After such a brilliant success I felt that I required rest. It would
not do to set to work again until my nerves were thoroughly restored,
and the period of excitement I had passed through had left them a
little unstrung. It took me nearly a month after Gascoyne Gascoyne’s
funeral to recover from the haunting terror that I had left a clue,
and that sooner or later someone would come across it. I had scoffed
at the maxim ‘Murder will out.’ I found myself living in company with
it. It had a way of springing into my head when I woke in the morning,
and the letters danced in front of me like devillings. It repeated
itself in my brain rhythmically for days, and it required the
strongest effort of will on my part to silence it.
It must be remembered that I was very young, and that what I had done
was irrevocable; further, I am not naturally callous. I remained
indoors smoking a great many French cigarettes, and accustoming myself
to the consciousness of guilt. Grahame Hallward called one evening
and, declaring that I looked too ill to be left, offered to spend the
night with me. I was about to accept, but refused hastily on
recollecting that in my sleep I might fill the house with confessions.
No man can be answerable for himself in the silent watches of the
night. It gave me a distinctly weird feeling when I reflected that
till my dying day I must lie alone o’nights with locked doors.
Grahame Hallward, unaware that I had chosen my profession, threw
himself with all the loyalty of his nature into the question of my
future. He could not understand my indifference, and, considering
that I had borrowed a fairly large sum from him, it probably
appeared a little unfair. He loved me too well, however, to give
the least indication that he considered I was not behaving quite
straightforwardly.
He suggested that I should go to South Africa, but I pointed out that
without capital I could not hope to obtain work that was not mere
drudgery. I explained also that I had some plans which I would tell
him of later, but that at present they were not dependent on myself,
which was perfectly true. I was fully aware of how important it was
that I should secure some means of obtaining a regular supply of
money, and at the moment I had not the least idea as to how this was
to be done. It must obviously be something which would not occupy my
whole time. I regretted my wasted capital every day. I might have made
a small income out of racing. It would not have been very difficult
provided I contented myself with small profits.
Whatever happened it was imperative that I should not sell my house.
An insignificant, semi-detached villa in Clapham was an ideal lair. I
thought at one time of seeing if I could obtain a footing on the
stage—that refuge of the vain and derelict—but I decided that it might
bring me into such prominence as might even cause the Gascoyne family
to take notice of me, the last thing to be desired.
Day after day I racked my brains for a solution of the difficulty. I
believed I could carry through any feasible scheme, and my Jewish
blood taught me to rely on my powers of application.
While I was deciding on a good method of providing for my current
expenditure, I was also deciding on which member of the Gascoyne
family my next blow should fall, and I consulted the chart daily.
It was highly improbable that the father of young Gascoyne would have
any more children unless his wife died and he married again, and
although her grief at the death of her son was extreme, she was not
made of the material that succumbs under sorrow.
It was with a weird sense of shock that one morning I received the
following letter:
“Dear Sir,
“Some time ago you wrote claiming relationship to the Gascoyne
family, and asking me to help you to some situation in which you
might earn your living. I must apologise for my unsympathetic
attitude on that occasion. Should you still be in need of a post I
shall be glad if you will give me a call.
“Yours very truly,
“Gascoyne Gascoyne.”
The letter, together with the morning paper, was lying in the hall
when, half asleep, I passed through it one early spring morning on my
way to the kitchen to cook my breakfast. I was at the moment doing
such housework as was necessary. I made myself a cup of tea, toasted
some bread and boiled an egg before I opened it. Having read it I sat
still as if mesmerised by its contents. I thought I must have
misjudged the man, till I reflected that had it not been for the blow
my hand had dealt him his nature would have remained hard as before. I
was on the borderland of remorse, and it was the aim of my life to
keep out of that ghostly territory. I had from the first made up my
mind to regard the whole matter of the Gascoyne family from a purely
business-like point of view, and so I turned to the practical side of
his letter, which required consideration.
Was it possible to make use of him in any way? That was the essential
consideration. The first thing to decide was whether it was likely he
would recognise me as having been at Lowhaven. As far as the inquest
was concerned I had no fear. I had kept well out of his sight. On the
other hand, even supposing he had not seen me, was it good policy to
conceal the fact that I had been there—always supposing that I decided
to make use of him? At any moment someone might turn up and betray the
fact, and a reason for the concealment would not be easy to find.
