“Thank you, Mr. Ruslin, thank you,” whispered the ardent lover.
“You won’t have to work twelve hours a day as I have to, Mr. Cheldon. You’re a gentleman of position—county and all that. You ought to be riding to hounds and fishing for salmon and playing polo and talking in Parliament.” The hotch-potch of the social round which he composed impromptu had a flattering inference which compelled his hearer to accept it seriously. “Who’s this uncle of yours to keep you out of your fortune?”
It was so inaccurate a statement of the position that even in his present state of mind Bobbie could not accept it without experiencing a pang of conscience. But he offered no correction.
“He’s an old man—nearly fifty-four—and lives as if he was going to lose every penny next week.” Bobbie took a sip of wine and glanced around.
“Pity you can’t give him a push over a precipice,” Mr. Ruslin was remarking when Bobbie returned to consciousness of his companion’s existence. “But, of course, there are no precipices in London that I’ve heard of.” It was noticeable that whenever Nosey introduced, however obliquely, the subject of murder, he instantly annotated it with a selection from his stock of humour. But Bobbie did not discern that.
“Uncle sometimes talks as if he were dying, Mr. Ruslin, but as a matter of fact he’s as strong as a horse.” Bobbie gripped his wineglass again. “What could I not do with ten thousand a year!”
“You could marry Nancy,” whispered the tempter across the table. “You could put your mother in the position she ought to have been in years ago. Fancy her, the widow of a colonel, having to live with common people. Just think of it, Mr. Cheldon, here I am living on the fat of the land, and your mother—well, there.” He sighed. “You see, Nancy’s told me a lot about her. People like her ought not to be poor. Look at this little lunch of ours. It’ll cost a matter of a couple of quid, and that’s less than I spend as a rule. It’s a party of four generally, for I’ve got to entertain theatrical managers and film people a lot. It’s the only way to do business.” He caught a glimpse of the face opposite that intimated merely polite interest. Instantly he turned on the Nancy tap. “She’s a peach, is that girl of yours, and I’m proud to take her out to lunch whenever she’ll let me. Not that she’s too fond of the Villafranche. It’s the Ritz or the Berkeley with her if it isn’t the Carlton. I don’t often go to those places myself, Mr. Cheldon, because I feel a bit out of it with the nobs, but Nancy—Good lord!” He smiled all over his extensive face. “She’s got the manner. You’d think she was like yourself—born to it. And how she loves the life!”
Bobbie’s face clouded.
“Don’t be depressed, Mr. Cheldon,” said Nosey gently. “It’s not as if you hadn’t any prospects. You’re heir to a fortune and when you’ve got it Nancy will drag you into St. George’s, Hanover Square.”
“When I get it,” muttered Bobbie gloomily.
“You’ve got to get it and Nancy, too,” said Ruslin earnestly. “That’s the ticket, Mr. Cheldon, and damme, I’m going to stand by you and help you. I’ve never met a young chap to whom I’ve taken such a fancy as you. Now listen and don’t let that aristocratic pride make you act foolish. Mr. Cheldon, it’s no disgrace to be hard up. Most young men are and I was hard up all the time when I was your age.” He jerked the pocket-book into action and held it in such a position that the wad of notes nearly concealed it. “Help yourself, Mr. Cheldon, and pay me back when you’re the squire and Nancy is your lady.”
“Oh, I say!” Bobbie’s emotion was almost tearful as he stared at his friend, his cheeks red and his eyes watering.
“Go on. Help yourself. Twenty or even fifty quid.” There was only forty in the collection, but exaggeration entailed no liability. “It’s like lending to the Bank of England. You’ll be a rich man soon.”
Since he had been fined ten pounds and had his driving licence suspended Bobbie’s finances had been in a chaotic condition, Uncle Massy having insultingly declined to subscribe to the fine. The consequence had been that the culprit’s daily portion of cash had been reduced to a shilling or two, eked out by such credit as his association with Nancy Curzon secured for him at the ‘Frozen Fang’, and now there were dangerous debts unknown to his mother which clamoured for immediate settlement.
