Collected works of j s f.., p.787
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 787
CHAPTER XI. THE SERVANTS’ HALL
I KNEW CHANEY so well by this time that it was easy for me to see that Mr. Portinscale’s talk was giving him a new interest in the case, which up to then had presented so many baffling features. He settled down in his chair and began to ask questions.
“You’ll understand me, sir,” he said, “when I ask you how you come to know all this? For you speak as with absolute knowledge!”
“Mine is absolute knowledge,” replied Mr. Portinscale. “You see, I was for a great many years chief clerk to a leading firm of solicitors here in the town. Now, the Maxtondale family solicitor is one Ellerthorpe, a London man—”
“We know Mr. Ellerthorpe — well,” observed Chaney.
“Ay, well, although Ellerthorpe is the family solicitor, for what you might call business matters — conveyancing and so on — he hasn’t, and never had, all the business,” continued Mr. Portinscale. “My principal, the late Mr. Matthewman, had a great deal of it, being on the spot — he was always consulted about anything very confidential. It was through us, for instance, that all the inquiries about John Maxtondale were made when he disappeared. Now, when the business about Rupert and his debts came out, Sir Stephen put the whole matter in Mr. Matthewman’s hands. He was so angry with Rupert that he wouldn’t see him — he even forbade him the house; it’s only quite recently that Rupert’s been allowed to come home now and then for a short visit. What really happened was this — Sir Stephen, the debt business having come to his knowledge, put the whole thing in our hands. He issued a sort of ultimatum. We were to ascertain the entire amount of Rupert’s debts — he’d been going the pace at a pretty hot rate — and to pay off every penny. As to Rupert himself, he was to be given a post in the London offices of the Heronswood Colliery Company, under supervision of the manager, Mr. Collinghurst, and for ten years was to earn and depend upon a certain salary, which was to rise in stated amounts each year; during that period of ten years his father was not to give him or find him one penny. In other words, he was on probation and had to make good. Whether—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Portinscale, but how long since is this?” asked Chaney. “How many years have elapsed?”
“Nine! Rupert Maxtondale is now thirty — he was twenty-one when all this happened. It’s understood — at least as far as I know — that he’s kept his part of the bargain. Anyway, during the last year or two he’s been allowed to come home now and then.”
“Have you any idea what he gets in the way of salary now?” inquired Chaney.
Mr. Portinscale reflected awhile.
“I can reckon things up,” he said. “I drew up the document which Rupert was made to sign. He was to begin at a salary of two hundred and fifty pounds a year, and — if he behaved himself — it was to rise by annual increases of fifty pounds. So he will now be getting—”
“Seven hundred a year,” said Chaney. “And his father, I understand, is worth fifty thousand a year! Um!”
“Sir Stephen paid over twenty-five thousand pounds on Rupert’s account,” remarked Mr. Portinscale. “Fair lot of debt, gentlemen, for a lad who’d only just attained his majority when the smash came!”
“I was wondering, considering how extravagant he must have been, how he managed to exist on even seven hundred a year,” said Chaney. “Especially if, as you tell us, he lived in London, by himself, with nobody to look after him.”
“Collinghurst has been supposed to look after him,” said Mr. Portinscale. “But of course he could only do so to a certain extent. And what I’m wondering about is — has Rupert again got himself into the hands of money-lenders, as he did before? It’s true that it’s quite well known that the Heronswood estates are not entailed, and that Rupert’s future is entirely dependent upon Sir Stephen’s goodwill towards him — he could cut him off if he liked, and Sir Stephen’s a hard man if crossed or disobeyed — but there’s always the sporting chance that Rupert will come into everything, and — you see what I mean?”
“I see!” agreed Chaney. “There may be somebody in the background who has a financial interest in Rupert and who, if Sir John Maxtondale had claimed and insisted on his right, would have been a loser? That it, sir?”
“That is it,” replied Mr. Portinscale. “That is exactly my idea. But as to who such a person or persons may be, I know nothing.”
“Do you know Mr. Rupert Maxtondale’s address in town?” asked Chaney.
