by Fritz Leiber
“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.”
CHAPTER 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 ill-treats 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 Geoff loved 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 cour
se 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.
“Ah, 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.”
“You have some money in your pocket now.”
Mr. Osborne’s amazement grew apace—his friend’s manner was so very strange.
“What a nose you always have for money; however did you find that out? But it isn’t mine. You know Jim Baker left me guardian to that boy of his, and I’ve been drawing the youngster’s dividends—it’s only seventy pounds, Geoff.”
Mr. Fleming stretched out his hand—his reply was brief and to the point.
“Give it to me!”
“Give it to you!—Geoff!—young Baker’s money!”
Mr. Fleming reiterated his demand.
“Give it to me!”
His manner was not only distinctly threatening, it had a peculiar effect upon his friend. Although Mr. Osborne had never before shewn fear of any living man, and had, in that respect, proved his superiority over Fleming many a time, there was something at that moment in the speaker’s voice, or words, or bearing, or in all three together, which set him shivering, as if with fear, from head to foot.
“Geoff!—you are mad! I’ll see what I can find for you, but I can’t give you young Baker’s dividends.”
Mr. Osborne was not quite clear as to exactly what it was that happened. He only knew that the friend of his boyhood—the man for whom he had done so much—the only person in the world who loved him—rose and took him by the throat, and, forcing him backwards, began to rifle the pocket which contained the seventy pounds. He was so taken by surprise, so overwhelmed by a feeling of utter horror, against which he was unable even to struggle, that it was only when he felt the money being actually withdrawn from his pocket that he made an attempt at self-defence. Then, when he made a frantic clutch at his assailant’s felonious arm, all he succeeded in grasping was the empty air. The pressure was removed from his throat. He was able to look about him. Mr. Fleming was gone. He thrust a trembling hand into his pocket—the seventy pounds had vanished too.
“Geoff! Geoff!” he cried, the tears streaming from his eyes. “Don’t play tricks with me! Give me back young Baker’s dividends!”
When no one answered and there seemed no one to hear, he began to searching round and round the room with his eyes, as if he suspected Mr. Fleming of concealing himself behind some article of furniture.
“Geoff! Geoff!” he continued crying. “Dear old boy!—give me back young Baker’s dividends!”
“Hullo!” exclaimed a voice—which certainly was not Mr. Fleming’s. Mr. Osborne turned. Colonel Lanyon was standing with the handle of the open door in his hand. “Frank, are you rehearsing for a five-act tragedy?”
Mr. Osborne replied to the Colonel’s question with another.
“Lanyon, did Geoffrey Fleming pass you as you came in?”
“Geoffrey Fleming!” The Colonel wheeled round on his heels like a teetotum. He glanced behind him. “What the deuce do you mean, Frank? If I catch that thief under the roof which covers me, I’ll make a case for the police of him.”
Then Mr. Osborne remembered what, in his agitation, he had momentarily forgotten, that Geoffrey Fleming had had no bitterer, more out-spoken, and, it may be added, more well-merited an opponent than Colonel Lanyon in the Climax Club. The Colonel advanced towards Mr. Osborne.
“Do you know that that’s the blackguard’s chair you’re standing by?”
“His chair!”
Mr. Osborne was leaning with one hand on the chair on which Mr. Fleming had, not long ago, been sitting.
“That’s what he used to call it himself,—with his usual impudence. He used to sit in it whenever he took a hand. The men would give it up to him—you know how you gave everything up to him, all the lot of you. If he couldn’t get it he’d turn nasty—wouldn’t play. It seems that he had the cheek to cut his initials on the chair—I only heard of it the other day, or there’d have been a clearance of him long ago. Look here—what do you think of that for a piece of rowdiness?”
The Colonel turned the chair upside down. Sure enough in the woodwork underneath the seat were the letters, cut in good-sized characters—“G. F.”
“You know that rubbishing way in which he used to talk. When men questioned his exclusive right to the chair, I’ve heard him say he’d prove his right by coming and sitting in it after he was dead and buried—he swore he’d haunt the chair. Idiot!—What is the matter with you Frank? You look as if you’d been in a rough and tumble—your necktie’s all anyhow.”
