The office was locked and apparently unoccupied. He sought the hall-keeper.
“No, sir,” said that man, shaking his head. “Selengers’ aren’t open. As a matter of fact, nobody’s ever there except at night.”
“At night,” said Jim, “that’s an extraordinary time to do business.”
The hall-keeper looked at him unfavourably.
“I suppose it is the way they do their business, sir,” he said pointedly.
It was some time before Jim could appease the ruffled guardian, and then he learnt that Selengers were evidently privileged tenants. A complaint from Selengers had brought the dismissal of his predecessor, and the curiosity of a housekeeper as to what Selengers did so late at night had resulted in that lady being summarily discharged.
“I think they deal with foreign stock,” said the porter. “A lot of cables come here, but I’ve never seen the gentleman who runs the office. He comes in by the side door.”
Apparently there was another entrance to Selengers’ office, an entrance reached by a small courtyard opening from a side passage. Selengers were the only tenants who had this double means of egress and exit, and also, it seemed, they were the only tenants of the building who were allowed to work all night.
“Even the stockbrokers on the second floor have to shut down at eight o’clock,” explained the porter, “and that’s pretty hard on them, because when the market is booming, there’s work that would keep them going until twelve o’clock. But at eight o’clock, it is ‘out you go’ with the company that owns this building. The rents aren’t high and there are very few offices to be had in the city nowadays. They have always been very strict, even in Mr. Danton’s time.”
“Mr. Danton’s time,” said Jim quickly. “Did he own this building? Do you mean Danton the shipowner millionaire?”
The man nodded.
“Yes, sir,” he said, rather pleased with himself that he had created a sensation. “He sold it, or got rid of it in some way years ago. I happen to know, because I used to be an office-boy in these very buildings, and I remember Mr. Danton—he had an office on the first floor, and a wonderful office it was, too.”
“Who occupies it now?”
“A foreign gentleman named Levenski. He’s a fellow who’s never here, either.”
Jim thought the information so valuable that he went to the length of calling up Mr. Salter at his home. But Mr. Salter knew nothing whatever about the Brade Street Buildings, except that it had been a private speculation of Danton’s. It had come into his hands as the result of the liquidation of the original company, and he had disposed of the property without consultation with Salter & Salter.
It was another blank wall.
CHAPTER NINE
“I SHALL not be in the office to-day, sir. I have several appointments which may keep me occupied,” said Jim Steele, and Mr. Salter sniffed.
“Business, Steele?” he asked politely.
“Not all of them, sir,” said Jim. He had a shrewd idea that Mr. Salter guessed what that business was.
“Very good,” said Salter, putting on his glasses and addressing himself to the work on his desk.
“There is one thing I wanted to ask, and that is partly why I came, because I could have explained my absence by telephone.”
Mr. Salter put down his pen patiently.
“I cannot understand why this fellow Groat has so many Spanish friends,” said Jim. “For example, there is a girl he sees a great deal, the Comtessa Manzana; you have heard of her, sir?”
“I see her name in the papers occasionally,” said Mr. Salter.
“And there are several Spaniards he knows. One in particular named Villa. Groat speaks Spanish fluently, too.”
“That is curious,” said Mr. Salter, leaning back in his chair. “His grandfather had a very large number of Spanish friends. I think that somewhere in the background there may have been some Spanish family connection. Old man Danton, that is, Jonathan Danton’s father, made most of his money in Spain and in Central America, and was always entertaining a houseful of grandees. They were a strange family, the Dantons. They lived in little water-tight compartments, and I believe on the day of his death Jonathan Danton hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to his sister for twenty years. They weren’t bad friends, if you understand. It was just the way of the Dantons. There are other families whom I know who do exactly the same thing. A reticent family, with a keen sense of honour.”
“Didn’t Grandfather Danton leave Mrs. Groat any money? She was one of his two children, wasn’t she?”
Septimus Salter nodded.
“He never left her a penny,” he said. “She practically lived on the charity of her brother. I never understood why, but the old man took a sudden dislike to her. Jonathan was as much in the dark as I am. He used to discuss it with me and wondered what his sister had done to incur the old man’s enmity. His father never told him—would never even discuss the sister with him. It was partly due to the old man’s niggardly treatment of Mrs. Groat that Jonathan Danton made his will as he did.
“Probably her marriage with Groat was one of the causes of the old man’s anger. Groat was nothing, a shipping clerk in Danton’s Liverpool office. A man ill at ease in good society, without an ‘h’ to his name, and desperately scared of his wife. The only person who was ever nice to him was poor Lady Mary. His wife hated him for some reason or other. Curiously enough when he died, too, he left all his money to a distant cousin—and he left about Ł5,000. Where he got it from heaven knows. And now be off, Steele. The moment you come into this office,” said Mr. Salter in despair, “you start me on a string of reminiscences that are deplorably out of keeping with a lawyer’s office.”
