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CHAPTER XX
THE FIRST LINE OF AN OLD SONG

Rodney Elmore had the unusual attribute of seeming at his best in the morning, as if calm, unruffled sleep, having removed the cobwebs from his brain, returned him rested and buoyant to a world in which there were no shadows. When, on the Wednesday morning, he came downstairs with light steps and dancing eyes, he found among the letters on the breakfast table one which was addressed in a familiar hand. He gave it pride of place.

"My Dear R., – I don't know what possesses me, but I feel that I simply must write and tell you that I wish you were within kissing distance. Isn't that a ridiculous feeling to have, especially where you're concerned? Do you think that I don't know? I have been conscious of the most extraordinary sensations since Sunday. I made a mistake in asking you to come and console me. You did it so effectually that-well, I would like you to continue the treatment. There's a dreadful thing to say! Aren't I a wretch? Poor dear Tom! I know he has all the good qualities I haven't, and that he'll make me the best husband in the world, but as for his consoling me-oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear! I don't like the idea at all! I'm nearly sure that, after all, the best husband in the world is not the one I'm looking for. What makes me feel so all over pins and needles when I'm with Tom, and so comfy when I'm with you? Isn't it odd? Have you any feeling of the kind where I'm concerned? I know you'll say so, but have you? You'd say anything to anyone, but, all the same, I've a feeling somewhere that, if I chose, I could have you on a little bit of string. I daren't ask you to come here again, I simply daren't; but, if you do come, mind you give me proper warning. What would you say if I ran up to town? Should I see Stella at the corner of every street? Sweet Stella! Aren't I a cat? I suppose you couldn't rob a bank or something? If you and I were starting off to-morrow together, ever so far, for ever so long-I dare not think of it, and that's the honest truth. Aren't I insane? No one but you would ever guess it. – M.

"Mind you tear this up the very moment you have read it, and you're to forget that you ever did read it!

"By the way, by which train did you go up on Sunday? You weren't sure that you could catch the Pullman, and, if you did miss it, did you go by the 9.10? In that case you must have been in the same train as your uncle. When I saw about it in the paper it gave me quite a shock. Fancy if he was in the next carriage to yours? I suppose the dear man hasn't left you a millionaire? If he only had! You would-wouldn't you?

"Tear it up!"

He had just finished reading this somewhat interjectional epistle when Miss Joyce came in, the bearer of his morning meal. He greeted her as if he were really pleased to see her.

"The top of the morning to you, Baby! How moves the world your way? Do you feel like dancing on your pink toes?"

When he called her Baby, the pet name he had for her, she glanced up at him, almost as if she were startled.

"Did you understand what I said to you last night?"

"Perfectly; I've been thinking it all over, and I've come to a decision. I think you're quite right in what you wish me to do. As this isn't Leap Year, let me regularise the position. Mabel, I would like you to be my wife. Will you take me for your husband?"

"You say that because you know you can't help yourself."

"You are mistaken. If I didn't want to be your husband, nothing you or anyone could say or do could make me, rest assured of that. I won't pretend that, if things had turned out differently, I-should have suggested it; but, as they are, please, Mabel, let me do the proposing-say you will be my wife."

"I'm going to be your wife; to-morrow, Thursday, at noon, and don't you make any mistake. There's the address of the registrar's office at which you're going to be married, and mind you're there to time."

"Baby-you are only a baby, after all-don't talk like that; don't let's enter the matrimonial state as if we wished to cut each other's throats; let's start afresh on the old terms. I hope that when we're being married you won't have those white cheeks and unhappy eyes, or the registrar will think that I'm frightening you into being my bride, and you know that will be wrong."

"Rodney, do you care for me a little bit?"

"My dear Mabel, I care for you in an altogether different fashion from that which you suppose, as I hope to be able to prove to you before very long. Come, let's be friends."

"Don't touch me-don't! Mother's waiting for me. She wants me for something; she told me not to be long. I-I want to speak to you before I go. I-I want to warn you against Mr. Dale."

"You said something to that effect last night. Is Mr. Dale so dangerous?"

"He's jealous of you."

"Well, does that constitute him dangerous?"

"He always has been throwing out nasty hints about you."

"To whom? Surely not to you? You wouldn't listen to what you yourself call nasty hints about me coming from a man like Dale?"

