“You’ve picked up the scraps of paper I threw away?” he screamed.
I showed him the fragments.
“How much do you want for that?” he asked. “I will give you a thousand shilling.”
His behavior towards me, the man, who was trying to save him irritated me and I answered, “Go to hell for my part.”
He opened a drawer, took a bundle of banknotes and threw them in my face.
“Now, get lost, you scoundrel!” he said.
“I can never make you understand what I felt at this undeserved insult. I snatched up the banknotes and rushed from the house in a state bordering on insanity. I went into that house an honest man and left it without honor.” Will and Yelvertoft looked at the man standing in front of them. Berrick’s face looked devilish. “But I must finish. Eydon and Willoughby were looking for me, so was our landlord, Mr. Davidson. Milord, there was no sleeping in that room that night. When the sun came up the next morning there were in that room four men, who had sworn that they would achieve wealth and prosperity by any means, no matter how foul and treacherous they might be. That’s our story.”
Berrick was anxious to make as deep an impression as possible on Yelvertoft and Will and therefore broke off his story abruptly and paced up and down the room. Will was breathless with interest and Yelvertoft was more than anything confused. Berrick stopped and adjusting his glasses, said, “Milord, now we’ve arrived at your part in this business.” As he said these words, he theatrically rested his elbow on the mantelpiece.
“In the noblest and wealthiest of families in London there is not one that has not some terrible secret, which they jealously hide from the public. Now, suppose that one man would gain possession of these secrets, would he not be powerful and rich? Well, I said to myself, I will be that man!”
Ever since the lord had known Berrick, he had suspected that his business was not led on fair principles.
“Blackmail,” he said. “It’s all nothing but an elaborate system of blackmail.”
Berrick bowed with an ironical smile on his face.
“This is too terrible,” the young lord said, but Berrick went on, “I know at least two thousand persons in London, who only exist by the exercise of this profession, but the police are on the alert and our courts deal very severely with blackmailers. The professions of Willoughby and Eydon, one a doctor and the other a lawyer facilitated our operations greatly. I decided to rent this building and open a servants’ registry office. It turned out a perfect success, as my friends can testify.”
Eydon and Willoughby both nodded in agreement.
“Because of the system, which I have introduced,” resumed Berrick, “the wealthy and the respectable are closely watched in their own houses. No act or thought escapes the eyes and ears of the servants, whom we have placed around them. Now, after twenty years’ patient labor, we’re about to reap a stupendous harvest.”
“Milord, do you understand the aim of our association?” said Willoughby quietly. “It has brought us in some years two hundred and fifty thousand shilling apiece.”
Mr. Yelvertoft was a man of the world and one almost driven into the abyss by debt. Putting on a gracious smile, he asked, “And what must I do to deserve admission into this unholy alliance?”
Berrick resumed, “Every scheme must come to an end. In our business that means a bullet from an unwilling client or a prison cell. We intend therefore to retire, but before that we want to have all matters securely settled and a boatload of gold to last us for the rest of our lives. I am not traveling in the circles you do and therefore, Sir Alfred, I need your assistance.”
Yelvertoft frowned. Was he seriously supposed to take compromising letters around to his acquaintances and boldly say, “Give me your money or else?”
“For a long time I have sought for a means to extract more money from our clients and at last I have found it in the London Unlimited Company, which you, Milord, will float on the London stocks exchange next month.”
“Really!” answered the lord. “I don’t see how…”
“A husband, who cannot without fear of raising suspicion, give us five thousand shilling, can put in ten thousand if he tells his wife that it’s an investment and a wife, who has no access to any money of her own will persuade her husband to buy shares. Now, what do you say to the idea?”
“I think that it is an excellent one, but what part am I to play in it?”
“You become the director of the company. I can’t do so, being merely the owner of a servants’ registry office. Willoughby, as a doctor would inspire no confidence and Eydon as a lawyer must stay on the sidelines, just in case.”
“But I have the reputation of being a reckless spendthrift,” said Yelvertoft, in a moment of clarity of mind.
“You’re too modest,” said Berrick. “You have your name and title, which however you may look on them have a great effect on the general public. Before starting this enterprise you can settle all your debts and at the same time, the news of your approaching marriage with Miss Burgh le Marsh will be the general talk of society. What better position could you be in?”
The prospect dazzled young Yelvertoft.
“When all the shares are taken up, you will close the office...”
Yelvertoft sprang to his feet angrily. He cried, “You intend to send me to prison.”
“What an ungrateful man he is!” said Berrick, appealing to his confederates.
Eydon now felt it time to interfere. “You don’t understand,” he said, addressing Yelvertoft. “The shareholders are Berrick’s clients. They will not say a thing, when the company collapses.”
Berrick was waiting for this moment and taking from his desk the pieces of cardboard, he said, “I have here the names of three hundred and fifty people, who will each invest ten thousand shilling in the company.”
He threw the pieces of cardboard on Yelvertoft’s lap. The young aristocrat picked them up and read the names on them with increasing excitement. He threw the pieces back on the desk.
“Enough,” he cried. “I yield. Give me your orders.”