Jim’s first call that morning was at the Home Office. He was anxious to clear up the mystery of Madge Benson. Neither Scotland Yard nor the Prisons Commissioners were willing to supply an unofficial investigator with the information he had sought, and in desperation he had applied to the Secretary of State’s Department. Fortunately he had a “friend at court” in that building, a middle-aged barrister he had met in France, and his inquiry, backed by proof that he was not merely satisfying his personal curiosity, had brought him a note asking him to call.
Mr. Fenningleigh received him in his room with a warmth which showed that he had not forgotten the fact that on one occasion Jim had saved him from what might have been a serious injury, if not death, for Jim had dragged him to cover one night when the British headquarters were receiving the unwelcome attentions of ten German bombers.
“Sit down, Steele. I can’t tell you much,” said the official, picking up a slip of paper from his blotting-pad, “and I’m not sure that I ought to tell you anything! But this is the information which ‘prisons’ have supplied.”
Jim took the slip from the barrister’s hand and read the three lines.
“‘Madge Benson, age 26. Domestic Servant. One month with H.L. for theft. Sentenced at Marylebone Police Court. June 5th, 1898. Committed to Holloway. Released July 2nd, 1898.’”
“Theft?” said Jim thoughtfully. “I suppose there is no way of learning the nature of the theft?”
Mr. Fenningleigh shook his head.
“I should advise you to interview the gaoler at Marylebone. These fellows have extraordinary memories for faces, and besides, there is certain to be a record of the conviction at the court. You had better ask Salter to apply; they will give permission to a lawyer.”
But this was the very thing Jim did not want to do.
CHAPTER TEN
EUNICE WELDON was rapidly settling down in her new surroundings. The illness of her employer, so far from depriving her of occupation, gave her more work than she had ever expected. It was true, as Digby Groat had said, that there were plenty of small jobs to fill up her time. At his suggestion she went over the little account books in which Mrs. Groat kept the record of her household expenses, and was astounded to find how parsimonious the old lady had been.
One afternoo
n when she was tidying the old bureau, she stopped in her work to admire the solid workmanship which the old furniture builders put into their handicraft.
The bureau was one of those old-fashioned affairs, which are half desk and half bookcase, the writing-case being enclosed by glass doors covered on the inside with green silk curtains.
It was the thickness of the two side-pieces enclosing the actual desk, which, unlike the writing-flap of the ordinary secretaire, was immovable, that arrested her attention. She was rubbing her hand admiringly along the polished mahogany surface when she felt a strip of wood give way under the pressure of her fingertips. To her surprise a little flap about an inch wide and about six inches long had fallen down and hung on its in visible hinges, leaving a black cavity. A secret drawer in a secretaire is not an extraordinary discovery, but she wondered whether she ought to explore the recess which her accidental touch had revealed. She put in her fingers and drew out a folded paper. There was nothing else in the drawer, if drawer it could be called.
Ought she to read it, she wondered? If it had been so carefully put away, Mrs. Groat would not wish it to be seen by a third person. Nevertheless, it was her duty to discover what the document was, and she opened it.
To the top a piece of paper was attached on which a few words wire written in Mrs. Groat’s hand:
“This is the will referred to in the instructions contained in the sealed envelope which Mr. Salter has in his possession.”
The word “Salter” had been struck out and the name of the firm of solicitors, which had supplanted the old man had been substituted.
The will was executed on one of those forms, which can be purchased at any law stationer’s. But apart from the preamble it was short:
“I give to my son, Digby Francis Groat, the sum of 20,000 pounds and my house and furniture at 409, Grosvenor Square. The remainder of my estate I give to Ramonez—Marquis of Estremeda, of Calle Receletos, Madrid.”
It was witnessed by two names, unknown to the girl, and as they had described themselves as domestic servants it was probable that they had long since left her employment, for Mrs. Groat did not keep a servant very long.
What should she do with it? She determined to ask Digby.
Later, when going through the drawers on her desk she discovered a small miniature and was startled by the dark beauty of the subject. It was a head and shoulders of a girl wearing her hair in a way, which was fashionable in the late seventies. The face was bold, but beautiful, the dark eyes seemed to glow with life. The face of a girl who had her way, thought Eunice, as she noted the firm round chin. She wondered who it was and showed it to Digby Groat at lunch.
“Oh, that is a picture of my mother,” he said carelessly.
“Your mother,” said Eunice in astonishment, and he chuckled.
“You’d never think she was never like that; but she was, I believe, a very beautiful girl,”—his face darkened—“just a little too beautiful,” he said, without explaining what he meant.
Suddenly, he snatched the miniature from her and looked on the back.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and a sudden pallor had come to his face. “Mother sometimes writes things on the back of pictures, and I was rather—” he was going to say “scared “—“and I was rather embarrassed.”
He was almost incoherent, an unusual circumstance, for Digby Groat was the most self-possessed of men.
He changed the subject by introducing an inquiry which he had meant to make some time before.
“Miss Weldon, can you explain that scar on your wrist?” he asked.
She shook her head laughingly.
“I’m almost sorry I showed it to you,” she said. “It is ugly, isn’t it?”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “mother never told me. It looks rather like a burn.”
He examined the little red place attentively.
