A Bottomless Grave

by A Bottomless Grave

‘No nonsense, Philpotts—did you see him?’

  ‘See whom?’ Mr Philpotts was selecting a paper from a side table. ‘I see your cigar is burning a hole in the carpet.’

  ‘Confound my cigar!’ Mr Bloxham stamped on it with an angry tread. ‘Did Geoff Fleming pass you as you came in?’

  Mr Philpotts looked round with an air of evident surprise.

  ‘Geoff Fleming!—Why, surely he’s in Ceylon by now.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. A minute ago he was in that chair talking to me.’

  ‘Bloxham!’ Mr Philpotts’ air of surprise became distinctly more pronounced, a fact which Mr Bloxham apparently resented.

  ‘What are you looking at me like that for pray? I tell you I was glancing through the Field, when I felt someone touch me on the shoulder. I looked round—there was Fleming standing just behind me. “Geoff.” I cried, “I thought you were on the other side of the world—what are you doing here?” “I’ve come to have a peep at you,” he said. He drew a chair up close to mine—this chair—and sat in it. I turned round to reach for a match on the table, it scarcely took me a second, but when I looked his way again hanged if he weren’t gone.’

  Mr Philpotts continued his selection of a paper—in a manner which was rather marked.

  ‘Which way did he go?’

  ‘Didn’t you meet him as you came in?’

  ‘I did not—I met no one. What’s the matter now?’

  The question was inspired by the fact that a fresh volley of expletives came from Mr Bloxham’s lips. That gentleman was standing with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, his legs wide open, and his eyes and mouth almost as wide open as his legs.

  ‘Hang me,’ he exclaimed, when, as it appeared, he had temporarily come to the end of his stock of adjectives, ‘if I don’t believe he’s boned my purse.’

  ‘Boned your purse!’ Mr Philpotts laid a not altogether flattering emphasis upon the ‘boned!’ ‘Bloxham! What do you mean?’

  Mr Bloxham did not immediately explain. He dropped into the chair behind him. His hands were still in his trouser pockets, his legs were stretched out in front of him, and on his face there was not only an expression of amazement, but also of the most unequivocal bewilderment. He was staring at the vacant air as if he were trying his hardest to read some riddle.

  ‘This is a queer start, upon my word, Philpotts,’ he spoke in what, for him, were tones of unwonted earnestness. ‘When I was reaching for the matches on the table, what made me turn round so suddenly was because I thought I felt someone tugging at my purse—it was in the pocket next to Fleming. As I told you, when I did turn round Fleming was gone—and, by Jove, it looks as though my purse went with him.’

  ‘Have you lost your purse?—is that what you mean?’

  ‘I’ll swear that it was in my pocket five minutes ago, and that it’s. not there now; that’s what I mean.’

  Mr Philpotts looked at Mr Bloxham as if, although he was too polite to say so, he could not make him out at all. He resumed his selection of a paper.

  ‘One is liable to make mistakes about one’s purse; perhaps you’ll find it when you get home.’

  Mr Bloxham sat in silence for some moments. Then, rising, he shook himself as a dog does when he quits the water.

  ‘I say, Philpotts, don’t ladle out this yarn of mine to the other fellows, there’s a good chap. As you say, one is apt to get into a muddle about one’s purse, and I dare say I shall come across it when I get home. And perhaps I’m not very well this afternoon; I am feeling out of sorts, and that’s a fact. I think I’ll just toddle home and take a seidlitz, or a pill, or something. Ta ta!’

  When Mr Philpotts was left alone he smiled to himself, that superior smile which we are apt to smile when conscious that a man has been making a conspicuous ass of himself on lines which may be his, but which, we thank Providence, are emphatically not ours. With not one, but half a dozen papers in his hand, he seated himself in the chair which Mr Bloxham had recently relinquished. Retaining a single paper, he placed the rest on the small round table on his left—the table on which were the matches for which Mr Bloxham declared he had reached. Taking out his case, he selected a cigar almost with the same care which he had shewn in selecting his literature, smiling to himself all the time that superior smile. Lighting the cigar he had chosen with a match from the table, he settled himself at his ease to read.

