The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  “Because my respected governor has expressed his intention—contingently—of putting the process into operation on me.”

  “Indeed! Would it be indiscreet to ask why?”

  “Oh, the usual thing. My matrimonial projects are not acceptable.”

  “Your father objects to the lady, you mean?”

  “No; he has never seen her. But he jibs at her father. You see, my governor is an old-fashioned country gentleman and he’s nuts on his family. God knows why. There seem to have been untold generations of country bumpkins bearing our name, and, for some reason, he is proud of the fact, and considers us the salt of the earth. Now, the lady’s father is a musician; he plays the organ and teaches music. Also he is not a millionaire. But the organ is the real trouble. My governor says he’s not going to have his son marrying the daughter of a damned organ-grinder. So there you are.”

  “It’s not delicately put,” I remarked.

  “No, the gov’s a rude old man when he’s put out. But it’s such confounded nonsense. The musician’s is a noble profession, and, as to the organ, why it’s the Zeus of the instrumental Olympus. Think of all the great men who have played the organ. There’s Mozart and Bach, and Handel himself—”

  “And Johnny Morgan,” I interrupted; but by Leyland’s feeble smile I saw that he had never heard the old song, and so missed the point of the joke.

  “Well, the upshot of it is,” Leyland concluded, “that the governor refuses his consent. He says if I marry the daughter I can apprentice myself to her father, and he will furnish me with one shilling sterling, and the price of a monkey.

  “Why a monkey?” I asked.

  “Oh, he seems to think that a monkey is an indispensable adjunct to organ playing. He’s not musical, you know.”

  “Don’t you think he will give way if he is treated judiciously?”

  “No, I don’t. He’s as obstinate as a mule. And what’s worse, he has snookered me for the time being by explaining his intentions by letter to my proposed papa-in-law. The result being that I am at present a rejected suitor.”

  “But, if you are rejected, your legal position is pointless.”

  “Oh, is it, by Jove!” said Leyland. “You don’t think I agree to the rejection, do you? Because I don’t. I tell you, Mitchell, I’m going to marry Kate Bonnington,” and Leyland stuck out his chin with a distinct reminiscence of the parental mulishness.

  “So I gathered from your manner the other evening; and I can’t pretend to disapprove after seeing Miss Bonnington. But you say that relations between you are broken off for the present.”

  “Oh, no, they’re not,” said Leyland. “We are perfectly good friends still. You see, I am taking lessons on the organ from Papa Bonnington.”

  “That savours of mere low cunning on your part. But go on.”

  “Well, Bonnington is quite willing, in the abstract, for me to marry his daughter, and Miss Kate is also agreeable—in the abstract—but they both refuse to be the cause of my being disinherited.”

  “And, of course,” I added, “you couldn’t cut much of a figure as a married man on one shilling sterling and the price of a monkey.”

  “Exactly. But if the old man can’t disinherit me, I think matters could be arranged. I might, for instance, borrow enough on my expectations to start myself in some sort of business. Hence my inquiry as to the governor’s powers.”

  “Which brings us back to the original question; does your father hold the property absolutely or conditionally?”

  “I’m hanged if I know,” said Leyland. “I suppose I must try to find out. What I do know is that there seems to be a strong suspicion of some sort of flaw in the title.”

  “Indeed! That sounds unpleasant; but it is also rather vague.”

  It’s quite vague,” said Leyland. “But I’d better tell you what I know about it, which is uncommonly little. The story is connected with an ancestor of ours named Anthony Leyland, who lived in the time of George the second. Anthony seems to have been mixed up in some Jacobite foolery, and, when that game fizzled out after the ’45, he retired to the continent. The man who then held the Leyland property was a Whig and a loyalist, so, I suppose Anthony reckoned that if he kept out of sight, his peccadilloes would be forgotten by the time he was due to succeed to the estate. But, as a matter of fact, he never did succeed to it. He lived at Louvain, and died there before his innings was due. It seems that at Louvain he carried on some sort of business in partnership with a man named Bonnington.”

  “Bonnington!” I exclaimed.

