Collected works of j s f.., p.659
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 659
“You will not see Mr. Vandelius, nor will he know you are here unless you answer my question,” said the man. “Answer plainly — is there anyone who knows you’re here, except your man-servant?”
“No! — no one!” asserted Richard.
“You have not been seeing the local police? — talking to them — —”
“I’ve never been near the local police. No one knows I’m here, I tell you, except my valet. He won’t say a word to anyone — if I am safely back at the hotel by eleven o’clock. If I am not — —”
“Well — what then?”
“Then he’ll go to the local police superintendent, and tell him that I’m here, and why!” answered Richard. “So that’s that! You’d better let me see your master.”
The man hesitated a moment; then he seemed to make up his mind.
“Very well!” he said. “Follow me! These men will walk alongside you; you’ll remember that you’re in their custody. This way!”
He turned swiftly; the bright light was extinguished; Richard, only just able to see the leader’s figure in the semi-darkness, found himself threading an intricate path which led through thick shrubberies towards the house. Presently the four men emerged from these upon a lawn; there the light grew better, and Richard saw that they were approaching the lighted part of the long range of buildings. But as they drew closer, the leader turned along another path; this led to the ruins which Richard had seen that morning from the hillside. Through a doorway in them they passed into what appeared to be a long vaulted passage; at the farther end an obviously modern entrance confronted them. And here the man who had done all the talking turned on his prisoner.
“I can’t say if Mr. Vandelius will see you personally or not,” he said in his usual stern accents. “But he’ll say what is to be done with you. You’ll wait here! — and remember that you’re in charge of these men. If you attempt to make off, or anything of that sort, all the worse for you! I’ve warned you before, though, that we stand no nonsense!”
Richard’s blood began to stir in his veins.
“Look you here!” he said suddenly. “I’ve told you of my orders to my man. If I’m not back at my hotel, safe and sound, by eleven o’clock, you’ll have the local police in this place before midnight! Now you go and tell that to your master — and be damned to you!”
The man made no answer. He passed through a door and closed it behind him, and Richard, seeing an antique chair close by, sat down, drew out his cigarette case and began to smoke, paying no more attention to his guards than if they were stone images. Five minutes, ten minutes passed; then the door was suddenly opened again and his interrogator looked out and motioned to him.
“Come this way!” he said peremptorily. “Alone!”
Richard rose promptly enough and passing through the door found himself in another long passage, which, from its furnishings, obviously belonged to the modern part of the house. His guide, without further word to him, walked swiftly along this until he came to a door at the extreme end; this he opened without any preliminary knock, and standing aside, motioned Richard to enter. And Richard obeyed his gesture, not without a sudden quickening of his pulses — he was, at any rate, within the secret centres of this strange place at last, and perhaps sooner than he had thought to be.
The room was a small one; evidently a luxuriously fitted smoking-room; the atmosphere was heavy with the aromatic odour of choice cigars. There were three men in it, grouped around a fire of oak logs; cigar boxes, decanters, glasses, were ranged on a table near them. Two of these men Richard recognised at once as Crench, the Chancery Lane solicitor, and Garner, his friend: each gave him a nod of recognition to which he made a formal, silent response. He knew them for nothing but subordinates; his whole attention was given at once to the third man, whom he felt to be the controlling spirit in what had already seemed the aspect of an extraordinary and perhaps sinister mystery — Mr. Louis Vandelius.
Mr. Vandelius sat on the left-hand side of his bright fire, in a deep easy chair; a short, stoutish man, dark of hair and complexion, with a pair of peculiarly bright black eyes, a high white forehead, and an expression, at that moment, of interest and curiosity. He rose slightly from his seat as Richard entered, bowed politely, and waved a slender hand to a chair exactly opposite his own.
“Mr. Richard Marchmont?” he said in a low, musical voice, and with great suavity of manner. “Please to be seated. I think you are already acquainted with these gentlemen, Mr. Marchmont? — Mr. Crench; Mr. Garner.”