“I think I must have dropped asleep, and dreamed—yes, I fancy I’ve been dreaming.”
Mr. Osborne staggered, rather than walked, to the door, keeping one hand in the inside pocket of his coat. The Colonel followed him with his eyes.
“Frank’s ageing fast,” was his mental comment as Mr. Osborne disappeared. “He’ll be an old man yet before I am.”
He seated himself in Geoffrey Fleming’s chair.
It was, perhaps, ten minutes afterwards that Edward Jackson went into the smoking room—“Scientific” Jackson, as they call him, because of the sort of catch phrase he is always using—“Give me science!” He had scarcely been in the room a minute before he came rushing to the door shouting—
“Help, help!”
Men came hurrying from all parts of the building. Mr. Griffin came from the billiard-room, where he is always to be found. He had a cue in one hand, and a piece of chalk in the other. He was the first to address the vociferous gentleman standing at the smoking-room door.
“Jackson!—What’s the matter?”
Mr. Jackson was in such a condition of fluster and excitement that it was a little difficult to make out, from his own statement, what was the matter.
“Lanyon’s dead! Have any of you seen Geoff Fleming? Stop him if you do—he’s stolen my pocket-book!” He began mopping his brow with his bandanna handkerchief, “God bless my soul! An awful thing!—I’ve been robbed—and old Lanyon’s dead!”
One thing was quickly made clear—as they saw for themselves when they went crowding into the smoking-room—Lanyon was dead. He was kneeling in front of Geoffrey Fleming’s chair, clutching at either side of it with a tenacity which suggested some sort of convulsion. His head was thrown back, his eyes were still staring wide open, his face was distorted by a something which was half fear, half horror—as if, as those who saw him afterwards agreed, he had seen sudden, certain death approaching him, in a form which even he, a seasoned soldier, had found too horrible for contemplation.
Mr. Jackson’s story, in one sense, was plain enough, though it was odd enough in another. He told it to an audience which evinced unmistakable interest in every word uttered.
“I often come in for a smoke about this time, because generally the place is empty, so that you get it all to yourself.”
He cast a somewhat aggressive look upon his hearers—a look which could hardly be said to convey a flattering suggestion.
“When I first came in I thought that the room was empty. It was only when I was half-way across that somethin
g caused me to look round. I saw that someone was kneeling on the floor. I looked to see who it was. It was Lanyon. ‘Lanyon!’ I cried. ‘Whatever are you doing there?’ He didn’t answer. Wondering what was up with him and why he didn’t speak, I went closer to where he was. When I got there I didn’t like the look of him at all. I thought he was in some sort of a fit. I was hesitating whether to pick him up, or at once to summon assistance, when—”
Mr. Jackson paused. He looked about him with an obvious shiver.
“By George! When I think of it now, it makes me go quite creepy. Cathcart, would you mind ringing for another drop of brandy?”
The brandy was rung for. Mr. Jackson went on.
“All of a sudden, as I was stooping over Lanyon, someone touched me on the shoulder. You know, there hadn’t been a sound—I hadn’t heard the door open, not a thing which could suggest that anyone was approaching. Finding Lanyon like that had make me go quite queer, and when I felt that touch on my shoulder it so startled me that I fairly screeched. I jumped up to see who it was, And when I saw”—Mr. Jackson’s bandanna came into play—“who it was, I thought my eyes would have started out of my head. It was Geoff Fleming.”
“Who?” came in chorus from his auditors.
“It was Geoffrey Fleming. ‘Good God!—Fleming!’ I cried. ‘Where did you come from? I never heard you. Anyhow, you’re just in the nick of time. Lanyon’s come to grief—lend me a hand with him.’ I bent down, to take hold of one side of poor old Lanyon, meaning Fleming to take hold of the other. Before I had a chance of touching Lanyon, Fleming, catching me by the shoulder, whirled me round—I had had no idea the fellow was so strong, he gripped me like a vice. I was just going to ask what the dickens he meant by handling me like that, when, before I could say Jack Robinson, or even had time to get my mouth open, Fleming, darting his hand into my coat pocket, snatched my pocket-book clean out of it.”