  “Yes,” laughed Leyland; “Bonnington. That is the cream of the joke, and that is what, I suspect, makes the old man so bitter. You’ll hear why, presently.

  “Well, at the time of his death, Anthony was a widower with two children, a daughter named Susan, ten years old, who lived in England with an aunt, and a son, Jonathan, who had been born in Louvain, and who was only two years old. Of this son and also of the daughter he made Bonnington the guardian; but it seems he also made some arrangements with the family lawyer, for this gentleman—whose name I forget—passed through Louvain a few days before Anthony’s death, and had an interview with him. Also it is known that this lawyer subsequently acted for Anthony’s son.

  “Six months after Anthony’s death the property fell in, and Bonnington, with the aid of the lawyer, managed to put Jonathan Leyland in possession, the management of affairs devolving on him (Bonnington) during Jonathan’s minority. Well, it was all plain sailing so far. Jonathan was duly placed in possession, and in the course of time grew up to manhood or, at least, to the adult state, for he was never more than about half a man.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “Well, in the first place, he was a dwarf, and in the second, his left arm and leg were withered apparently from his infancy. There is a portrait of him at home that shows a hideous little goblin with a lop-sided face and a big crutch. He seems to have been a rare old cough-drop—a regular terror to the neighbourhood, with a pleasant habit of rousing up the servants with the end of his crutch. He was a malignant, ill-conditioned little devil. He used to beat his wife and harry his sister, and generally raise Cain in the house. The only person he could get on with was Bonnington; but Bonnington’s son, Walter, who was about his own age, seems to have been a special mark for his malice; and when he reached his majority, he hoofed out the unlucky Walter to fend for himself.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “His sister, Susan, kept a sort of diary and family chronicle which we have at home with a number of old letters. She married quite young, but became a widow a couple of years later, and came back to live under the fraternal roof. And a gay old time she seems to have had.”

  “But what about the flaw in the title?” I asked.

  “I’m just coming to that. It seems that one fine day, Mistress Susan received a very queer letter from the lawyer—I can’t remember the fellow’s name, but it doesn’t matter—hinting to her that there had been some hocus-pocus about the property, and that both Bonnington and he were concerned in the fraud, what ever it was. I’ve seen the letter, and deuced vague it is; but he goes on to say that he has committed the facts for safe keeping to a volume of Horace or Virgil or some other Latin writer—I forget which—in his possession, and that he wants to hand the volume to her to be used in evidence after his death. The letter is endorsed on the back by Mistress Susan to this effect; that she did write to Mr.—whatever his name was—proposing to come to London and call on him, but he has never replied, or, which I rather suspect, he has answered, and his letter has been intercepted by my guardian (as I still call him) Mr. Bonnington. And there the matter ends. There’s something queer, but we don’t know what it is. We only know that Bonnington was in it; and that’s what makes my governor so mad. He’s frightfully sick to think that his title is shaky, and he loathes the name Bonnington.”

  “But,” I said, “it is only a chance similarity of name, I suppose?”
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  “Is it, by Jove?” said Leyland. “Not a bit. Kate’s father is the direct descendant of the much-abused Walter. We know that, because the families have always kept more or less in touch. The enmity is my governor’s personal hobby.”

  “Well, Leyland,” I said, after a reflective pause, “it seems to me that your cue is to imitate the wisdom of the late Susan. Lie low and don’t stir up mud. You don’t want to upset the title to your own property.”

  A distinct recrudescence of the ancestral mulishness appeared in Leyland’s face “I daresay you’re right,” he said, “but, all the same, I’d like to know what that old lawyer had to tell. By the way, what do you suppose he meant by ‘committing the facts’ to what seems to have been a printed book?”

  “Who can say? He may have written a statement on the fly-leaf, or, more probably, have attached a cipher connected with the text. However, as I have said, you had better leave the title alone and try more persuasive methods with your father. Introduce him to Miss Bonnington, for instance. That would probably settle the matter.”