“I have met both gentlemen: they know well who I am,” replied Richard. He took the chair which Vandelius indicated, and looked frankly at the man whose house he had invaded. “So,” he continued, “I dare say they have given you some explanation of my presence here.”
Vandelius smiled, showing a set of very fine white teeth.
“I should prefer to hear your own, Mr. Marchmont,” he said. “I understand from my servants that you came in rather an irregular fashion, eh? — climbed the wall, I think? That — —”
“There was no other course open to me,” interrupted Richard. “I believed — I may have been wrong — that if I sent in my card you wouldn’t see me. And — —”
“Quite wrong!” said Vandelius. “I would have seen you. Well, I see you now. What is the matter, Mr. Marchmont? But I am forgetting my duties — a glass of wine, now?”
“Thank you, no, if you don’t mind,” replied Richard. “Mr. Vandelius,” he went on steadily, “I want to ask you a plain question. Are Mr. Lansdale and his daughter under your roof?”
Vandelius smiled again.
“They are, Mr. Marchmont,” he replied. “They are in my house.”
“As prisoners?”
“Say guests, Mr. Marchmont, guests! Prisoners, no!”
“I shall be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Vandelius! I received a letter from Miss Lansdale late last night in which she told me that she and her father were prisoners in a house the whereabouts of which she was ignorant of. She suggested I might ascertain her whereabouts from the postmark. I saw that the postmark was Malbourne. I came here; I chanced to see Mr. Crench in one of your cars. I made some guarded inquiries — which, Mr. Vandelius, have so far respected your privacy — and I came to the conclusion that Miss Lansdale and her father were here. I want to know if Miss Lansdale is — safe?”
Vandelius had nodded his head at various points of this speech; he now nodded it with an expression of indulgence.
“Miss Lansdale is quite safe,” he said. “As safe as if she were under her own roof, or, rather, far safer! But, Mr. Marchmont, since you are so frank, I too will be candid. What is your particular interest in this young lady?”
“I have no objection to telling you that,” answered Richard. “Miss Lansdale and I are engaged to be married.”
Vandelius bowed his head sympathetically.
“Is her father aware of it?” he asked.
“He may be now — since he and his daughter have been thrown together here,” replied Richard. “He was not — that is, he wasn’t at the time of his disappearance.”
Vandelius remained silent a moment, watching his visitor.
“If what one reads in the newspapers is correct, Mr. Marchmont,” he replied suddenly, “Mr. Lansdale is suspected, by police and public, of having murdered your uncle!”
“I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Richard.
“It would be a very nasty thing for you to believe if you are in love with his daughter — who is a very nice, beautiful girl!” observed Vandelius, again showing his teeth. “But I should be greatly delighted and infinitely relieved if you could give me some grounds for not believing it! As the thing has been worked up by the press and the police, there is something very like a prima facie case against this very unfortunate Lansdale!”
“But you don’t believe it yourself?” said Richard bluntly. “Do you?”
Vandelius waved his cigar.
“I am not often asked what I believe, Mr. Marchmont!” he replied, smiling. “If I am, I remain silent. Evidence is evidence — facts are facts. I believe you have a proverb, you practical English people, to the effect that facts are ugly things. Sometimes, yes, they are — very ugly!”
“Why is Mr. Lansdale hidden?” demanded Richard. “That’s no good! It’s only made the police consider him guilty. Innocent men don’t hide!”
“Yet you consider him innocent?” said Vandelius. “Well, my friend, what you mean is that innocent men ought not to have any necessity to hide. But sometimes a wholly innocent man — as in this case — is wrongly suspect. Then it is a question of expediency as to whether he should hide himself, or let his friends hide him — or remain in the full light, eh?”
“I say — the full light!” said Richard.
“Um — yes! — but perhaps you have never been locked up in a police cell, or confined in a detention prison!” remarked Vandelius good-humouredly. “You have not much chance of doing anything for yourself in those places, and if you are in them, your friends can’t do much for you, either, Mr. Marchmont. In Mr. Lansdale’s case — somebody had to do something!”
