Part 4

“You have had no further visit from your Black Abbot?” she asked, as they strolled on to the station platform.

He shook his head.

“No; the police came last night to make inquiries. I don’t suppose it will go much farther. You read about it in the newspaper, of course?”

She shook her head.

“Servants talk,” she said.

“I really don’t believe in this Black Abbot,” he went on. “It is queer that Harry is scared of this spook. He never goes outside the house when the old Abbot is reported in the neighbourhood.”

“You don’t believe either?”

He pursed his lips.

“When I see a ghost I shall believe it. Until then I am politely sceptical.”

As the train drew out of the station she put her head out of the window and looked back. He was standing stock still upon the platform where she had left him; and although she could not see his face, she felt that he was gazing after her, and thought she detected a certain tenseness in his very attitude--all of which was very pleasing to Miss Leslie Gwyn.

X

Strange as it may seem, she had never visited her brother’s office on High Holborn before she left her taxi at the door and came up in the elevator to his magnificent suite. Her appearance had a prosaic cause. She had left the country without a penny: a fact she did not realize till the ticket collector, working through the train, came into her compartment and aroused her from a daydream to the realization that she had neither ticket nor money to pay for it. She gave the man her card, and a taxi brought her to Holborn.

She was to have another novel experience. A tall, thick-set man, with iron-gray hair and a strong, attractive face, had come into the waiting room to meet her. She remembered him as the solitary fisherman who had sat fishing for hours on the bank of Ravensrill, without, apparently, catching anything. So this was the redoubtable Mr. Gilder of whom Arthur had so often spoken. She was not especially curious about him. He was a head clerk, and, by Arthur’s account, a clever man at his work; but now that she saw him, she was impressed. He was distinctive--outside of type. The average of humanity you may pass in the street without noticing. It would have been impossible to see Fabrian Gilder once without recognizing him instantly after the passage of years. The jaw was almost square, his big mouth was so tightly drawn that he seemed to be lipless; a powerful nose, a pair of penetrating gray eyes, under straggly, uneven eyebrows; this, and the breadth of his shoulders, conveyed an imponderable expression of power.

“You are Miss Gwyn, of course?” he said. “I would have recognized your relationship with your brother even if I had not known your name.”

It was a little shock to Leslie that she in any way resembled Arthur, for Arthur’s good looks were of a variety which she neither envied nor admired.

“He is engaged at the moment. If you’ll sit down I’ll go along and tell him.”

His eyes did not leave her face. She had often seen in stories the word “devour” applied to an intensity of gaze, and she thought that fictional characters must look somehow as Mr. Gilder was looking. He was not staring; it was the concentration, the probing investigation of those bright gray eyes, that made her writhe inside. If he had been impertinent it would have been an easy matter to deal with him, but he was respect itself. His attitude was deferential, his general manner was friendly. He was dressed very well and carefully, she thought, and wondered whether Arthur’s preciosity in the matter of clothing influenced his staff. The gray homespun, the rather solid shoes, were set off by the expensiveness of his linen. With a woman’s eye she saw that in his way this man was something of a dandy too.

“I hear you are going to live near us, Mr. Gilder?” she said, and he was obviously taken aback.

“Why--yes,” he said awkwardly. “I’ve bought a little place near your house. I love that part of the country.”

“We shall be neighbours,” she said with a smile, but felt no pleasure in the prospect.

“Er--yes. I suppose we shall be, Miss Gwyn,” he agreed.

“It will be very nice for Arthur. I suppose it was his suggestion that you should come down?”

He had a nervous little trick of stroking an invisible moustache, for he was clean-shaven.

“Well… no,” he said. “I haven’t told Mr. Gwyn yet that I have bought the property. I thought another time would be more opportune. I bought it for a song--thirty-five hundred pounds.”

She looked up quickly.

“That is an expensive song,” she said, before she realized an error of taste.

This time he was visibly disconcerted.

“Yes; I--er, I borrowed the money,” he said.

She had a feeling that he was going to ask her a favour, and guessed what the favour would be: Leslie had the uncanny gift of reading people’s minds and gathering their surface thoughts, and in those moments when Fabrian Gilder dropped his mask he was rather easy. He opened his lips to speak, thought better of it, meeting, perhaps, the chill atmosphere of a refusal before it was given, and then:

“I’ll see if your brother is disengaged,” he said, and went into the room to Arthur Gwyn, his head reeling with the vision which had emerged through the gray fog of his drab life.

Day after day he had watched her, and she had never known. He had left his rod and line to steal behind trees that he might see her pass. She was romance in excelsis--the perfect realization of thirty years of dreaming.

It took him a second to compose himself before he turned the handle and walked in, and then he stood stricken dumb by the words that came to him.