  Leyland’s face brightened at my appreciation of the maiden of his choice, and, dismissing the legal question, he said: “Speaking of Kate, you promised to take her and her father on a personally-conducted tour round the Temple. When can I ask them to come? Sunday’s no good, you know, to an organist.”

  I considered my engagements for the week, and then replied: “Wednesday would do for me. Let them come early, and, when we have seen everything and traced the historical connections from Adam downwards, we will all repair to my chambers and drink tea. How will that do?”

  Leyland thought it would do excellently, and, subject to his friends’ agreement, the arrangement was made.

  Need I hesitate to confess that my chambers in Fig Tree Court broke out, about this time, into unwonted sprightliness? Or to tell how the brief bag that I brought home on Wednesday received its lading at the pastrycook’s? Or how an iced cake was smuggled into the Temple in a wig-box? Or how the ancient silver teapot was secretly polished with a silk handkerchief and sundry “collector’s pieces” came forth of a cabinet to grace the tea-table? Why not? I am but a musty bachelor to whose lair the visitations of fair maids are in good truth as angel’s visits. And angels must be suitably entertained. To pretty Kate Bonnington I had taken an instant liking, and my friend Leyland’s little romance engaged my warmest sympathy. Such a romance might have been my own but for—however, that is another story.

  We met the tourists in state at the main entrance and carried them in procession through the ancient precincts. We talked of the Wars of the Roses, of the Knights Templars and of Twelfth Night. We raised the shades of Johnson and Goldsmith, of Burke and Sheridan. In Mitre Court Buildings we saw poor Charles and Mary Lamb go forth weeping, hand in hand, to the dreaded madhouse, and waited for them to “come again with rejoicing.” We threw crumbs for the sparrows by the fountain and talked of Martin Chuzzlewit and Ruth Pinch (and here methought the fair Kate looked a shade conscious), and we looked into the church and to Mr. Bonnington’s joy heard Father Smith’s organ play. It was all very pleasant. The sky was sunny, the plane trees were golden, and when we turned into Fig Tree Court the shade and coolness were very grateful.

  Under the influence of tea the historic and literary reminiscences revived. Then Leyland, who was something of a bibliophile, strolled over to my shelves, tea cup in hand, to browse among my books and terrify me for the safety of my precious wedgwood. Suddenly he turned—and nearly upset the cup.

  “I saw Solomon this morning—the bookseller, I mean, not the other chap. He was asking after you. Said he’d sent you some books to look over.”

  “God bless me!” I exclaimed, “so he did, and I have never opened the parcel.”

  “Let’s open it now and see what they are,” said Leyland.

  I produced the parcel, and, cutting the string, displayed the treasures: a “Treacle Bible,” an ancient treatise on alchemy and magic, a couple of recent historical works and a chubby, vellum-bound duodecimo.

  “What a dear little book!” Miss Bonnington ex claimed, pouncing on the latter, to our undissembled amusement. “So dainty and small and genteel. Oh, why can’t people print and bind books like this now?”

  Her question passed unanswered, for Leyland was already deep in the “Treacle Bible”—a mere curiosity which I, certainly, had no intention of keeping—and expounding its peculiarities to Mr. Bonnington. From the bible we passed on to the book of magic, over which we discussed the quaint beliefs of our ancestors. Suddenly Mr. Bonnington looked at his daughter and asked: “What is the matter, Kate?”

  At the question, I looked up from the book. Miss Bonnington was sitting rigidly still with the little volume, clasped in both hands, resting in her lap. Her eyes were wide open and fixed, apparently, on the opposite wall.

  “What is it Kate? “her father repeated; and, as she still appeared unconscious of the question, he leaned forward and lightly touched her hand; where upon she started violently and gazed around her like a suddenly-awakened sleeper.

  “What an extraordinary thing!” she exclaimed.

  “What is an extraordinary thing, my dear?” demanded Mr. Bonnington.

  “Is it possible to dream without going to sleep?” she asked.

  “If you have been dreaming and you haven’t been to sleep, it must be,” her father answered, “Have you?”

  “It is astonishing,” she said. “It must have been a dream, and yet it was so real, so vivid.”

