The Black Abbot
With a tremendous effort of will he met her questioning eyes.
“Why do you say that?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know--in a way I hope I’m poor. I know I had money left me,
because you showed me the will a long time ago. But you’ve been
handling it, Arthur, and I’ve an idea that things haven’t been going
too well with you.”
“Do you mean I’ve stolen your fortune?” he asked loudly, and she
smiled.
“I wouldn’t accuse you of that. I think it is possible you may have
invested my fortune--unwisely! And it is quite possible that that
quarter of a million has dwindled and dwindled until it has
disappeared. Is that so?”
He did not answer.
“Is that so?”
“I wish to God you wouldn’t ask such stupid questions,” he said
irritably. “Of course it isn’t so!”
For one wild moment he had the impulse to tell her the truth; but
vanity, a shrinking from the possible effects the news would have upon
the one person in the world for whom he had a grain of affection,
inhibited the confession.
Back he came naturally to the one thought present in his mind, as he
chattered and as he brooded. His last hope lay in the discovery of the
Chelford treasure. If that were found, he could snap his fingers at
Gilder, could restore the wasted fortune of his sister, and establish
himself beyond assail. Gilder would never dare bring his story of the
four bills to a court of law, and if he did, backed by the Chelford
fortune, Arthur could face the storm, confident that, if he made
restoration to the man he had robbed, no evil consequences would
follow. He was grasping at a straw, and knew it. But Mary Wenner was a
shrewd little devil, not the kind of girl who, for the sake of making
a sensation, would come to him with a cock-and-bull story. She might
have been mistaken; on the other hand, she was so brimful of
confidence that he could not believe the story was altogether without
foundation.
The road to Willow House skirted the grounds of Fossaway Manor, and he
saw the crumbling arch, red in the setting sun, standing like a fiery
question mark that attuned with his mood of doubt and hope.
Arrived at his home, he went up to his room to bathe and change before
dinner, and it was with a positive sense of freedom that he found
himself alone. He was a fool not to have told her the truth, he
thought. After dinner he would get her in a softer mood and make a
clean breast of it. And then, at the tail of this decision, came the
recollection of his interview with Mary Wenner. Suppose she had told
the truth? Suppose he found these millions of pounds that had lain for
centuries in the ground? He formed yet another plan.
XVI
To his unspeakable relief, Leslie was in her most cheerful mood
throughout dinner, and the thought of Fabrian Gilder seemed to have
been effectively banished.
“Leslie,” he asked, after the coffee had been served, “I want you to
do me a great favour.”
She looked at him across the table, doubt in her eyes.
“Do you remember Mary Wenner, who used to be Harry’s secretary?”
She nodded.
“Yes. Dick doesn’t like her very much; he was telling me the other
day----”
“Never mind what Dick likes or dislikes,” he said testily. “Great
heavens! Are our lives to be run according to his fancies? I’m very
sorry,” he apologized with a laugh, “but you’ll have to forgive
me--I’m rather nervous to-night.”
“What about Mary Wenner?” she asked.
“I was wondering whether you would like to ask her down here to stay a
week-end? I shall have a lot of work to do, and she’s a very excellent
stenographer. But I’ll be perfectly frank with you and tell you that
that is not the only reason I’d like you to invite her. She’s been in
some kind of scrape and I want to help her through.”
Leslie Gwyn was not curious, or she might have questioned him more
about this mythical trouble.
“I don’t know why she shouldn’t come,” she said. “If you’ll give me
her address I will write to her. I rather fancy that Dick’s main
objection to her is that she had some sort of attachment for Harry.”
“She’s almost forgotten Harry,” smiled her brother. “To be perfectly
candid, I like the girl. She’s not a lady, of course, but ‘lady’
nowadays is a vague and meaningless term. And there was really nothing
in her affair with Harry. I mean it was not serious.”
“I’ve never thought so,” said the girl, and thereupon the question of
Mary Wenner was dismissed.
