!"
"But you must remember that after all you are going to reap the benefit
of it now," Wrayson remarked.
"Ah! but am I?" the young man exclaimed fiercely. "That's what I want to
know. Look here! I've been through every letter and every scrap of paper
I can find, I've been to the bank and to his few pals, and strike me dead
if I can find where that five hundred pounds came from every three
months! It was in gold always; he must have gone and changed it
somewhere--five hundred golden sovereigns every three months, and I can't
find where they came from!"
"Have you been to a solicitor?" Wrayson asked.
"Not yet," the young man answered. "I don't see what good he'll be when I
do. Morris was always one of the close sort, and I can't fancy him
spending much over lawyers."
"What made you come to me?" Wrayson inquired.
"Well, the caretaker at the flat told me that you and Morris used to
speak now and then, and I'm trying every one. I'm afraid he wasn't quite
classy enough for you to have palled up with, but I thought he might have
let something slip perhaps."
Wrayson shook his head.
"He never spoke to me of his affairs," he said. "He always seemed to have
plenty of money, though."
"Doesn't the bank-book prove it?" the young man exclaimed excitedly.
"Every one who knew anything about him says the same. There was I half
starved in Cape Town, and here was he spending two thousand a year.
Beast, he was! I'll find out where it came from if it takes me a
lifetime."
Wrayson leaned back in his chair. Nothing since the events of that night
itself had appealed to him more than the coming of this young man and his
strange story.
"I am sorry that I have no information to give you," he said. "On the
other hand, if I can help you in any other way I shall be very glad."
"What should you advise me to do?" the young man asked.
"I should like to think the matter over carefully," Wrayson answered.
"What are your engagements for to-day? Can you lunch with me?"
"I have no engagements," his visitor answered eagerly. "When and
what time?"
Wrayson repressed a smile.
"I shall be ready in twenty minutes," he answered. "We will go out
together if you don't mind waiting."
"I'm on," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared, crossing his legs. "Don't you hurry
on my account. I'll wait as long as you like."