“I conclude that it is you who offer that mysterious reward of ten thousand pounds, through Mr. Crench?” suggested Richard.
Vandelius waved his cigar again — unconcernedly.
“Well, between us, as gentlemen, yes, Mr. Marchmont,” he replied. “You see, if the real murderer of your uncle — please accept my sincere condolences on the sad fate of so estimable a man as I am sure Mr. Henry Marchmont was! — if, I say, we can detect and convict the really guilty man, why, then, Lansdale is cleared! He steps out into the daylight — free!”
“That is your object in having him here, and in offering that reward, then?” demanded Richard, going to his point.
Vandelius affected a momentary interest in his cigar. After carefully removing the ash from it, he looked across at his visitor with a sudden confidential smile.
“Mr. Marchmont,” he said, “I know you — as a cricketer! I have seen you play cricket — several times — at Lord’s and at the Oval. All cricketers are men of honour! The cricket field is the nursery of honourable conduct; it breeds gentlemen. So — I will take you into my confidence — the confidence of Louis Vandelius! — I will tell you why Lansdale is here, why his daughter is here — —”
A slight warning cough from Crench interrupted him. The lawyer was shaking his head.
“I’m not sure that that’s advisable, Mr. Vandelius,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t think I’d — —”
But Vandelius frowned and waved his hand with a peremptory gesture.
“Mr. Marchmont is engaged to Miss Lansdale!” he said. “I decide to give Mr. Marchmont my confidence!”
XIII. Mr. Vandelius Explains
IT WAS VERY evident to Richard, who from the first had endeavoured to keep a sharp eye on all three men, that Vandelius’ proposal was by no means welcome to his two companions. Although Crench made no further effort to voice his objection, he showed his disapproval by facial expressions and shakings of his head; a scowl on Garner’s face and an abrupt movement of his body showed that he was in agreement with Crench. But at Vandelius’s next words, both men changed in demeanour, and turned on Richard with obvious suspense in their eyes — for the words constituted an all-important question.
“That is,” continued Vandelius, with one of his suave smiles, and watching his visitor more closely than ever, “that is, if Mr. Marchmont gives me his word of honour that my confidence is not abused. In plain language, what I now say to you, Mr. Marchmont — contingent upon your promise — is not to be repeated to anyone. It is to be regarded as being something between you and me?”
“Your friends here sharing in it,” suggested Richard.
“They are already acquainted with it,” replied Vandelius. “Naturally! — or they would not be here. I propose to take you into my confidence, Mr. Marchmont, because you tell me you are engaged to Lansdale’s daughter, and this is really for Lansdale’s sake. Being in love with Miss Lansdale, you naturally desire her father’s safety — you wish to see him cleared of a charge which the police have brought against him — —”
“Not quite that, sir!” interrupted Crench. “The police, up to now, have not brought any charge against Mr. Lansdale. If they had, I am afraid you would be in something of a delicate position — possibly liable for what is called comforting and assisting a suspected person. All that the police are anxious to find Lansdale for is that they may ask him to give some account of his doings with Henry Marchmont after their meeting at the dinner in the City — whether he actually did go to Bedford Row or not, and if he did, what happened there? There has been no warrant issued against Lansdale — at least no warrant had been issued when I left town this morning.”
Vandelius waved his hand as if to brush aside the solicitor’s interruption and remarks.
“Legal quips and quiddities don’t interest me,” he said. “That is all in your domain, friend Crench. We have done nothing against the law that I know of. Mr. Lansdale and his daughter are my guests — I don’t know Mr. Lansdale as a criminal fleeting from justice! I am about, for his sake — and his daughter’s sake — to tell Mr. Marchmont why they are here. That is, if Mr. Marchmont gives me his word of honour that he will respect my confidence?”
“I can’t do anything else,” said Richard. “So — I shall!”
Vandelius smiled, nodded at the other men, threw away his cigar, and leaning forward in his chair began to address Richard as if he was an audience, or a judge, or a jury, to whom it was necessary to elaborate and to explain — with a liberal use of gesture.