“Well, if I might—five pounds,” he began nervously. Mr. Ruslin’s effervescent generosity and friendliness were not to be damped. Clutching as many of the notes as he could he thrust them towards his guest.
“There’s about twenty there, Mr. Bobbie.”
“I make it twenty-three,” said the grateful recipient.
“Then here’s two more to make up the round sum.” Before Bobbie could speak the waiter was approaching at the usual signal.
“Two six four. Right.” Mr. Ruslin’s recital was low but distinct. “Keep the balance for yourself, waiter.”
Fifty shillings parted company, and Bobbie, sharing in the honours of the waiter’s processional obeisance, walked into Wardour Street with the air of a man who has achieved all his ambitions.
“The office is round the corner,” said Nosey, lighting the size of cigar he considered consistent with prosperity. “Only a temporary affair until the new building in the Haymarket is ready.”
It was, indeed, a small affair, in a ramshackle building but as Nosey had merely borrowed it for the occasion he did not trouble to apologise further.
“I’ve sent my principal papers to the bank,” Nosey disclosed when they were in the dingy room. “Too important to leave lying about here.” He pulled open the top drawer in the desk and Bobbie heard him laugh. “I’d forgotten this.” A small, silver-plated revolver glistened in the sunlight. “That reminds me, I haven’t taken out a licence. I wonder what I can do with it. The police are pretty tough about weapons. They think everybody who’s got one will be tempted to turn bandit.” He glanced meaningly at Bobbie. “I wonder Mr. Cheldon….”
Bobbie was beside him in a couple of strides.
“Certainly I’ll mind it for you, Mr. Ruslin,” he said eagerly. “It’s a small service for all you’ve done for me.” He laughed. “Money does make a difference, and with your twenty-five pounds in my pocket I don’t fear anyone or anything.”
“There ought to be ten thousand a year in that pocket,” said Ruslin humorously as he parted with the weapon. “But be careful, Mr. Cheldon, it’s fully loaded. Slip it into your hip pocket. Good.” He picked up an official-looking document. “Ta-ta for the present.”
Bobbie was still thinking of his unexpected and unconventional ally when on the Friday afternoon he carefully packed his bag and travelled cheaply until at Broadbridge station luxury awaited him in the shape of a perfect Daimler and a magazine artist’s conception of the ideal chauffeur. From that moment he had nothing to do except breathe and be a gentleman of leisure, and so far from having to handle the Gladstone bag he did not see it again until seven o’clock when he climbed the gorgeously spacious staircase at the Manor with its portrait lined walls, assuring himself as he experienced a sensation of utter ease that luxury was something only to be appreciated by those who were born to it.
He had arrived at Broadbridge Manor at a quarter past six to find Uncle Massy before a big fire in the drawing-room which had its traditions, royal and noble.
The first Duke of Weybridge had received the second Charles there—an item of family history which the Cheldons had taken over with the title-deeds—and two of the Georges were reputed to have admired its ceiling.
“The train must have been punctual,” was Massy Cheldon’s conversational gambit, but the tone was friendly enough.
“I suppose so.” A movement behind him enabled him to time the approach of a footman with a tray. “Thanks.” He was facing his uncle again. “I needed that.” He smacked his lips and surrendered the empty glass. “You haven’t altered the room since I was here last.”
It was the s
ort of remark that provides the hearer with opportunities according to his mental equipment for sarcasm or humour or a whine. Massy Cheldon naturally whined.
“The furniture’s decaying but I’m not having it replaced,” he explained to his nephew’s surprise. “Costs too much, and I’m having a fight with the income tax people.”
“But I love the room as it is, uncle,” he protested. “There’s something of English history about it.” He went across to inspect an engraving of the Marquess Wellesley who as patron of Jonathan Cheldon had earned a niche in the Cheldon portrait gallery and also its archives.
“You don’t have to pay for it,” was the growling answer.
Bobbie, although not a tactician, had sufficient sense to refrain from reminding the tenant for life of the estate that the upkeep was amply provided for out of its revenues.