"It wasn't so much that I listened as that he was always at it whenever he came near me. I couldn't stop him. I suppose that my asking him about your going to Brighton on Sunday, and my going to the inquest, and such-like, made him-made him-"

"Yes? Made him what?"

"Started him thinking. Anyhow, he's-he's been finding out things, and-I don't know that he hasn't found out. You take care of him!"

"My dear Mabel, in what sense am I to take care of him? I'm inclined to think that I should rather like to have a talk with your friend Mr. Dale."

"You'll do no good by that."

"Shan't I? We'll see. Where is he to be found-in the booking office at Victoria Station?"

"One week he goes early and comes back about six; the next he has his dinner first and doesn't come back till after one-this is his late week. He hasn't had his breakfast yet; he's still up in his room."

"Is that so? I'm afraid I can't stop to talk to him just now, but I certainly will take the first chance which offers."

"Don't you say anything to him to make him nasty!"

A feminine voice was heard calling the young lady's name. "There's mother calling. She'll give me a talking to! Mind, to-morrow at noon; and there's the address upon that piece of paper."

"My dear Mabel, I'm making arrangements which will permit of my placing the whole of to-morrow at your service. I promise that you shall have something like a wedding day."

When the lady had gone the gentleman poured himself out a cup of coffee with the air of one who was in the enjoyment of an excellent joke. He propped Miss Carmichael's letter up against the coffee-pot and read it through again. The second reading seemed to add to his sense of enjoyment.

"Rob a bank? Quite as heinous crimes have been committed for the sake of a woman. I've always had a kind of fancy that you're the type of girl for whom it would be worth one's while to do such things. If I were to ask you to start upon that little trip at which you hint, I wonder what you'd say-if you knew. Hullo! what's this?"

He was staring at a sheet of paper which he had taken out of one of the three or four envelopes which were lying on the table. On it were a couple of typewritten lines:

"If you take a friend's advice you will get clean away while you have still a chance."

He regarded the words as if in doubt as to whether they were intended to convey to him an esoteric meaning.

"No signature, no address, no date; the first anonymous communication I ever have been favoured with. Postmark on the envelope, Kew, dispatched from there last night at eight o'clock, which doesn't convey much intelligence to me. So far as I'm aware I have no acquaintance who resides at Kew; and I suppose an anonymous correspondent, if he had his head screwed on, is scarcely likely to reside in the district from which he sends his letter. It's very good of a friend to make a friendly suggestion, but quite what he means I do not know; nor have I the very dimmest notion who the friend may be. Come in!"

Someone had tapped at the door. In response to his invitation a young man entered of about his own age; not tall, but sturdily built, with close-cut black hair, small dark eyes, and a somewhat voluminous moustache. There was that in his manner which hinted that he was in a state of some excitement; that, indeed, he was an excitable young man. He came right up to the table, with a billycock hat in one hand and a bamboo cane in the other. He looked at Elmore with what were scarcely friendly eyes. When he spoke it was in what evidently were lowered tones and with a curious, staccato utterance, as if he wished to throw his words into the other's face.

"You'll have to excuse my coming in like this, but I'm going out, and I want to speak to you before I do go."

"That's very good of you. I believe you are Mr. Dale."

"My name is Dale-George Dale, as you very well know."

"Pray sit down, Mr. Dale. I don't remember to have had the pleasure of being introduced to you before."

"Thanking you all the same, I won't sit down, and as to being introduced to you, I never have been. It's only for your sake I'm speaking to you now. I want to ask you a question to begin with."

"Ask it, Mr. Dale."

"What are your intentions as regards Miss Joyce?"

"Really, Mr. Dale, I don't know if you are joking in putting such a question. If you aren't I certainly don't know what you mean."

Rodney smiled at his visitor pleasantly; but the smile, instead of affording Mr. Dale gratification, not only caused his scowl to deepen, but induced him to use language of unexpected vigour.

"You're a liar! That's what you are-a liar! You're a liar, because you know quite well what I mean. I'm not afraid of you. You're a bigger man than I am, but I can use the gloves. You wouldn't knock me out so easy as you think. I'd mark you first! But I haven't come here to fight you."

"That, at least, is gratifying intelligence, Mr. Dale."