XI

“My sister?” said Arthur quickly. He looked from Gilder to Mary Wenner. “Come and see me later,” he said in a lower voice. “Gilder, show Miss Wenner out through the side door.”

Gilder opened the private door and followed the girl into the corridor.

“Where are you living?” he asked.

There was such a note of authority in his voice that for the moment the girl was taken off her guard.

“57 Cranston Mansions. Why?” she asked, with a certain archness that indicated resentment but invited a further offence.

“Because I want to see you,” said Gilder. “Can I come round to your flat some evening?”

Miss Wenner was shocked a little at this. There were moments when her sense of propriety was easily outraged. She was curious too; so far from resenting his commanding address, she rather liked it.

“Yes, any evening you wish, if you will let me know that you are coming. I will ask a young lady friend to keep me company.”

Gilder’s hard lips curled.

“Unless you particularly want a chaperon, don’t get one,” he said. “I have much to say to you that I don’t want anybody else to hear.”

He accompanied her to the elevator and on the way extracted a promise to receive him alone. Miss Wenner was almost as curious to know the object of that visit as Mr. Gilder was to discover what was behind the amazing statement he had heard. He passed the closed door of Arthur’s room and heard voices. He would have given a lot for an excuse to interrupt brother and sister, but something told him that it would be wiser if he kept out of his employer’s way until he was absolutely certain that the girl had not betrayed the very carefully hidden transaction which had made him the proprietor of Red Farm.

* * *

“You’re a little goose to come up to town without money,” said Arthur, as he skinned three notes from his pocketbook. “Here is enough to keep you happy for the rest of your life.”

“Would fifteen pounds do that?” she laughed, and was going, when she remembered.…

Arthur listened in amazement to the news she had to give.

“Gilder has bought a house at Chelfordbury? Impossible!” he said. “He would have told me. Why the dickens does he want a house?--besides, he has no money.”

“Hasn’t he?” she asked, in surprise.

Arthur scratched his chin irritably.

“I suppose the beggar has; but a house at Chelfordbury--that is extraordinary! I wasn’t even aware that he knew the place.”

“He is the man who has been staying at Ravensrill Cottage all the summer,” she said.

“The fisherman!” He whistled. “What a close bird he is! Of course,” he went on quickly, “there is nothing wrong in a man wanting to live at Chelfordbury, and there’s no reason in life why he shouldn’t buy a house. But what a sly old fox!”

He was troubled; she saw that he was trying to hide it behind a flippancy that was transparent to her.

“I knew, of course, that somebody had rented the fisherman’s cottage, as they call it, and to think that he’s been down all these months and never once given himself away!”

“He has a car, if he’s the same man who was living at the cottage,” she nodded. “Dick Alford is furious!”

Arthur chuckled.

“Poor old Dick!” he said good-humouredly. “He loathes this residential idea, and when I put forward a scheme to cut up one of his northern estates into residential properties, he nearly bit my head off. Harry would have done it like a shot, and I hope, my dear, when you’re married you’ll persuade him…”

He waited expectantly.

“Yes--when I am married,” she said, and her tone made him glance at her keenly. But he was wise enough to skim over that subject.

“Dick, of course, is a fool,” he said, with good-natured contempt. “He has a blind faith in the future of agriculture in this country, and grudges every acre that’s taken out of cultivation. And yet, if you were to put up a scheme to build huge blocks of cottages to relieve the slum congestion, or something equally quixotic and unprofitable, he would jump at the idea. I can well understand that the mere thought of a successful lawyer’s clerk setting himself up as a country gentleman would make Dick foam at the mouth!”

“He wasn’t foaming when I left him,” she said drily.

“When you left him?” He was quick to take a point.

“Yes, he came down to the station with me.” And she could not account for her momentary feeling of embarrassment.

He was still searching her face, and then, laying his hands on her shoulders, he shook her gently.

“Old girl,” he said, “keep your mind off the Second Son! He’s a good-looking fellow, and side by side with his brother there’s no question of choice! But he’s a second son, which means that he’s next door to being broke. And you can’t live on good looks or----”

She raised her eyes slowly to his.

“What do you mean--I can’t live on good looks?” she said deliberately. “Why do you emphasize the fact that Dick Alford is poor? Amn’t I an heiress?”

He did not speak, and then, with a little laugh, dropped his hands.

“Why, of course, chick!” he said lightly. “Only--well, I want you to do something for yourself. Make a name in the country. It will be something to have the position which Harry can offer you. Dick is quite a good fellow--one of the best, although he doesn’t get on very well with me. But there’s nothing to it with him, Leslie. You might as well marry some poverty-stricken gentleman farmer----”

He stopped under the steady gaze that met him.