“Of course,” she went on, “it is absurd to think that the sight of my birthmark was the cause of your mother’s stroke.”
“I suppose it is,” he nodded, “but it was a remarkable coincidence.”
He had endeavoured to find from the old woman the reason of her sudden collapse, but without success. For three days she had lain in her bed speechless and motionless and apparently had neither heard nor seen him when he had made his brief visits to the sick room.
She was recovering now, however, and he intended, at the first opportunity, demanding a full explanation.
“Did you find anything else?” he asked suspiciously. He was never quite sure what new folly his mother might commit. Her passion for other people’s property might have come to light.
Should she tell him? He saw the doubt and trouble in her face and repeated his question.
“I found your mother’s will,” she said.
He had finished his lunch, had pushed back his chair and was smoking peacefully. The cigar dropped from his hand and she saw his face go black.
“Her will?” he said. “Are you sure? Her will is at the lawyer’s. It was made two years ago.”
“This will was made a few months ago,” said Eunice, troubled. “I do hope I haven’t betrayed any secret of hers.”
“Let me see this precious document,” said Digby, starting up.
His voice was brusque, almost to rudeness. She wondered what had brought about this sudden change. They walked back to the old woman’s shabby room and the girl produced a document from the drawer.
He read it through carefully.
“The old fool,” he muttered. “The cussed drivelling old fool! Have you read this?” he asked sharply.
“I read a little of it,” admitted the girl, shocked by the man’s brutal reference to his mother.
He examined the paper again and all the time he was muttering something under his breath.
“Where did you find this?” he asked harshly.
“I found it by accident,” explained Eunice. “There is a little drawer here “—she pointed to the seemingly solid side of the bureau in which gaped an oblong cavity.
“I see,” said Digby Groat slowly as he folded the paper. “Now, Miss Weldon, perhaps you will tell me how much of this document you have read? “—he tapped the will on his palm.
She did not know exactly what to say. She was Mrs. Groat’s servant and she felt it was disloyal even to discuss her private affairs with Digby.
“I read beyond your legacy,” she admitted, “I did not read it carefully.”
“And you saw that my mother had left me Ł20,000?” said Digby Groat, “and the remainder to—somebody else.”
She nodded.
“Do you know who that somebody else was?”
“Yes,” she said. “To the Marquis of Estremeda.”
His face had changed from sallow to red, from red to a dirty grey, and his voice as he spoke shook with the rage he could not altogether suppress.
“Do you know how much money my mother will be worth?” he asked.
“No, Mr. Groat,” said the girl quietly, “and I don’t think you ought to tell me. It is none of my business.”
“She will be worth a million and a quarter,” he said between his teeth, “and she’s left me Ł20,000 and this damned house!”
He swung round and was making for the door, and the girl, who guessed his intentions, went after him and caught his arm.
“Mr. Groat,” she said seriously, “you must not go to your mother. You really must not!”
Her intervention sobered him and he walked slowly back to the fireplace, took a match from his pocket, lit it, and before the astonished eyes of the girl applied it to one corner of the document. He watched it until it was black ash and then put his foot upon the debris.
“So much for that!” he said, and turning caught the amazed look in the face of Eunice. “You think I’ve behaved disgracefully, I suppose,” he smiled, his old debonair self. “The truth is, I am saving my mother’s memory from the imputation of madness. T
here is no Marquis of Estremeda, as far as I know. It is one of the illusions which my mother has, that a Spanish nobleman once befriended her. That is the dark secret of our family, Miss Weldon,” he laughed, but she knew that he was lying.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The door of Digby Groat’s study was ajar, and he caught a glimpse of Eunice as she came in and made her way up to her room. She had occupied a considerable amount of his thoughts that afternoon, and he had cursed himself that he had been betrayed into revealing the ugly side of his nature before one whom he wished to impress. But there was another matter troubling him. In his folly he had destroyed a legal document in the presence of a witness and had put himself into her power. Suppose his mother died, he thought, and the question of a will arose? Suppose Estremeda got hold of her, her testimony in the courts of law might destroy the value of his mother’s earlier will and bring him into the dock at the Old Bailey.
It was an axiom of his that great criminals are destroyed by small causes. The spendthrift who dissipates hundreds of thousands of pounds, finds himself made bankrupt by a paltry hundred pounds, and the clever organizer of the Thirteen who had covered his traces so perfectly that the shrewdest police in the world had not been able to associate him with their many crimes, might easily be brought to book through a piece of stupidity which was dictated by rage and offended vanity. He was now more than ever determined that Eunice Weldon should come within his influence, so that her power for mischief should be broken before she knew how crushingly it might be employed.
It was not an unpleasant task he set himself, for Eunice exercised a growing fascination over him. Her beauty and her singular intelligence were sufficient lures, but to a man of his temperament the knowledge that she added to these gifts a purity of mind and soul gave her an added value. That she was in the habit of meeting the man he hated, he knew. His faithful Jackson had trailed the girl twice, and on each occasion had returned with the same report. Eunice Weldon was meeting Steele in the park. And the possibility that Jim loved her was the greatest incentive of all to his vile plan.
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