"Oh, you can sneer-you're one of the sneering sort; but sneers won't do you any good. You take my tip and get as far away from this as you can-out of England, if you can! – between now and this time to-morrow!"

Rodney regarded his visitor with an air of placid amusement, which certainly did not seem to have a soothing effect.

"Mr. Dale, am I indebted to you for this?"

He held out the sheet of paper on which were the two typewritten lines. Mr. Dale eyed it askance.

"What's that? Where did you get it from?"

"It came by this morning's post-from you?"

"That I'll swear it never did; what's more, I don't know who it does come from. That looks as if there were more than one in it. I'll commit myself to nothing. I've got myself to think of as well as you; but, although this didn't come from me, and I don't know anything at all about it, you do what it says here-get clean away while you have still a chance."

Without another word, or giving Rodney a chance to utter one, Mr. Dale bolted from, rather than left, the room; within ten seconds of his going the slamming of the front door announced that he had left the house. For some seconds Elmore sat still; then, getting up from his chair, began to fill a pipe with tobacco. Miss Joyce put her head into the room, noiselessly, unexpectedly, as she seemed to have a trick of doing.

"Was that Mr. Dale? I thought it might be you. Has he been in here?"

"He has. You come in and take away the breakfast things; I've had all I want to eat."

Coming in, she began to do as he had said, talking, as she put the things together, in a half whisper which recalled Mr. Dale's staccato undertones. It seemed to be a house of whispers.

"What did he say to you?"

"He came to offer me a tip."

"A tip?"

"He said that if I took his tip I shouldn't stand upon the order of my going, but go at once, and go as far as possible between now and to-morrow."

She put both hands to her left side, as if unconscious that she had a plate in one and a teaspoon in the other.

"Rodney! Then-then-what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"But if he tells?"

"Tells what?"

"He said to me last night that if anyone knows that-that someone has killed a person, and doesn't at once inform the police, that's being an accessory after the fact."

"Well? He was merely acquainting you with what I take is a legal truism."

"Then he said that, whatever I might choose to do, he did not mean to be an accessory, either before the fact or after. Then he looked at me in such a way-I knew what he meant-and he went right off to bed without saying another word."

"What had you been talking about?"

"About-your uncle."

"Had he introduced the subject or had you?"

"He had; he would keep talking about it. Rodney, he knows, and-he's going to tell."

"Then, in that case, it looks as if you will gain little by becoming my wife, and that I shall gain nothing."

"Rodney, I want you to get out of your head what I said the other night. I don't want to force you to marry me, and I never did."

"Then you've rather an unfortunate way of expressing yourself, don't you think so, my dear Mabel?"

"I-I didn't know how else to do what I wanted to do. It's quite true that if I'm not going to be your wife I'll kill myself; but that doesn't matter-I'd just as soon die as live. But I do want to save you, and the only way I can do it is for you to marry me."

"That may keep you from playing the tell-tale, but how is it going to affect Mr. Dale?"

"He won't tell if I'm your wife."

"Won't he? Why? I should have thought, if your story's correct, that he'd have told all the more, that disappointment would have inflamed him to madness."

Rodney, as he said this, struck a match to light his pipe, and laughed. Nothing could have seemed less like laughter than the girl's white face and haunted eyes.

"He'd tell to keep me from being your wife, but if I were your wife he'd never tell. I know him; he'd suffer anything rather than do anything which would give me pain or bring me to shame; if I were your wife he'd never tell. You're a gentleman, Rodney, and I'm not a lady, and I don't suppose I ever shall be; I'm just a girl who has let you do what you like with her, and you're cleverer than I am-much, much cleverer; but, in this, do be advised by me-do, dear, do! There is something here, something which makes me sure that the only way out of it, for you, is for you to make me your wife. I know you don't want to do it, that you never meant to do it, and I can quite understand why; but you'd better have me for your wife than-than that; don't you see, dear, that you had? I shan't be able to tell, and George Dale won't, and no one else knows, and instead of trying to find out more he'll keep others from finding out anything; he'll be on your side instead of against you, for my sake. Rodney, I implore you-for your own sake, dear, your own sake! – to do as you promised, and marry me."