“‘Poverty-stricken’ again, Arthur--without suggesting that I would rather marry Dick Alford, I wonder why the question of his poverty interests you so much. If you had called him a commoner and a nobody, I could have understood, but you insist upon the question of my possible fiancé’s wealth, and that seems strange to me.”

He laughed long and loudly, but his merriment seemed, to her sensitive ear, lacking in sincerity.

“You ought to be a lawyer, Leslie! Upon my word, I’ve a good mind to have you coached for an examination! You’d look simply topping in a wig and gown! And now, my little girl, you must run away, because I’ve a tremendous lot of work.”

He put his arm round her shoulders and walked with her to the door, and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the whine of the elevator carrying her down. Closing the door behind him, he rang the bell, and, to the clerk who came:

“Ask Mr. Gilder to come in, will you, please?”

XII

When Gilder had this message he knew that the girl had told her brother; and although he had his fair share of moral courage, it needed a conscious effort on his part to answer the summons.

“Gilder, what is this story of you buying Red Farm?” asked Arthur sharply.

“Why should I not buy Red Farm?” replied Gilder coolly.

“There is no reason in the world why you shouldn’t,” said Arthur, after a moment’s thought; “but it is rather curious you never told me.”

“I thought you might object,” said Gilder. “Business men hate their workaday associates living anywhere near them. It was stupid of me not to tell you. I’ve been living in a cottage at Chelfordbury for three months--was that in itself objectionable? You will forgive me for saying so, but although I have always regarded you with the respect that is due to an employer, I have never quite looked upon you as my feudal lord!”

Arthur grinned for a second.

“Once or twice I thought of coming over to see you,” Gilder went on, “but I’ve always had what I think to be a natural reluctance to intrude myself in a social capacity upon my chief. If you had ever invited me to come and stay a week-end at your place I would have come, and you would have known all about my presence in the neighbourhood. As it was, I felt very much in the position of a servant enjoying himself in his own independent way and feeling no need to consult his employer as to how he should employ his spare time--and money.”

“And money,” repeated Arthur. “I didn’t know you were so well off, Gilder.”

Mr. Gilder inclined his head.

“I have already hinted to you that I have made considerable sums. There, again, it has never seemed necessary that I should keep you acquainted with my bank balance.”

“You have had a moderate salary,” said Arthur significantly. “Not a generous amount, I agree; certainly not an amount from which a man could save a sum sufficient to buy and rebuild Red Farm and maintain it.”

For answer Gilder put his hand in his pocket and, taking out a little Russian-leather note case, laid it on the table. The name in gold letters upon the cover was that of a bookmaker who carried one of his employer’s biggest accounts. With this firm Arthur had lost his largest bets, for Truman’s had offered him facilities which other houses had denied to him.

“Truman?” He frowned. “What has that to do with it? Have you been backing horses?”

Gilder shook his head.

“No,” he said simply. “I am Truman.”

Arthur Gwyn gaped at him. Truman! The bookmaker to whom for weeks in succession he had been paying thousands upon thousands of pounds!

“Then the money you have--is my money!” he gasped.

“Your money?” said the other quietly. “If Truman’s had not taken it, some other bookmaker would have done so. When you won you were paid--have you any complaints?”

“My money!” muttered Arthur.

Gilder replaced the book in his pocket.

“You remember five years ago complaining to me that you couldn’t find bookmakers who would take big bets by telegram within a few minutes of the race? That little talk gave me an idea. I knew you lost steadily, that you were one of those--unfortunate people----”

“Say ‘fools’--that was the word on your lips.”

“‘Mug’ was the word,” said Mr. Gilder, with great calmness. “I knew you were one of those people who couldn’t stop betting. So Truman’s came into existence. Their book of rules was sent to you, featuring the important concession that you could wire big sums of money up to within a few minutes of a race. Do you know how much you’ve lost in the last five years?”

Arthur was pale with fury, but, mastering himself, shook his head.

“You have lost sixty-three thousand pounds to Truman alone,” said the other slowly. “And I have won it!”

The colour came and went in Arthur Gwyn’s face. He knew all the time that his rage and resentment were unreasonable. Hitherto Truman had been a name on a telegraph form, an address somewhere in the West End to which his unprofitable telegrams were sent. Who they were he neither knew nor cared; they might have been people infinitely more objectionable than Gilder.

But there was a suggestion of duplicity in the man’s confession. Arthur Gwyn felt that he had been tricked by a servant he trusted, and he was helpless in face of sixty-three thousand facts, all of which balanced on the side of the hard-faced man before him.

“You are not Rathburn & Co., I suppose?” he asked, mentioning another bookmaking firm that had drawn heavily upon his resources.

To his amazement, Gilder nodded.