Perhaps some idea of putting me in his dead son’s place had entered
his mind, and thus the question of finance would be settled. I
pondered over the pros and cons for nearly a week. One day the pros
carried all before them and the cons were in full retreat. The next
day the retreating objections had entrenched themselves, impossible to
dislodge. The cons had behind them the full force of a nervous
objection to facing Mr. Gascoyne, an objection well to be understood.
Still, the solving of the financial difficulty was all important. I
was near my last sovereign. I could always refuse any offer he made me
should it threaten to clip my claws too completely, or smother my
freedom of action in a London office. I waited till the sovereign was
broken into before I made up my mind. In fact, I waited till my last
half-sovereign was eighteenpence to the bad, and all my boots showed
signs of wear. Then I decided to risk it, and I wrote saying I would
call on Mr. Gascoyne at his City address at noon the next day. I
received a telegram saying that he would prefer it should be one
o’clock, from which I deduced that he proposed to give me his luncheon
hour, and would possibly ask me to share that meal should I be
presentable. I have always had a rare instinct for deducing correct
conclusions from the faintest suggestions, and it has been invaluable
in acquainting me with the peculiarities of fields on which imminent
battles were to be fought. Evidently Mr. Gascoyne was inclined to be
friendly, therefore modesty and frankness were the weapons with which
to make the victory decisive. He was a business man, and, considering
my circumstances, nothing was to be gained by outward display. Indeed,
a plain dressing for the occasion—blue serge, blue foulard tie with
white spots, and a bowler—was absolutely right, and did not
necessarily suggest a Bond Street wardrobe in reserve, rendered
temporarily useless for lack of good boots.
I was as nervous as I have ever been when I mounted in the lift to the
second floor of the tall block of buildings in the City where Mr.
Gascoyne’s offices were situated. I could not help reflecting that
young Gascoyne must have ascended in the same lift times without
number.
It was not for me, however, to indulge in such reflections, and I
shook off any morbid cobwebs from my thoughts and stepped into the
outer office with a subtle and affected consciousness of innocence
which I was by constant practice enabling myself to assume at will.
The clerk took my card and noted the name with a look of intelligence.
“Oh yes, Mr. Gascoyne is expecting you, but there are two gentlemen
with him now. Please take a seat. I will tell him you are here.”
He went to a speaking-tube and informed some one at the other end that
Mr. Rank was in the office.
“Mr. Gascoyne will see you in one minute.” And he returned to his
papers.
In a moment Mr. Gascoyne opened the door of his inner office, showing
out two elderly men. Whilst listening to their last words he motioned
me to enter with a grave smile.
In a minute he joined me and closed the door of the office behind him.
“Please sit down, Mr. Rank.” He seated himself on the chair behind his
desk and motioned me to the one opposite. I could not help noticing
how much he had aged in the two or three months that had elapsed since
I had seen him last.
“You are not like the Gascoynes,” he said, with a smile, “and yet
there is a something.”
“My father was a Jew, and I think I am like him.”
“To be frank with you, I have taken the trouble to find out exactly
the relationship in which we stand.”
I felt alarmed. It was distinctly unpleasant to hear that he had been
making inquiries about me.
“This is my mother’s photograph,” I said, handing him a small likeness
of her. He looked at it with interest.
“It is a very sweet face. She is dead, I believe?”
“Yes, I have no nearer relative than Henry Gascoyne.”
“Ah, poor old man, I am afraid he does not know anyone. He is quite
childish.”
“So I understand.”
“Have you ever seen the family portraits at Hammerton?”
“Never.” I was determined to deny any particular knowledge of the
family.
“Your mother is extraordinarily like some of the women. I do not know
the present Earl, but I have visited Hammerton as an excursionist.”
“I have never been there.”
“And now will you come and have some lunch? I am a busy man and cannot
afford to waste time.”
Either he was wonderfully softened, or the letter he had written me
when I first applied to him was utterly unlike himself. I was unable
to make out which was correct, but I inclined to the former
conclusion.
“I have been wondering,” he said, when we were seated over some
cutlets and a very good bottle of wine, “why you were so long in
answering my letter.”
I replied, with every appearance of frankness, that it had taken some
amount of thought before I could decide to put my pride in my pocket
and swallow his former snub.
“I thought it was that,” he answered. “I must frankly admit that my
reply to your application was very uncalled for, but when I wrote it I
was smarting somewhat under the ingratitude of a young man I had taken
into my office a short time before.”