“Sit down and tell me how your mother is.” They took opposite armchairs, the reigning monarch and his crown prince.
“She’s putting up Mrs. Carmichael or Mrs. Elmers while I’m away so she’ll not be lonely,” Bobbie explained carelessly.
“Putting up Mrs. Carmichael means putting up with her.” The nephew, for once anxious to please, used laughter to applaud this choice specimen of the Massy Cheldon Brand of Humour. “Women are curious creatures, Bobbie, and I know them…. There was…”
Bobbie was listening in a condition of welcome physical tiredness when the recital was stopped by the entrance of West, the butler, a replica of his employer without the latter’s loquacity or self-esteem. He was quiet, efficient, thorough and intelligent, and he would have been quite useless to a dramatist, for he never took liberties with the aspirate.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said in a voice which annoyed Bobbie who liked a butler to be butleresque, “but you are wanted in the library.”
Massy Cheldon rose with a jerk. “Wanted in the library” was an agreed code message between himself and West for “I wish to impart something of immediate importance, sir.”
“We don’t get an evening paper here, Bobbie,” he said at the door, “but you’ll find The Times and the Morning Post and Telegraph behind you.” Bobbie, as soon as he was alone, stretched out a lazy hand to retrieve the newspapers.
Massy Cheldon preceded his butler to the library on the first floor and did not speak or even glance at him until they were safe from interruption.
“What is it?” he asked, trying to smother his nervousness.
“This, sir.”
West held towards him the revolver which Nosey Ruslin had entrusted to his new friend, Bobbie Cheldon, for safe keeping.
“Peters found it in Mr. Robert’s Gladstone bag when he unpacked it to lay out his dress clothes, sir.”
With an exclamation that was a mixture of an imprecation and a gasp of fear Massy Cheldon grasped it.
“Loaded—fully loaded, West,” he muttered.
“Yes, sir. Exactly, sir.” West was judicially impartial.
“Fully loaded and evidently specially brought down here.” He shivered. He examined it again. “What do you think, West?”
“Well, sir, it’s hardly my place to criticise Mr. Robert,” he began.
“It’s your place to do it when I order you,” snapped his master.
“Well, sir, it occurred to me that Mr. Robert might be thinking of suicide. He lives in London and does nothing—hasn’t a situation, I mean. I read in the papers how he’d been fined and his licence suspended. Or it may be that a love affair…”
Massy Cheldon seemed to wake up suddenly.
“A love affair and suicide.” He did some quick thinking. “West, I hope Peters won’t blab?” He looked anxiously at his butler.
“It was the first thing I thought of, sir. I warned Peters that he must keep it to himself or he’d have to seek another place.”
“You can trust him?”
“I took care not to make too much of it, sir. Simply mentioned that it wouldn’t do to talk about it in case Mr. Robert hadn’t a licence for firearms. Said you’d be sure not to wish to have gossip about it in the servants’ hall. He understood, sir.”
“Thank you, West.” Massy mused again. “I know what I’ll do. West, the revolver is my nephew’s property and I’ve no right to deprive him of it. But I can render it harmless—that is, unless he has brought a supply of ammunition with him.”
West smiled dutifully.
“I examined the contents of the bag carefully, sir,” he said, returning to solemnity, “and I could find no ammunition.”
“Very well. Replace it.” He handed it back. “And let Peters know my opinion that you were a fool to worry me about it. Why shouldn’t my guests bring an arsenal with them if they wish?” He nearly winked. “But thank you, West, thank you very much.”
He had the library to himself and kept it for ten minutes while he walked up and down as if his feet were on invisible wires.
“That revolver was meant for me,” he muttered again and again, and with each repetition a renewal of fear added fuel to his fiery anger. He had grown to despise his nephew and heir. “His desperation won’t run to anything more desperate than making an apple-pie bed for me.”