She pleaded to be allowed to save his life as if she were pleading for her own life. He turned to shake the ash from his pipe into the fender, and so remained, for some moments, with his back to her; while her eyes looked as if they were crying out to him. When he turned to her again he was pressing the tobacco down into his pipe before restoring it to his lips, smiling as he looked at her.

"My dear Mabel, I'm not certain that I follow your reasoning, but do make your mind easy; I've promised to marry you to-morrow, and I will-on the stroke of noon-to the tick, for my sake as well as for yours. And, though the fates don't seem over propitious at the moment, I dare say we shall be quite as happy as the average married folk-at least, I'll marry you."

"You mean it?"

"I do-unreservedly; please understand that once more, and once for all. You shall have something like a wedding day."

"I wish-I wish it were to-day; I'm afraid-of what may happen-before to-morrow."

"Of whatever you may be afraid, I'm afraid that it couldn't be to-day. It's my uncle's funeral to-day."

"Rodney! You-you're not going!"

"I am; as chief mourner."

"Rodney, you-you can't do a thing like that! You-you mustn't!"

As she spoke an elderly woman came into the room, of a somewhat portly presence-the lady's mother. Seemingly she was in a mood to be garrulous.

"What mustn't he do? Excuse me, Mr. Elmore, for coming in like this, but really, Mabel, I don't know what you are thinking about. I'm sure Mr. Elmore wants to go to his business, and here's all the work at a standstill-"

"All right, mother; Mr. Elmore doesn't want to hear you grumbling at me, I know."

Without waiting for her mother to continue her observations, Miss Joyce bustled out of the room with the breakfast tray in her hands. Left alone with him, the landlady addressed her lodger.

"What's the matter with the girl I can't think; I never saw anything like the change that's come over her the last few days; she looks more fit for a hospital than anything else-and her temper! She never says anything to me; I suppose you don't know what's wrong?"

"Mrs. Joyce, I'm not your daughter's confidant; she certainly says nothing to me in the sense you mean. Why do you take it for granted that anything's wrong?"

"Because I've got two eyes in my head, that's why. She's not the same girl she was; that something's wrong I'm certain sure; but she snaps my nose off directly I open my mouth. I know she thinks a lot of you. I wondered if she'd said anything to you."

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then I can't understand the girl, and that's flat!"

With that somewhat cryptic utterance Mrs. Joyce went out of the room as impetuously as she had entered. Rodney stood looking at the door for a moment or two, as if in doubt whether she would return. He tore the sheet of paper on which were the two typewritten lines into tiny scraps and dropped them into the fireplace. Re-reading Miss Carmichael's epistle, he obeyed her injunctions, a little tardily, perhaps, and sent the fragments after the others, repeating to himself as he did so a line from an old song:

 
"Of all the girls that are so sweet!"
 

Then he took an oblong piece of paper out of a letter-case and studied it.

"'Steamship Cedric. – John Griffiths, passenger to New York, cabin forty-five, berth A.' I wonder if it will be occupied, or if the money's wasted. That's for to-morrow, or is it to be Buenos Ayres on Friday, or New York on Saturday?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Who knows if it is to be either?"

He had left the house and was descending the steps when a telegraph boy approached, with a yellow envelope in his hand.

"Who's it for?" he asked.

"Rodney Elmore, sir."

"I am Rodney Elmore. Wait and see if there's an answer."

The telegram which the envelope contained was a lengthy one; it covered the whole of the pink slip of paper. He read it through once, then again. As he read it the second time he whistled, very softly, as if unconsciously, the opening bars of "Sally in Our Alley."

"There is an answer. Give me a form."

He spread the form the boy gave him out upon his letter-case, then he seemed to consider what to say; then read the telegram he had received a third time, as if in search of light and leading. Arriving at a sudden decision, he wrote on the form the name and address of the person to whom the message was to be sent, and then one word, "Right." He added nothing which would show who the sender was; evidently he took it for granted that it would be recognised that the message came from him. As he watched the lad mount his bicycle and pedal away, he said to himself, always with that characteristic air of his, as of one who appreciates a capital jest:

"That settles it! Now the plot does begin to thicken."