  Scarcely had he done so than he was conscious of a hand laid gently on his shoulder from behind.

  ‘What! back again?’

  ‘Hullo, Phil!’

  He had taken it for granted, without troubling to look round, that Mr Bloxham had returned, and that it was he who touched him on the shoulder. But the voice which replied to him, so far from being Mr Bloxham’s was one the mere sound of which caused him not only to lose his bearing of indifference but to spring from his seat with the agility almost of a jack-in-the-box. When he saw who it was had touched him on the shoulder, he stared.

  ‘Fleming ! Then Bloxham was right, after all. May I ask what brings you here?’

  The man at whom he was looking was tall and well-built, in age about five and thirty. There were black cavities beneath his eyes; the man’s whole face was redolent, to a trained perception, of something which was, at least, slightly unsavoury. He was dressed from head to foot in white duck—a somewhat singular costume for Pall Mall, even on a summer afternoon.

  Before Mr Philpotts’ gaze, his own eyes sank. Murmuring something which was almost inaudible, he moved to the chair next to the one which Mr Philpotts had been occupying, the chair of which Mr Bloxham had spoken.

  As he seated himself, Mr Philpotts eyed him in a fashion which was certainly not too friendly.

  ‘What did you mean by disappearing just now in that extraordinary manner, frightening Bloxham half out of his wits? Where did you get to?’

  The newcomer was stroking his heavy moustache with a hand which, for a man of his size and build, was unusually small and white. He spoke in a lazy, almost inaudible, drawl.

  ‘I just popped outside.’

  ‘Just popped outside! I must have been coming in just when you went out. I saw nothing of you; you’ve put Bloxham into a pretty state of mind.’

  Re-seating himself, Mr Philpotts turned to put the paper he was holding on to the little table. ‘I don’t want to make myself a brute, but it strikes me that your presence here at all requires explanation. When several fellows club together to give another fellow a fresh start on the other side of the world——’

  Mr Philpotts stopped short. Having settled the paper on the table to his perfect satisfaction, he turned round again towards the man he was addressing—and as he did so he ceased to address him, and that for the sufficiently simple reason that he was not there to address—the man had gone ! The chair at Mr Philpotts’ side was empty; without a sign or a sound its occupant had vanished, it would almost seem, into space.

  II

  Under the really remarkable circumstances of the case, Mr Philpotts preserved his composure to a singular degree. He looked round the room; there was no one there. He again fixedly regarded the chair at his side; there could be no doubt that it was empty. To make quite sure, he passed his hand two or three times over the seat; it met with not the slightest opposition. Where could the man have got to? Mr Philpotts had not, consciously, heard the slightest sound; there had not been time for him to have reached the door. Mr Philpotts knocked the ash off his cigar. He stood up. He paced leisurely two or three times up and down the room.

  ‘If Bloxham is ill, I am not. I was never better in my life. And the man who tells me that I have been the victim of an optical delusion is talking of what he knows nothing. I am prepared to swear that it was Geoffrey Fleming who touched me on the shoulder; that he spoke to me; and that he seated himself upon that chair. Where he came from, or where he has gone to, are other questions entirely.’ He critically examined his finger nails.

  ‘If those Psychical Research people have an addres
s in town, I think I’ll have a talk with them. I suppose it’s three or four minutes since the man vanished. What’s the time now? Whatever has become of my watch?’

  He might well ask—it had gone, both watch and chain—vanished, with Mr Fleming, into air. Mr Philpotts stared at his waistcoat, too astonished for speech. Then he gave a little gasp.

  ‘This comes of playing Didymus! The brute has stolen it! I must apologise to Bloxham. As he himself said, this is a queer start, upon my honour! Now, if you like, I do feel a little out of sorts; this sort of thing is enough to make one. Before I go, I think I’ll have a drop of brandy.’

  As he was hesitating, the smoking-room door opened to admit Frank Osborne. Mr Osborne nodded to Mr Philpotts as he crossed the room.

  ‘You’re not looking quite yourself, Philpotts.’

  Mr Philpotts seemed to regard the observation almost in the light of an impertinence.