“It is forgotten,” I said. “After all, men in your position must
receive a host of requests for favours that you are unable to comply
with.”
“That is true,” he said, “quite true; but still, from one claiming
relationship—however, let us forget it. Tell me about yourself.”
I was perfectly candid, and told him the story of my life. It was all
inexpressibly strange; this man bending forward with every appearance
of interest and sympathy listening to the life story of his son’s
murderer. I was amazed at the way I could pose, even to myself, as a
perfectly innocent person, and was secretly vain of a great artistic
success. I found myself filling in the picture which I was painting
for him with numerous little touches, all deliberately designed to
heighten a carefully considered effect. I told no lies, however;
indeed, it was quite unnecessary. Without that part dealing with his
own son the simple story was very effective. I did not hesitate to
hint that there was the memory of a woman troubling me. He was
sympathetic at once but did not urge further confidences at the
moment.
“Perhaps one of the other reasons why I was not particularly drawn by
your being a member of the Gascoyne family,” he said, when I had
finished, “was that I am not on friendly terms with any of them. My
wife was of humble origin, and such of them as I know were very
uncivil to her, and, to tell you the truth, the name of Gascoyne had
become somewhat distasteful to me.”
We were strolling back to the office and he had laid his hand loosely
in my arm. He had evidently taken a fancy to me. So much for the voice
of Nature. Indeed, all my life I have noticed that the voice of Nature
is a somewhat misleading guide; very apt to call the listener to
follow over all kinds of dangerous and quaking bogs. People have a
way, too, of labelling the shrill scream and tuneless croaking of
their own pet conventions and prejudices as the voice of Nature, if
the occasion suit them, and their shallow consciences do not
imperatively demand correct definitions.
“Before I make you the offer that is in my mind,” he said, when we
again reached his office and I was once more seated opposite to him,
“I wish to ask you whether you heard that I lost my only son a few
months ago under somewhat tragic—circumstances.”
“I was at Lowhaven,” I said gently.
He looked at me in unfeigned surprise.
“You were at Lowhaven?”
“I did not mention it before, but I was staying in the same hotel.”
“I don’t remember you.”
“I kept out of your way. I was naturally unwilling to intrude at such
a time.”
He buried his face in his hands, and something between a groan and a
sigh escaped him. It was evident that the memory of his bereavement
was inexpressibly poignant.
“I am glad you knew him, if only by sight. Did you ever speak to him?”
“A few words in the hotel smoking-room, that is all. He was a splendid
looking fellow.”
“He was. It has broken his mother’s heart. It was strange that you
should have been there.”
“I did not even know his name, till——” I paused.
He uncovered a haggard face.
“Well, it is over; the past cannot be recalled. Would you care to come
into my firm?”
He made the offer hurriedly, as if anxious to escape from painful
thoughts.
He then laid his plan before me. I was to come into the firm and learn
the business of stockbroking. Further than that he was not prepared to
go, and he made no promises.
He looked at me steadily as he said this, and I gathered that if I
were satisfactory I might hope for all things. A glance at his face
convinced me that he was not the man to recede from any promise, no
matter how much his sympathy with me became a diminishing quantity,
providing my abilities were sufficient. I accepted his offer. It might
be possible to use the situation as a lever. It certainly put an end
to the obscurity which I had considered so strong an asset. I have
often wondered before and since the trial whether my original plans
might not have been more successful. I believe that they would have
furnished more adventure and excitement. At the same time, the
difficulties would have been almost insurmountable, and—well, I chose
my methods and I failed, although I have consolation in the brilliance
of the failure.
I was to have two hundred and fifty pounds a year to begin with. It
was decidedly a princely offer, considering that he would be paying
for the trouble of teaching me.
“Later on, Mr. Rank, it would give me pleasure to present you to my
wife. At present I am afraid that you, in the plenitude of your youth
and manhood, might rouse sad thoughts.”
He drew me a cheque for twenty pounds, and, taking me into the outer
office, introduced me to his manager, chief clerk, and the staff
generally, and, asking me to be at the office at ten o’clock the next
morning, dismissed me.