But Mr. Portinscale did not know that, and after thanking him and assuring him that we should regard as strictly confidential all that he had said to us, we took our leave and went back to Heronswood.
Chaney was full of what we had just heard. There was an idea in it, he said, an idea that was worth following up.
“Let’s suppose a bit, Camberwell,” he said, as we walked back across Heronswood Park. “Supposing, now, that, as the old gentleman suggested, there is somebody who has a financial interest in Rupert Maxtondale? Supposing there’s someone who’s lent him money on his chances, prospects? Supposing that someone discovered that Sir John Maxtondale had returned and, in order to safeguard himself, removed him — and, knowing that Robson and Mother Kitteridge knew of his doings and were about to reveal them, removed them, too? What about that, now?”
“Wouldn’t all that mean that the someone lived hereabouts?” I suggested.
“It needn’t,” he answered. “John Maxtondale might have been followed from London. But then, of course, it might have been some local person — how do we know what Rupert Maxtondale’s private affairs are? There may be some person about here who has a financial interest in him. The fact is, Camberwell, we know nothing! Still, there’s something in the old gentleman’s theory, and we ought to do a bit of work at it. What I’m wondering about at present is: should we tell Sir Stephen of this notion?”
I was thinking about that myself, and I said so, adding that the question needed a good deal of consideration.
“Well, we can’t hang about here,” said Chaney. “We’re doing precious little good. My idea is that we ought to get back to town and do some investigating with Rupert as an objective — find out what sort of life he really leads, what company he keeps, if he’s really carrying out his share of the compact between him and his father, and so on. That, I feel sure, is our line — all other lines seem to be leading nowhere.”
He was referring, I knew, to the fact that we had not been able to trace anything through Sir John Maxtondale’s missing valuables. The numbers of the bank-notes known to be in his possession when he left London had been circulated broadcast, but nothing had been heard of any single one of them. As for the diamonds, it was almost beyond the bounds of possibility that they would ever be traced.
“I think we ought to speak to Sir Stephen, frankly,” concluded Chaney, “and then — get away!”
“Yes, but what are we to speak to him about?” I asked. “We’ve no real evidence against Rupert! We can’t go to Sir Stephen and ask him if he thinks his son has any connexion with all this! He’d immediately ask us if we’ve any grounds for such a suggestion. And — we haven’t. It’s all mere surmise.”
However, that very evening we were brought face to face with something that was not mere surmise. Sir Stephen Maxtondale’s domestic staff was headed by a butler, Rabbage, a grave and solemn person of whom all his fellow-servants stood in much awe. Rabbage, I gathered, had been in the employ of the Maxtondale family for at least thirty years. When Sir Stephen insisted on housing us during our investigations, he placed us in charge of Rabbage, and Rabbage, after a careful inspection and estimation of us, evidently considered it his duty to show us every attention and make us extremely comfortable. He was a man of reserved speech, very discreet, and of precise manners, and certainly not given to gossip, and I was accordingly very much surprised when, on the evening of our return from seeing Mr. Portinscale, he drew me aside and said that if convenient and agreeable to us, he begged the favour of a little private conversation with Mr. Chaney and me. There was that in his manner which convinced me that Rabbage had something of importance to communicate.
“Certainly, Rabbage,” I replied. “When? Where?”
“Any time after dinner is over would suit me, sir,” he said. “I can wait on you and Mr. Chaney in your own room, sir” (he had given us a sitting-room, near our bedrooms, in which we could enjoy whatever privacy we desired), “or perhaps you would prefer to come to my pantry? Whichever you please, sir.”
“Come to our room, Rabbage,” I answered. “What time, now. Nine o’clock?”
“Nine o’clock will be very convenient to me, sir,” he said. “My duties are over then — until it is time to close the house.”
I made Chaney acquainted with Rabbage’s desire, and Chaney immediately became alertly inquisitive.
“The old chap’s got something to tell!” he exclaimed. “Heaven send it’s something worth listening to! If we could only get hold of any direct clue! Well, Rabbage is a likely man. One thing’s certain, Camberwell — Rabbage won’t say anything unless he’s convinced that there’s something in it.”