CHAPTER XXI
THE DEAD MAN'S LETTER

The final understanding had been that those who were to go to the bank, in order that arrangements might be made which would give them immediate access to the funds of the late Graham Patterson, were to meet at the office in St. Paul's Churchyard. On the way to the City Rodney paid two or three calls. When he entered the office the outer rooms were empty; there was a notice on the outer door to the effect that business was suspended on account of Mr. Patterson's funeral. Mr. Andrews came out of what had been the late proprietor's own sanctum to greet him.

"Mr. Wilkes is here, Mr. Elmore, and particularly wishes to see you."

Rodney said nothing, but his look suggested that he resented something which he noticed in the other's manner, as well as the fact that he had come out of that particular room. Passing on in silence to the private office, he found Mr. Wilkes seated, not in his uncle's own chair, as he had been on Monday, but in one close to it. He did not rise as the young man entered, but contented himself with nodding slightly. Rodney, scenting something antagonistic in the other's presence there as well as in his attitude, did not even nod. He marched straight to the chair behind the writing-table, which he chose now to regard as his own, and which was within a yard of that on which the other was seated, and, remaining standing himself, looked down on the lawyer.

"To what am I indebted, Mr. Wilkes, for your presence to-day? Did you not notice the intimation on the door, informing all and sundry that these offices are closed? If it is a business matter on which you have called, I must ask you to postpone it, at any rate until to-morrow."

Instead of showing any disposition to take himself off, as the other so plainly suggested, the dark-visaged lawyer, leaning back in his chair, looked up at the young man with something in his glance which was not exactly complimentary.

"I have come, Mr. Elmore, a good deal against my own wish, in consequence of a communication which I have received from Mr. Patterson."

"From-what do you mean, from Mr. Patterson?"

"A letter came to my office yesterday evening, after I had left, which was placed in my hands this morning. Before proceeding to take other steps, I thought it might perhaps save unpleasantness, and be fairer to you, if, in the first instance, I acquainted you with its substance."

"From whom is the letter?"

"From your late uncle, Graham Patterson."

"You say it reached you last night? I don't understand."

"Nor I, as yet, quite; I can only form a hypothesis. It seems that the letter was written at Brighton some time on Sunday. Clearly, from the postmark, it was posted at Brighton on Sunday. It ought to have reached me, of course, on Monday, but the presumption is that, owing to some vagary of the Post Office, it went astray, so that it has been more than two days on the road, instead of only a few hours. Under the circumstances that seems rather a curious accident. Here is the letter. I warn you that you will not find it a pleasant one."

"Is it absolutely necessary, then, that I should know its contents? My relations with Mr. Patterson were not of a kind to lead me to expect any pleasantness from him, either on paper or off it."

"The position is this. It is my duty to place this letter before-someone else, when very serious consequences may ensue; but, by taking a certain course, you may relieve me of the duty."

"In that case, let me know what is in the letter."

"I had better read it to you, so that you may understand that the language is the writer's, not mine."

Mr. Wilkes withdrew a letter from an envelope which he took from his pocket; the envelope he held out to Rodney.

"You see? The address is in your uncle's hand; it was post-marked at Brighton on Sunday evening, so there can be no doubt about the date on which it was dispatched."

The lawyer proceeded to read the letter out loud, with a dryness which seemed to give it peculiar point.

"'Dear Stephen' [my Christian name, I may remind you, is Stephen], – 'I want you to draw up a codicil to my will, and to have it ready for my signature to-morrow-Monday afternoon.

"'It is to be to the effect that if my daughter marries my nephew, Rodney Elmore, then all that portion of my will which refers to her is to be null and void-she is not to have a penny. All that would have been hers is to be divided equally among the following charities.' [Then follows a list of them; there are eight. Then the letter goes on]: 'I hope that's clear enough. Between ourselves, Master Elmore is an all-round scoundrel; I swear to you that I'm convinced that no rascality would be too steep for him. He is a liar of the very first water, a thief, and a forger; so much I can prove. I would sooner have my girl dead than his wife; the damned young blackguard is after her for all he knows. But I am going to clear him out in charge of a constable when I get back to the office; I doubt if he has got tight enough hold of my girl to induce her to marry a convict-it will be a clear case of penal servitude for him.

"'I know you will think I am writing strongly, but that is because I feel strongly. When I tell you the whole story you will admit that I am justified.