“I will begin then, Mr. Marchmont,” he said, “by informing you that Mr. Lansdale has for many years lived in South America, where he has done much good work in aiding in the development of various industries and natural resources; he is well known over there, and there he has amassed a very considerable fortune. He has very large business interests. He has and has had a great deal to do with options and concessions. Lately he came to England in connection with a most important deal of that nature — the sale of and taking up of an option. He desired to find a financial man, a capitalist of undoubted substance. He found me!”
Vandelius paused as if to let this information sink deep into his listener’s mind. Getting nothing from Richard in response beyond a steady stare of attention, he went on.
“He found me! — Louis Vandelius. With me he opened negotiations. The negotiations involve, represent, an enormous sum of money. If they come to a successful conclusion, Lansdale adds greatly to his already considerable fortune; I vastly increase mine! Therefore, as is natural, we are supremely anxious that the negotiations should be successful. And they are going on most successfully, here in London, and away across the sea, in a certain city in South America, by constant interchange of cablegrams, when a most unpleasant diversion occurs — Lansdale meets your uncle!”
Richard was beginning to wonder if the man before him had ever been an actor, or if he amused himself by writing dramatic stuff, or if he was merely one of those people who cannot help showing dramatic effect in speech and action, for the more he talked the more dramatic he was getting — voice, eyes, shoulders, fingers were all being brought into active play.
“He meets your uncle!” Vandelius continued, throwing out his hands. “Lansdale meets Henry Marchmont! A calamity! For Lansdale has a past! A past! — and Henry Marchmont, the upright, matter-of-fact, call-a-spade-a-spade solicitor, not likely to forget or to overlook anything that he objects to in his severe, English mode of regarding things, is connected with it. Year before, previous to his successful career in another country, Lansdale was Land, a dealer in shares in an obscure country town in which Henry Marchmont was a young solicitor. Something goes wrong — there is a great smash — Land’s clients lose money — much money — some of them all their money! Land goes — what you call makes himself scarce — he is there to-day, and to-morrow he isn’t! And then, of course, many of these unfortunate people say he robbed and defrauded them!”
He spread out his hands again and shrugged his shoulders, looking at Richard as if to appeal to him. But Richard remained silent, stolid as ever.
“Of course, it is what they would say!” continued Vandelius, with a grimace. “They always do! Yet they are generally wrong, these people — suffering, eh? from bitter disappointment. In this case, I am assured — Lansdale gives me his word! — they were wrong. He robbed nobody; defrauded nobody! The people were the victims of their own gambling mania — they wanted to get rich quick — they had a fever for certain things — they would buy — he was but an agent. Perhaps he made a mistake in not what you call facing the music — but he didn’t. He fled, overseas. Then, twenty-five years later, he comes back, a rich man, engaged in a stupendous financial deal, and, unexpectedly, he runs his head right against the past in the shape of Henry Marchmont, the respectable, uncompromising, stern English man-of-law!”
Again the spread-out hands, the dramatic appeal — and again Richard’s watchful silence.
“Well!” continued Vandelius. “A calamity! A catastrophe! Why? Because the stupendous deal is on the very eve of completion; a few days, perhaps a few hours, and it will be carried through, and Lansdale will be richer than ever, and — incidentally! — so, even more so, will Vandelius! But — Henry Marchmont? Henry Marchmont is — a man of probity, and a severe man. Suppose Henry Marchmont voices it abroad in the City that Lansdale is an absconder, that he has a bad record, that his past is shady? Such news flies round the City like wild-fire. Suppose Henry Marchmont does this? — quicker than it takes to tell, the news reaches the little group of financiers with whom Vandelius and Lansdale are dealing, and the grand coup is — well, if not off, delayed, possibly endangered! What is to be done? Fortunately Lansdale thinks quickly. He implores Henry Marchmont to give him an interview at his office whereat he may explain. Henry Marchmont consents! — the interview is arranged. On the following evening, Lansdale is to wait upon Henry Marchmont!”