“I am Rathburn & Company. I am also Burton & Smith. I am, in fact, the three bookmakers to whom you have been losing money at the rate of thirty thousand a year for the past five years. There is no sense in looking like that, Gwyn. I have been guilty of no crime. On the few occasions when you have won money, you have been paid. Your losses would not have been so distasteful if they had been made to an unknown man. I took the risk--my luck against yours. When I started, I staked my little fortune--three thousand pounds, won through the years by scrimping and saving. If you had been lucky, I should have been ruined.”

“Instead of which you were lucky--and I am ruined,” said Arthur Gwyn huskily. He was shaken from his accustomed calm. “You are quite right, though it is a little--bewildering.”

He looked curiously at the inscrutable face of his managing clerk, striving to readjust his estimate of a man whom he had looked upon as little more than a superior servant. Then the humour of the position struck him and he laughed.

“If I’m not careful I shall be sorry for myself, and I should hate that, Gilder! So you’re a rich man, eh? What are you going to do with your money?”

Gilder’s eyes did not leave his face.

“I am going to settle down in the country,” he said, “and I am going to marry.”

“Splendid!” There was a note of irony in Arthur Gwyn’s tone. “And who is the fortunate lady?”

It was a long time before the other replied. He stared open-eyed at his sometime master, and then, very deliberately and slowly:

“It is my desire and intention to marry Miss Leslie Gwyn,” he said.

Not a muscle of Arthur Gwyn’s face moved; his colour did not change. But into his eyes came a glare which was malign and devilish. For a second the imperturbable Gilder was scared. Had he gone too far? Both men were learning something that day. Gilder had a momentary view of something that was very ugly and menacing, and then the curtains were drawn and the inner self of Arthur Gwyn vanished in an enigmatic smile.

“That is very interesting and very--enterprising of you, Gilder! Unfortunately, I have other plans.”

He rose leisurely from his chair, walked round the desk and confronted the other, his hands thrust into his pockets.

“What are you prepared to pay for the privilege of being my brother-in-law?” he bantered.

Fabrian Gilder took up the challenge.

“The return of half your betting losses for the past five years,” he said.

Arthur shook his head.

“Not enough,” he smiled.

“The cancellation of four bills,” said Gilder deliberately, “drawn and accepted by Lord Chelford, the acceptance in each case being forged by you.”

Arthur Gwyn staggered back to his desk, his face white and drawn, and Gilder pursued the advantage.

“You didn’t think it was an accident that I suggested you should get Chelford to back a bill for you, did you? Seventy-five thousand pounds isn’t enough for you, eh? I’ll give you this alternative: five years in Dartmoor!”

XIII

Leslie had spent rather a boring afternoon, and not once but many times she regretted that she had promised to return to Arthur’s office. He was driving her down to Willow House, and, but for this arrangement, she would have returned to Chelfordbury by an early train, for her shopping did not occupy more than an hour.

She rang up her brother to suggest this plan, never doubting that he would agree, but, to her surprise:

“I think you’d better return with me, girl. Come along to the office about half-past four instead of five. By the way, Gilder wants us to go home to his flat to tea. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Mr. Gilder?” she said, in surprise, and he went on hastily:

“We ought to be civil to him. He’s going to be a neighbour of ours, and he--he’s not a bad sort of fellow.”

Her inclination was to plead a headache and be excused an experience which, to state the matter mildly, was not wholly to her taste. But Arthur seldom asked a favour of her, and it was apparent from his tone that he was anxious she should show this act of civility to his head clerk; somewhat unwillingly she agreed.

If he detected her reluctance, he made no comment upon it and seemed in a hurry to hang up. There was no reason in the world why the projected call should make her uneasy, and yet, for some obscure reason, this coming experience hung like a cloud over her for the rest of the afternoon. This time, when she returned to the office, she entered by Arthur’s private door. He was alone, sitting at his desk in a familiar attitude, his head between his hands, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the blotting-pad. She thought his face had less colour than usual; and in his eyes there was a haggard, hunted expression which was startling. He forced a smile to greet her, but she was not deceived.

“Aren’t you well, Arthur?” she asked anxiously.

“Fit as a fiddle,” he laughed; “only I have had a pretty heavy day. I suppose I look a little washed out.”

He did not seem very anxious to discuss himself, but plunged straight into the subject of the surprising call they were to make.

“Gilder has a flat off Regent’s Park,” he said. “Be as nice to him as you can, Leslie. He’s been a pretty useful man. By the way,” he said awkwardly, “he is a bachelor.”

She smiled at this; in her wildest dreams she would not have imagined that this statement had any particular interest for herself.

“I had no idea he was such a--that he was so prosperous,” she said. “No, I don’t mean that bachelorhood is a sign of poverty, but his estate at Chelfordbury and his flat in Regent’s Park are not exactly what one would have expected.”

“He isn’t a bad fellow,” repeated Arthur, as he rang the bell. “I think you’ll like him: he is rather--amusing.”