Rabbage came to our sitting-room exactly as the clock in the old turret above our heads struck its nine strokes. His first action was to see that the door through which he had entered was closed behind him; his next to glance at the window; seeing that it was open, he asked permission to shut it.
“When one has a confidential communication to make, gentlemen, it is as well to ensure complete privacy,” he remarked. “I don’t want anything I may say to you to be overheard.”
“Perfectly safe here, Rabbage,” said Chaney. “You know the quarters better than we do. Well? — something confidential, eh?”
“And serious, sir,” replied Rabbage. He took the chair between us which I had placed for him, and dropped his voice to a low murmur. “The fact is, gentlemen, I have been wanting to talk to you for some days. At first I thought I would say what I have to say to Sir Stephen himself, but on reflection I think I had better say it to you — Sir Stephen is upset enough already.”
“You can trust us, Rabbage,” said Chaney.
“I am sure of it, sir — Mr. Ellerthorpe told me before he left that if I ever wished to speak to you about — well, about these recent affairs — I could do so with perfect confidence. But until quite recently, gentlemen, I had nothing to speak about.”
“And now,” said Chaney, “you have?”
“Now I have, sir. The fact is, gentlemen, there is a good deal of talk going on in our servants’ hall. I have done my best to check and suppress it, but in a big house like this, with a staff of nearly twenty servants, many of them females, it is difficult to stop gossip.”
“And the gossip is about — what?” asked Chaney.
Rabbage looked round again, at doors and window. His voice dropped to a whisper.
“About Mr. Rupert!” he said. “Just that, sir, Mr. Rupert!”
“What about him?” inquired Chaney.
“It’s difficult to explain, sir. It is not what our servants are saying themselves — I hope they’re too well trained for that! — but what they’re repeating as coming from outside. From the people who live hereabouts, you understand — labouring people, the people over at the colliery, and so on. They talk, those people, and what they say spreads, gentlemen.”
“And what are they saying, Rabbage?” asked Chaney. “Out with it!”
Rabbage shook his head regretfully.
“They’re saying, sir, that Mr. Rupert knows more about these — these dreadful occurrences than he’s ever admitted,” he replied. “Just that, sir!”
“But on what grounds?” asked Chaney.
“Well, sir, there are two — I don’t know if you’d call them grounds or reasons or what,” replied Rabbage. “And in both cases the information must have sprung from somebody in this house — by somebody, I mean one or other of our servants, but I haven’t the remotest idea which. People are saying, sir, that there are two suspicious features as regards Mr. Rupert. First, it’s known that he was out with his gun, unaccompanied by any keeper or anybody, on the day on which Sir John Maxtondale was shot. Second, it’s known (and that can certainly only have filtered out from this house) that on the evening on which Mr. Robson and old Mrs. Kitteridge were shot, Mr. Rupert left the dinner-table before dinner was really over, making some excuse to his father, and left the house, to which he didn’t return till very late. These two facts are known, sir, and people are saying they’re very suspicious.”
“Are they — these people — suggesting that Mr. Rupert Maxtondale shot his uncle, Robson, and Mrs. Kitteridge?” asked Chaney.
“Not quite that, I think, sir, but that Mr. Rupert knows something about it,” replied Rabbage. “The fact is, gentlemen, there are people about here — I grieve to say, most people about here — who are inclined to believe anything about Mr. Rupert Maxtondale. Mr. Rupert, sir, is not and never has been liked. He is unpopular.”
“Why?” asked Chaney.
“He was unpopular as a boy, sir. His manner, you understand. Overbearing and, if I may put it so strongly, rude and even insolent to the tenants. Not at all like his father, gentlemen,” added Rabbage. “Sir Stephen is the most considerate landlord you could imagine. Everybody likes Sir Stephen.”
Chaney considered all this during a few moments of silence.
“Of course, that’s all mere gossip?” he said, suddenly. “Eh, Rabbage?”