  ‘Am I not? I was not aware that there was anything in my appearance to call for remark.’ Smiling, Mr Osborne seated himself in the chair which the other had not long ago vacated. Mr Philpotts regarded him attentively. ‘You’re not looking quite yourself, either.’

  ‘I’m not feeling myself!—I’m not! I’m worried about Geoff Fleming.’

  Mr Philpotts slightly started.

  ‘About Geoff Fleming?—what about Fleming?’

  ‘I’m afraid—well, Phil, the truth is that I’m afraid that Geoff’s a hopeless case.’

  Mr Philpotts was once more busying himself with the papers which were on the side table.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘As you know, he and I have been very thick in our time, and when he came a cropper it was I who suggested that we who were at school with him might have a whip round among ourselves to get the old chap a fresh start elsewhere. You all of you behaved like bricks, and when I told him what you had done, poor Geoff was quite knocked over. He promised voluntarily that he would never touch a card again, or make another bet, until he had paid you fellows off with thumping interest. Well, he doesn’t seem to have kept his promise long.’

  ‘How do you know he hasn’t?’

  ‘I’ve heard from Deecie.’

  ‘From Deecie?—where’s Fleming?’

  ‘In Ceylon—they’d both got there before Deecie’s letter left.’

  ‘In Ceylon!’ exclaimed Mr Philpotts excitedly, staring hard at Mr Osborne. ‘You are sure he isn’t back in town?’

  In his turn, Mr Osborne was staring at-Mr Philpotts.

  ‘Not unless he came back by the same boat which brought Deecie’s letter. What made you ask?

  ‘I only wondered.’

  ‘Mr Philpotts turned again to the paper. The other went on.

  ‘It seems that a lot of Australian sporting men were on the boat on which they went out. Fleming got in with them. They played—he played too. Deecie remonstrated—but he says that it only seemed to make bad worse. At first Geoff won—you know the usual sort of thing; he wound up by losing all he had, and about four hundred pounds beside. He had the cheek to ask Deecie for the money.’ Mr Osborne paused. Mr Philpotts uttered a sound which might have been indicative of contempt—or anything. ‘Deecie says that when the winners found out that he couldn’t pay, there was a regular row. Geoff swore, in that wild way of his, that if he couldn’t pay them before he died, he would rise from the dead to get the money.’

  Mr Philpotts looked round with a show of added interest.

  ‘What was that he said?’

  ‘Oh, it was only his wild way of speaking—you know that way of his. If they don’t get their money before he dies, and I fancy that it’s rather more than even betting that they won’t, I don’t think that there’s much chance of his rising from his grave to get it for them. He’ll break that promise, as he has broken so many more. Poor Geoff! It seems that we might as well have kept our money in our pockets; it doesn’t seem to have done him much good. His prospects don’t look very rosy—without money, and with a bad name to start with.’

  ‘As I fancy you have more than once suspected, Frank, I never have had a high opinion of Mr Geoffrey Fleming. I am not in the least surprised at what you tell me, any more than I was surprised when he came his cropper. I have always felt that, at a pinch, he would do anything to save his own skin.’ Mr Osborne said nothing, but he shook his head. ‘Did you see anything of Bloxham when you came in?’

  ‘I saw him going along the street in a cab.’

  ‘I want to speak to him! I think I’ll just go and see if I can find him in his rooms.’

  III

  Mr Frank Osborne scarcely seemed to be enjoying his own society when Mr Philpotts had left him. As all the world knows, he is a man of sentiment—of the true sort, not the false. He has had one great passion in his life—Geoffrey Fleming. They began when they were at Chilchester together, when he was big, and Fleming still little. He did his work for him, fought for him, took his scrapes upon himself, believed in him, almost worshipped him. The thing continued when Fleming joined him at the University. Perhaps the fact that they both were orphans had something to do with it; neither of them had kith nor kin. The odd part of the business was that Osborne was not only a clear-sighted, he was a hard-headed man. It could not have been long before it dawned upon him that the man with whom he fraternised was a naturally bad egg. Fleming was continually coming to grief; he would have come to eternal grief at the very commencement of his career if it had not been for Osborne at his back. He went through his own money; he went through as much of his friend’s as his friend would let him. Then came the final smash. There were features about the thing which made it clear, even to Frank Osborne, that in England, at least, for some years to come, Geoffrey Fleming had run his course right out. He strained all his already strained resources in his efforts to extricate the man from the mire. When he found that he himself was insufficient, going to his old schoolfellows, he begged them, for his sake—if not for Fleming’s—to join hands with him in giving the scapegrace still another start. As a result, interest was made for him in a Ceylon plantation, and Mr Fleming with, under the circumstances, well-lined pockets, was despatched over the seas to turn over a new leaf in a sunnier clime.