"'Mind you have that codicil ready, on the lines I have given; I will call in on my way back from the office and sign. I know you do not touch criminal business as a rule, but you will have to make an exception in my case. I want you to instruct counsel in the matter of Master Elmore, for reasons which I will make clear to you when we meet. Sincerely yours,

"'Graham Patterson.'"

When the lawyer had done reading he lowered the letter and glanced up at the young man, who still stood towering above him. If he expected to find on his face any signs of confusion, still less of guilt or shame, his expectation was not realised. There was a look rather on Rodney's countenance of scorn, of confidence in himself, of contempt for whoever might speak ill of him, which became him very well. His remarks, when they came, possibly scarcely breathed the spirit the solicitor had looked for.

"Have you read that letter to Mr. Andrews?"

"I have not."

"Have you made him acquainted with its contents?"

"I have dropped no hint to him of its existence."

"I have no pretensions to knowledge of the law of libel, but it is pretty clear that no action can be brought against the man who wrote that letter. With you the case is different. It was written, I presume, in confidence to you. If you bring it to the notice of anybody else you make yourself responsible for the statements it contains-you publish them. If you call my honour in question by publishing such a farrago of lies about me I will first of all thrash you, as they have it, to within an inch of your life, and then, if needs be, I will spend my last penny in calling you to account in a court of law. You shall not shelter yourself behind a dead man."

"You use strong language, Mr. Elmore."

"Could I use stronger language than that letter?"

"I understand that you deny the statements it contains?"

"Do I understand that you associate yourself with your correspondent so far as to require a denial?"

"You misapprehend the situation; whether wilfully or not I don't know. I have no personal concern in this matter at all; eliminate that idea from your mind. Graham Patterson was my client living; in a sense he is still my client dead. I have no option but to continue to do my duty to him without fear or favour."

"I presume in return for a certain fee, Mr. Wilkes?"

"You forget yourself, sir."

"In this room, Mr. Wilkes, eliminate from your mind all legal fictions. Don't, for your own sake, drive the fact that you are acting as my uncle's bravo too far home. In the face of that letter I begin to understand why he committed suicide. He was either drunk or mad when he wrote it. When sobriety or sanity returned, realising the situation in which he had placed himself, rather than face the consequences of what he had done, he took his own life. Don't you show yourself to be in possession of the dastard's courage which he lacked."

"You take up an extraordinary position, Mr. Elmore."

"What is the position you take up?"

"Here is a letter from a man to his lawyer, in which he gives him instructions to make certain alterations in his will, stating reasons why he wishes those alterations to be made. It is signed, dated; its authenticity can be readily established. I am not sure that it has not a certain testamentary value."

"Are you suggesting that that letter in any way affects my uncle's will?"

"I am not prepared to give a definite opinion; but this I will say, that if its existence were to come to the knowledge of the societies herein mentioned, they would be justified in taking counsel's opinion, and quite possibly he would advise their taking further action."

"You are, of course, at liberty to take any steps with regard to that tissue of libels you please, especially as I have made it, I think, perfectly clear to you that you will do so at your own proper peril."

"Evidently your uncle was averse to your marrying his daughter. Am I to take it that you admit so much?"

"Oh, I admit so much; he always was averse to that."

"Then, in that case, you will at once resolve the difficulty by withdrawing all pretensions to Miss Patterson's hand."

"Damn your impudence, sir."

"Is that your answer?"

"It is; with this addition-that I hope, and intend, to marry Miss Patterson at the earliest possible moment."

"Then, in that case, you leave me no option but to place this letter before Miss Patterson."

"Is that meant for a threat?"

Andrews appeared in the doorway to announce that Mr. Parmiter was in the outer office.

"Show Mr. Parmiter in at once for a few minutes, Andrews, if you please."

As the young solicitor came in Rodney advanced to greet him.

"Hallo, Parmiter! you come in the very nick of time-you see Mr. Wilkes has favoured me with his company again. Mr. Wilkes, read to Mr. Parmiter the letter you just now read to me."

"I shall certainly do nothing of the kind. With all possible respect to Mr. Parmiter, this is a matter in which he has no locus standi, and in which I cannot recognise him at all."

"Why not? He is my solicitor; he advises me. When you have made known to him the contents of that letter, don't you think it possible that he may give me the advice which, apparently, you would like him to give?"

While he was still speaking the door opened to admit Miss Patterson. He moved to her with both hands held out.