“Oh, mere gossip, of course, sir,” assented Rabbage. “Country people, gentlemen, will talk — you can’t stop them from talking.”
“You don’t attach any importance to it yourself?” asked Chaney.
“Not to the mere gossip,” replied Rabbage. “But — if I’m to speak frankly, gentlemen, I’ve been upset in my own mind about something that happened when Mr. Rupert was down here this last time. You see, gentlemen, I’m an old servant. I’ve been here many years; naturally, I know many family secrets. I know, for instance, that Mr. Rupert was a bit — a good bit! — wild and extravagant in his youth — when he was little more than a boy in fact — and that though his father put things right for him, it led to Sir Stephen’s taking very stern measures about him and practically banishing him to London to earn his own living. It’s only of recent years — the last two or three years, gentlemen — that Mr. Rupert has been allowed to come here — a matter of which I didn’t approve, though I’m bound to say that Sir Stephen used to go up to town periodically to visit him—”
“Why wasn’t he allowed to come down here?” asked Chaney.
“I think Sir Stephen got the idea that he knew people in this neighbourhood whom it wasn’t desirable he should know,” replied Rabbage. “He wanted to break off all that sort of thing. But,” he continued, after a pause, “I’ve been wondering, gentlemen, if all those old associations have been discontinued? — which brings me back to what I was going to say to you.”
“Yes — what was that?” inquired Chaney.
“Well, sir, just this. A few days after Mr. Rupert came down last time — it was, as a matter of fact, two days before the affair of Sir John’s death took place — a man came to the front door one morning and asked for Mr. Rupert. He was a sporting-looking sort of man — loud clothes, rakish — and a complete stranger to me. I fetched Mr. Rupert to him — the man wouldn’t give any name or enter the hall. Fortunately Sir Stephen was away. Mr. Rupert and the man walked away across the terrace, talking; it seemed to me that Mr. Rupert was vexed. I saw them leave the terrace for the park, where they disappeared. Mr. Rupert was out until lunch-time; I thought he looked worried when he came back. Well, gentlemen, next morning very early I had to go into Monkseaton, and there I saw this man again. And — Mr. Rupert was with him. He, I knew, had ridden off just after breakfast. They didn’t see me, and of course I took care to keep on the other side of the street. There may be nothing in it, gentlemen,” concluded Rabbage, “but — well, I didn’t like the look of that man.”
That was all the butler had to say. But when he had said it, Chaney and I made up our minds to leave Heronswood at once. Our work, evidently, awaited us in London.
CHAPTER XII. WARRINER’S WHARF
AFTER RABBAGE HAD left us, Chaney and I sat up some time, talking. As usual, most of the talking was done by Chaney; I still considered myself a disciple, sitting at the feet of a master.
“Get back to town, Camberwell! — that’s what we’ve got to do,” said Chaney. “Old Panama hat was right — this affair has something to do with Rupert Maxtondale. How, in what way, Heaven knows! We’ve got to find that out.”
“How do you propose to do it?” I asked.
“Find out all about him! What his life is. Where he lives. Whom he associates with. If he’s living within his income or has got into debt again. All that can be done without much difficulty.”
“Starting out from — what?” I inquired. “We must have a base.”
“Our base will be the London offices of the Heronswood Colliery Company,” he replied. “I know where they are — Warriner’s Wharf.”
“Where’s Warriner’s Wharf?” I asked.
“On that stretch of the river called the Pool. Where the Custom House is. And near the Coal Exchange, if you know where that is.”
“Never knew there was such a place,” I said.
“Very likely — but it’s one of the principal buildings in that region. Opposite Billingsgate, at the corner of St. Mary-at-Hill. That’s where they do the coal business — millions upon millions of tons in a year, my boy!”
“How would you start out from the Heronswood offices?” I asked.
“That’s easy enough. We know that Rupert puts in his day there. Ought to, at any rate. Perhaps he does, perhaps he doesn’t — anyhow, we can be certain he’ll be there at some time or other. Well, that’s all right — when he leaves the offices, we follow.”