Berrick could see that there was no longer any necessity for the extreme firmness with which he had spoken before and it was with the most studied courtesy that he replied, “I have no orders to give you, Milord. Our interests are identical and we must all have a voice in the deliberations as to the best means of carrying them out.”
Berrick threw himself into an armchair, as though worn out by fatigue.
“There is no necessity, Milord,” he said, “to detain you here longer. We will meet again shortly and settle matters. Meanwhile Mr. Eydon will draw up the prospectus and Articles of Association of the proposed company and teach you the financial slang of which you must occasionally make use.”
The lord and the lawyer at once stood up and took their leave. As soon as the door had closed behind them, Berrick seemed to recover his energy.
“Well, Will,” he said, “what do you think of all this?”
Will, smothering the outcries of his conscience, adopted a cynical tone worthy of his companions.
“I see,” he said, “that you have need of me. I’m trustworthy and obedient.”
Berrick’s face showed traces of a struggle between extreme satisfaction and intense annoyance. Will was a little disturbed by the long and continued silence of his boss and at last said, “Well, sir, I’m anxious to know under what conditions I’m to marry Miss Rhiannon, whom I love.”
Berrick smiled diabolically.
“Whose dowry you love,” he observed.
“Pardon me, sir, I said what I meant.”
The doctor, who had not Berrick’s reasons for gravity, burst into a jovial laugh.
“And that pretty Selma,” he said, “what of her?”
“Selma is a thing of the past,” answered Will. “I can now see what an idiot I was and I have entirely removed her from my memory.”
This declaration seemed to make Berrick more at ease.
&nbs
p; “My boy,” he said, “the part you have to play is much more difficult than that assigned to Sir Alfred Yelvertoft. The reward will be proportionately greater.”
“With your help and advice I feel capable of doing everything necessary,” answered Will.
“You will need great self-confidence and the utmost self-control. You must become another person entirely…”
Here the speaker was interrupted by the entrance of Captain Haven, who had signified his desire to come in by three distinct raps on the door.
“What is it?” demanded Berrick.
“Here are two letters, sir.”
“Thank you. Now, leave us.”
As soon as they were alone again, Berrick examined the letters.
“Ah,” he cried, “one from Richard Blake and the other from the Burgh le Marsh household. Let us first see what our friend the dressmaker has to say.
“Dear Sir, our mutual friend Bostall has followed your orders carefully. At his instigation Belvedere Skegness has forged his banker Walter Pitstone’s signature on five different bills. I hold them and await further orders. Also with respect to Mr. Poiret, Richard Blake.”
Tossing it on the table, Berrick opened the other letter, which he also read aloud.
“Sir, I have to report to you the breaking off of the marriage between Miss Felicia and Mr. Ingoldmells. Miss is very ill and I heard the doctor say that she might not survive the next twenty-four hours. Carlton.”
Berrick was so filled with rage on learning this piece of news that he struck his hand down heavily on the table.
“Damnation!” he cried. “If this little fool dies, all our work will be for not.”
He pushed aside his chair and paced up and down the room.
“Shall I go to the Burgh le Marsh mansion?” asked Willoughby.
“Not a bad idea. Your car is waiting, is it not? You can go in your capacity as a medical man.”
The doctor was preparing to leave, when Berrick stopped him.
“No,” he said, “I’ve changed my mind. We must neither of us be seen near the place. Something happened.”
“How will we find out what?”
“I will see Carlton and try and find out.”
In an instant he vanished into his private bedroom and as he changed his dress he called the doctor into his room.
“I wish to heaven that there were thirty-six hours in the day instead of only twenty-four.”
By this time he had completed his change of dress.
“I’m off, now,” he whispered. “Don’t lose sight of Will for a single instant. I don’t yet trust him. See me tomorrow.”
He left hurried. He didn’t hear the cheery voice of the doctor calling after him, “Good luck, to all of you.”
On leaving the Burgh le Marsh mansion, Mr. Ingoldmells dismissed his driver, because he felt as a man often does after experiencing some violent emotion, the necessity to be alone with his thoughts and by so doing recover his self-restraint. His friends would have been surprised had they seen him walking hurriedly along the street. As he walked, he talked to himself and gesticulated.
“And I thought I was above it all. But a look from a pair of beautiful, pleading eyes brings me to my knees.”
He had loved Felicia on the day on which he had asked for her hand. On the day he had learned that she could no longer be his wife, he loved her even more, because now she seemed to him more fascinating than ever. No one would believe that he, the darling of so many women, had been refused by the young woman to whom he had declared his love.
“She,” he murmured with a sigh, “is just the companion for life I longed for. Where can I find another one as intelligent and so pure, united with such glowing beauty, so different from the women of our class, who live only for fashion and gossip? Has Felicia anything in common with those giddy young women, who take a husband as it is expected from them? How her face lit as she spoke of my rival and how thoroughly she puts faith in him! The end of it all is that I will die a bachelor. In my old age I will grow fat with the pleasures of the table. Well, that’s something to look forward to. Ah,” he added with a deep sigh, “my life is a failure.”