The contemptuous testimonial to the innocuousness of Bobbie recurred with mocking deliberation. Yet he could not convince himself that he had been mistaken. Massy Cheldon was a student of human nature with a wide and a deep knowledge of his fellows. He paid himself that tribute once more and declined to modify it even with his pocket sheltering the ammunition removed from his guest’s murderous-looking weapon.
“Could it be that woman?” The question brought him to a standstill. He recalled his own love affairs, and he had had several. But could Bobbie have been driven to murder by a pretty face? Yet these dancers, and the youth of today! What could you expect?
He was bemoaning the alleged vices of the youth of today when the first gong warned him that he must change his attire for the ritual of doing homage to the concoctions of his favourite employee. Bobbie, hearing that gong, uttered a curse on himself and raced to the room he always occupied when at the Manor. What an ass he had been to forget! What a complete prize idiot he had been not to have remembered his resolution to let no one open his bag! Was it possible he could have been so mad as to hand the key unthinkingly to Peters and never give a thought to danger until this moment!
He was flushed and his heart was beating so fast that he was in a condition of physical pain when he sprang at the bag and searched for the revolver beneath a layer of shirts and collars. A great breath of relief escaped him. Nosey Ruslin’s property lay exactly where he had placed it. Evidently Peters, that prince of footmen, had done no more than his duty demanded. Peters had not been curious and had gone no further down than the layer of dress clothes. It was all right. He sank on to the bed to recover from the reaction. One thing was certain. Peters should be promoted and his salary doubled. Wages, he meant. The correction was pure Cheldonism. A servant who knew his place deserved reward in these days when Jack pretended to be as good as his master even when that master belonged to an ancient family.
He dressed to the accompaniment of toneless excerpts from the Cheldon saga.
Uncle Massy was already seated at the head of the oak table when he took the chair on his right with his back to the fireplace.
“Thought it better to have dinner alone tonight,” he heard him mumble as his own eyes wandered in a lazy review of the contents of the room, particularly the portraits.
Everything he saw generated temptation. The spacious luxury of the room, the panelled walls with their impressive family portraits, the massive silver adornments of the table, and the noiseless butler with something of the dignity of a High Priest ministering to the comfort and pride of the choicer members of the Cheldon family.
It was impossible for him to avoid contrasting his surroundings with what five years of Galahad Mansions
had brought him. The humiliating economies, the revolting evidences all around him of the struggle for existence, the contemptible substitutes for pleasure, and the third-rate people with whom he was compelled to associate.
His rightful place in the scheme of things was here. He ought to be in that chair with Nancy facing him. Uncle Massy was undoubtedly a Cheldon, but he had not inherited the imposing figure, handsome features and determined expression of old Jonathan, whose portrait by Lawrence was just behind him. Uncle Massy should have been a younger son and in that event would probably have done quite well as a solicitor. He, Bobbie, would, of course, give him his legal business to do and there would be a considerable amount arising out of the manifold duties and responsibilities the ownership of Broadbridge Manor must entail.
He ate mechanically as he found solace in his thoughts. Meanwhile Uncle Massy meandered through a story in which apparently a colonel and a club servant figured together with an exciting interlude about a forgotten whisky and soda.
“We’ll have some one to join us tomorrow night, Bobbie.” On hearing his name the guest sat up and tried to escape from his thoughts to his environment. West was filling his glass.
“That’ll be fine.” He went a trifle red as he struggled to recall the remark which had evoked his commonplace rejoinder.
“General Maltby and his daughter, Lady Kester, have returned from the south of France. I’ll ask them. And the Bellamys if they’re at home.”
Bobbie smiled, grateful for the Bellamy cue.
“Is the girl married yet?” he asked without any interest.
Uncle Massy began to talk about the girl of today, and the dinner proceeded to the coffee stage. Bobbie was cracking his fifth walnut when his uncle arrived at what he considered the point of an illuminating anecdote, and having waited for the applause drew his chair closer to the table.
“Now we can talk undisturbed about your position,” he said, and there seemed to be so much feeling in his tone that Bobbie experienced a twinge of remorse.
Murder in Piccadilly Page 9