  How he had vowed that he would turn over a new leaf, actually with tears upon his knees ! And this was how he had done it; before he had reached his journey’s end, he had gambled away the money which was not his, and was in debt besides. Frank Osborne must have been fashioned something like the dog which loves its master the more, the more he illtreats it. His heart went out in pity to the scamp across the seas. He had no delusions; he had long been conscious that the man was hopeless. And yet he knew very well that if he could have had his way he would have gone at once to comfort him. Poor Geoff! What an all-round mess he seemed to have made of things—and he had had the ball at his feet when he started—poor, dear old Geoff! With his knuckles Mr Osborne wiped a suspicious moisture from his eyes. Geoff was all right—if he had only been able to prevent money from slipping from between his fingers, had been gifted with a sense of meum et tuum—not a nicer fellow in the world!

  Mr Osborne sat trying to persuade himself into the belief that the man was an injured paragon though he knew very well that he was an irredeemable scamp. He endeavoured to see only his good qualities, which was a task of exceeding difficulty—they were hidden in such a cloud of blackness. At least, whatever might be said against Geoff—and Mr Osborne admitted to himself that there might be something —it was certain that Geoffloved him almost as much as he loved Geoff. Mr Osborne declared to himself—putting pressure on himself to prevent his making a single mental reservation—that Geoff Fleming, in spite of all his faults, was the only person in the wide, wide world who did love him. And he was a stranger in a strange land, and in trouble again—poor dear old Geoff! Once more Mr Osborne’s knuckles went up to wipe that suspicious moisture from his eyes.

  While he was engaged in doing this, a hand was laid gently on his shoulder from behind. It was
, perhaps, because he was unwilling to be detected in such an act that, at the touch, he rose from his seat with a start—which became so to speak, a start of petrified amazement when he perceived who it was who had touched him. It was the man of whom he had been thinking, the friend of his boyhood—Geoffrey Fleming.

  ‘Geoff!’ he gasped. ‘Dear old Geoff!’ He paused, seemingly in doubt whether to laugh or cry. ‘I thought you were in Ceylon!’

  Mr Fleming did exactly what he had done when he came so unexpectedly on Mr Philpotts—he moved to the chair at Mr Osborne’s side. His manner was in contrast to his friend’s—it was emphatically not emotional.

  ‘I’ve just dropped in,’ he drawled.

  ‘My dear old boy!’ Mr Osborne, as he surveyed his friend, seemed to become more and more torn by conflicting emotions. ‘Of course I’m very glad to see you Geoff, but how did you get in here? I thought that they had taken your name off the books of the club.’ He was perfectly aware that Mr Fleming’s name had been taken off the books of the club, and in a manner the reverse of complimentary. Mr Fleming offered no remark. He sat looking down at the carpet stroking his moustache. Mr Osborne went stammeringly on—

  ‘As I say, Geoff—and as, of course you know—I am very glad to see you, anywhere; but—we don’t want any unpleasantness, do we? If some of the fellows came in and found you here, they might make themselves nasty. Come round to my rooms; we shall be a lot more comfortable there, old man.’

  Mr Fleming raised his eyes. He looked his friend full in the face. As he met his glance, Mr Osborne was conscious of a curious sort of shiver. It was not only because the man’s glance was, to say the least, less friendly than it might have been—it was because of something else, something which Mr Osborne could scarcely have defined.

  ‘I want some money.’

  Mr Osborne smiled, rather fatuously.

  ‘All. Geoff, the same old tale! Deecie has told me all about it. I won’t reproach you; you know, if I had some, you should have it; but I’m not sure that it isn’t just as well for both ourselves that I haven’t, Geoff.’