Mr. Ingoldmells was a different type of man to the one, who both his friends and his enemies popularly supposed him to be. On his arrival back in England, now rich, he had plunged into the frivolous vortex of London high society, but of this he had soon wearied.
Lately all he cared for was to see his racehorses chronicled in the sporting journals and occasionally to spend a few thousand shilling in jewelry for some actress. But he had secretly longed for a more honorable manner of filling in his life and he had determined that before his marriage he would sell his racehorses and break with his vacuous friends entirely and now his marriage would never take place.
When he entered his club, the traces of his agitation were so visible on his face, that some of the card-players stopped their game to inquire if his horse Amado, the favorite for the Ascot cup, had broken down.
“No, no,” he replied, as he hurriedly made his way to the library, “Amado is as sound as a bell.”
“What the deuce has happened to Ingoldmells?” asked one of the members.
“Goodness gracious!” said the man to whom the question was addressed. “He seems in a hurry to write a mere letter.”
The gentleman was right. Mr. Ingoldmells was writing a withdrawal from his demand for Felicia’s hand to Mr. Burgh le Marsh and he found the task by no means an easy one. On reading it over he found that there was a bitterness throughout it, which would surely attract attention.
“No,” he murmured, “this letter is unworthy of me.” And tearing it up, he began another in which he strung together several conventional excuses, alleging the difficulty of breaking off his former habits and of an awkward entanglement, which he had been unable to break with, as he had anticipated. When this little masterpiece of diplomacy was completed, he rang the bell and handing it to one of the club servants, told him to take it to Count Burgh le Marsh’s house. When this unpleasant duty was over, Mr. Ingoldmells had hoped to find relief, but in this he was mistaken. He tried cards, but stood up from the table within fifteen minutes. He ordered dinner, but had no appetite. He went to the opera, but the music grated on his nerves. At last he went home. The day had seemed endless and yet he could not sleep, because Felicia’s face was constantly in front of him. Who could this man be, whom she so deeply loved? He respected her too much not to feel assured that her choice was a worthy one, but his experience had taught him that if men of the world could fall into poisonous entanglements, a young woman without knowledge of the dangers around her might be entrapped too. “If he is worthy of her,” he thought, “I will do my best to help her, but if not, I will open her eyes.”
At four o’clock in the morning he was still awake. He had made up his mind to see Robert Crawley. A man of taste and wealth would have no trouble in finding a ready excuse for visiting the studio of a struggling artist. He had no fixed plan as to what he would say or do. He would leave all to chance and with this decision he went to bed.
By two in the afternoon Mr. Ingoldmells drove straight to New Burlington Street. Robert Crawley’s indiscreet landlady was as usual leaning on her broom as Mr. Ingoldmells’s magnificent car stopped in front of her.
“Gracious me!” screamed the worthy woman, dazzled by the gorgeousness of the whole turnout. “He can’t be coming here. He must have mistaken the house.”
But her amazement reached its height when Mr. Ingoldmells, on alighting, asked for Robert Crawley.
“Fourth story, first door to the right,” answered the woman, “but I will show you the way.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” and with these words Mr. Ingoldmells ascended the staircase that led to the painter’s studio and knocked on the door. As he did so, he heard a quick, light step on the stairs and a young man, dressed in a long blouse came up.
“Are you Mr. Robert Crawley?” asked Ingoldmells.
“T
hat is my name, sir.”
“I want to say a few words to you.”
“Pray come in,” replied the young artist, opening the door of his studio and ushering his visitor in. Robert’s voice and behavior had made a favorable impression on his visitor, but he was, in spite of having thrown aside nearly all foolish prejudices, a little startled at his dress. He didn’t, however, allow his surprise to be visible.
“I ought to apologize for receiving you like this,” said Robert, “but a poor man must help himself.” As he spoke, he threw off his blouse.
“I rather would offer my excuse for my intrusion,” answered Mr. Ingoldmells. “I came here by the advice of one of my friends,” he stopped for an instant, trying to think of a name.
“Mr. Coolindale?” suggested Robert Crawley.
“Yes, yes,” continued Mr. Ingoldmells, eagerly snatching at the rope the artist held out to him. “My friend sings your praises everywhere and speaks of your talents with the utmost enthusiasm. I want to, on his recommendation, commission you to paint a portrait for me and I can assure you that in my house it will have no need to be ashamed of its companions.”
Robert bowed, coloring deeply at the compliment.
“I’m obliged to you,” he said, “and I trust that you will not be disappointed in taking Mr. Coolindale’s opinion of my talent.”
“Why would I be so?”
“Because the last four months I have been so busy that I have really nothing to show you.”
“That is of no importance. I have every confidence in you.”
“Then,” answered Robert, “all that we have to do is to choose a subject.”
Robert’s manner had by this time so captivated Ingoldmells that he said to himself, “I really ought to hate this gentleman, but on my word I like him better than anyone I have met for a long time.”
Robert placed a large portfolio on the table. “Here,” he said, “are some twenty or thirty sketches. If any of them take your fancy, you can make your choice.”
Down To The Abbey (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 12) Page 11