  “What was, my dear? What was? Hey? Hm?” and in his impatience Mr. Bonnington leaned forward and tapped her knuckles.

  “Be patient and I’ll tell you. The dream began quite suddenly. This place vanished, and I was in a street, a crowded street filled with people in curious dresses such as one sees in old engravings. There was no pavement; only a row of posts between the road and the footway on which I was walking. The shops had funny little small-paned windows, like the shops in a country village, and each one had a sign hanging above the window or door. I walked quickly, and had the feeling of going somewhere for a definite purpose, and presently, when a kind of arched gate way came in sight, I seemed to have expected it. This gateway—I seem, even now, to recognise it; perhaps from having seen it in some picture—had three arches, a large one over the road, and two small ones for foot-passengers, and a large window over the middle arch. As I approached the gate to pass through I saw a man standing under the left-hand arch as if waiting for some one. He was an elderly man, very fat and very pale; and now that I come to think of him, he reminds me of that old gentleman who passed us that night in Fig Tree Court. I walked towards him with a very curious feeling of having expected to find him there, and, as I passed through the arch, brushing closely against him because he took up so much of the space, he put something into my hand.

  I remember taking what he gave me as if I had expected it; and then you woke me up.”

  “Can’t you recall what it was that he gave you?” Mr Bonnington asked.

  “I have a sort of feeling that it was a book; but I expect that it is only because I was holding this book when I woke,” and she held up the little duodecimo and laid it on the table.

  As Kate Bonnington told her story, I listened with growing wonder, and, when she had finished, I fell into a reverie in which the eager questionings of her father and Frank Leyland came to me as sounds from an infinite distance. I roused only when Leyland, taking the little book carelessly from the table, glanced at it and addressed me.

  “You remember, Mitchell, I was telling you about a book to which that old lawyer had committed certain facts. I thought it was Horace or Virgil. It wasn’t, it was Sallust. This reminded me.”

  He held the little book towards me, and I read on the label “Sallustii Opera.”

  For a few moments I looked vacantly at the book; then, with eager expectation I took it from his hand and opened it; and somehow, it seemed in no wise strange, but perfectly natural and in order, that
I should find on the fly-leaf, traced in faded, brown ink in a hand which I recognised, “Phineas Desborough, 1756.”

  I say that it seemed quite natural, but I must, nevertheless, have been really astounded for I presently became aware that my three friends were regarding me with uncommon curiosity.

  “What is the matter, Mitchell?” asked Leyland. “You look as if you had seen a ghost too.”

  “Perhaps I have,” was my reply; and I returned to the examination of the mysterious little volume. The fly-leaf bore no mark other than the name and date, but when I turned to the back cover I at once perceived—and again it seemed quite natural and reasonable—a thin, pale line of brown ruled round the margin of what my bookish eye instantly detected as a false end-paper. Without a word, I produced my penknife, and, opening it, laid the little book on the table. As I brought the point of the keen blade on to the faded line, Leyland sprang up and exclaimed:

  “Good Lord! What is the man going to do now?” I made no reply, but carried the blade steadily along the line until it had traversed the four sides, separating a little panel of the end-paper. I lifted this off, and then, turning the book over, shook out two little sheets of very thin yellowish paper, each covered with pale brown, very minute writing.

  “By Jove!” exclaimed Leyland. “Hidden bank notes, hey!” He picked up one of the little leaves, glanced at it, and then stood staring at me, as if thunderstruck.

  “Good God, Mitchell,” he said in a low voice. “Do you see what this is?”

  He handed the little leaf to me, and I then saw that he had been looking at the back of the document, on which was written in ordinary-sized handwriting:

  “The statement of Anthony Leyland, Gent, received by me from his hand on the 16th day of August, 1753, in a sealed packet which I afterwards opened.

  “Phineas Desborough.”

  “This is a confidential document, Leyland,” I said. “It concerns you, and may contain important family secrets.”

  “Secrets be hanged!” he replied. “There are no secrets between us. Read it out. Let us hear what Anthony Leyland had to say in 1753.”