I walked all the way back to Clapham thinking deeply. Financially I
was evidently out of danger for life, and I had good warrant for
dreaming of myself at the head of Mr. Gascoyne’s firm. It was proof of
how entirely the Gascoyne coronet had become an obsession with me,
that the prospect of a permanent income, with wealth, even, in the
perspective of middle life, did not in any way suggest that I should
relinquish the glittering prize on which I had set my heart. Perhaps
if Mr. Gascoyne’s offer had come before my first success I might have
abandoned my purpose, but it would have been obviously absurd to
burden I had almost said my conscience—so strong is the habit of
conventional thought—with a murder abortively. I could not help
smiling ironically on recalling Mr. Gascoyne’s evident liking for me.
According to all rules of accepted psychology I should have had
something unpleasant in my personality which he should at once have
detected. It was extraordinarily remiss on the part of instinct that
it should not have been so.
Grahame Hallward came in to see me that evening and was overjoyed at
my news. He was evidently impressed when he learned that it was my
relationship to the Gascoyne family which had secured me such an
advantageous situation.
“So after all, Israel, what you used to tell me was true.”
“Did you ever doubt it?”
“Not since the day you gave me your word of honour that it was so.”
It may appear strange, but I have always been singularly fastidious
about my word of honour.
Grahame then broke to me some news which came as a staggering blow.
Sibella was engaged to Lionel Holland.
“The one thing I really like about Holland,” he concluded, “is the way
he has stuck to Sibella.”
I could not simulate indifference, and Grahame saw that his
announcement had been a shock to me.
I stood looking out on the little garden with its soot-begrimed walls
which the sunset had drenched in scarlet, trying to control the
tempest of feeling which surged within me.
Grahame understood, and came over, putting his arm round my neck.
“I am so sorry, Israel. I quite understand. Really, I’d sooner it were
you.”
I smiled somewhat bitterly.
Grahame’s preference for me was hardly a consolation, fond as I was of
him.
“I’ll come over on Sunday,” I said.
“Do.” He understood my anxiety to impress Sibella with the idea that I
did not care. I wondered whether things would have been different had
Sibella known of my altered prospects. I was convinced that I held at
least an equal place with Lionel Holland in such affection as Sibella
was capable of. It was Thursday; by Sunday I might possibly have
conquered the first sting of chagrin sufficiently to conceal my
feelings. The excitement of my new venture in life was entirely lost
in the night of despair I passed. Equally with the Gascoyne earldom,
Sibella was my ambition. She was the kind of girl to whom the position
of Countess Gascoyne would have come quite naturally. In common with
her brothers and sisters she had that which would have enabled her to
carry off any dignity, frivolous and superficial as her real nature
was. I had dreamed of the joy of placing her in a position so very
much above anything she could have expected.
Still, the battle was not over. I believed in my power to conquer her
in competition with Lionel Holland, if I were given equal worldly
advantages, and it seemed as if such advantages were coming my way.
The fact that I was unable to idealise Sibella never cooled my love. I
burned for her, and frankly confessed it. For the rest, she had
spirits and special magnetism enough to make her a delightful
companion. A great many of her faults matched my own weaknesses. I
sympathised with her desire for beautiful clothes at any cost, as well
as with her yearning for the right of entry to that society which the
middle classes exalt by envying and imitating.
I made up my mind to fight, and went for the first time to Mr.
Gascoyne’s office somewhat comforted by the mere determination to give
battle to my rival.
I discovered very speedily that the work suited me admirably. The rest
of the clerks evidently gathered that my being taken into the firm had
been made a special feature of, for they treated me almost with
deference.
I had by this time fixed on the next member of the Gascoyne family
whom I intended to remove. It was Henry Gascoyne, the orphan son of
Patrick Gascoyne. He had a sister, but all intervening females yielded
precedence to my mother, as heiress to her father. It was therefore
not necessary to consider her. Her brother was about twenty-two years
of age, and by a little inquiry I learned that he was at Oxford, where
he had already gained a reputation as one of those who might do
wonderful things if he chose to apply himself, but who preferred to be
content with the reputation of his potentialities and the cultivation
of as much muscle as was consistent with nights spent in hard
drinking. I inspected his father’s will at Somerset House, and learned
that he and his sister had been left some fifteen thousand pounds
apiece, which capital, however, they could not touch till Henry
Gascoyne was twenty-five. His sister was entirely devoted to him, and
spent her own income in keeping up a small house in the New Forest
which he had inherited from his father. He would have been content to
let the whole place go to rack and ruin, but devotion to her father’s
memory, and a desire to have a place which her brother might look upon
as home, induced her to support the establishment entirely out of her
own resources. So much I had learned from two or three visits paid at
irregular intervals to the neighbourhood.