He had, he said, some work to do that night, and left her alone in the
drawing-room, and for once she did not find time hanging very heavily
upon her hands. Ordinarily the prospect of an evening spent alone
would have seemed intolerably dull, but she had so much to think
about, so many perspectives to adjust, that she rather welcomed her
solitude.
Even at so short a distance of time, her experience with Fabrian
Gilder seemed grotesquely unreal. Perhaps she was still numb from the
shock of it, for, going over that unpleasant feature incident by
incident, she could be neither angry nor amused. Perhaps she was a
little afraid--she still felt the pressure of his strong hands upon
her, still saw the gray fires that burnt in his eyes. And Dick--how
natural it had been to go to him--how safe she had felt! Would it have
been the same if Harry Chelford had providentially arrived? She was
sure in her mind that she would not have run to Harry, or found
comfort in his encircling arms.
She looked at the clock; it was ten minutes after nine. Dick would be
back at Fossaway Manor by now, and she went out into the hall and,
taking off the receiver of the telephone, gave a number.
Arthur’s study door opened into the hall, and he came out.
“To whom are you telephoning?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m calling up Fossaway Manor,” she said.
“You’re not going to invite Dick Alford over, are you?” he demanded
resentfully.
Before she could reply, he heard the ring of a bell in the servants’
quarters and she ran to the door. Through the glass panel she saw the
gleam of a white shirt-front on the unlighted porch, and switched on
the lights. It was Dick, and, with an oath, Arthur Gwyn flung back
into his room and slammed the door. He had hoped that Dick had
forgotten his threat to call that night.
“Enter, Richard of Chelford!” said the girl dramatically, as she threw
open the door. “I was just ’phoning to you. I’m bored to extinction
and I want amusing.”
Which was not true.
“I don’t feel at all amusing,” said Dick, as he closed the door and
hung up his cap on the hat-rack.
She took him by the arm and led him into the drawing-room.
“Arthur is invisible to-night; he is working very hard. He doesn’t
approve of you, and you hardly approve of him, so we sha’n’t be
interrupted! Dick, it was lovely of you to arrive as you did this
afternoon.”
“Gilder proposed to you, I understand?” said Dick quietly.
“Did he tell you?” She fetched a long sigh. “Yes; I was amazed. I
suppose it was very complimentary, but why did he do it in such a
great hurry, do you think?”
Dick took a cigarette from the box she offered him and lit it before
he replied.
“That is exactly what I’ve come to discover,” he said. “I feel rather
like a grand inquisitor, but I must know.”
“And I can’t tell you.”
She was acting. He knew that her one object was to turn him from an
interview with her brother, and she in turn knew that her efforts
would be in vain.
“You had no hint of this precious proposal in advance? Arthur told you
nothing?”
“No; Arthur couldn’t possibly have known. He told me that Mr. Gilder
wanted us to see his new flat, and although it was a great bore going
out to tea with somebody one doesn’t know, I went----”
“To oblige Arthur, of course?”
“No,” she insisted; “you must credit me with a reasonable amount of
feminine curiosity. Bachelors’ establishments intrigue me. Your one
drawback, from my point of view, is that you’ve only a poky little
office and, I presume, a wretched little servant’s bedroom.”
“For a second son I’m rather well off,” said Dick with a quizzical
smile. “You are sure Arthur didn’t give you any forewarning of this
proposal?”
“Absolutely sure. He was as much astonished as I was.”
“Have you discussed it with him?” he asked quickly.
She hesitated.
“Yes, I spoke about it in the car on the way down, and Arthur was
rather--astonished.”
“Only astonished--not furious?”
“He may have been furious, too. Arthur doesn’t carry his heart on his
sleeve.”
“I should imagine not,” said Dick drily, and then: “Will you ask him
if I can see him for five minutes?”
She looked at him with troubled eyes.
“You’re not going to quarrel, are you, Dick?”
He shook his head.
“No, I’m going to ask him a question or two. You realize that I’m
entitled to know.”
“Why are you ‘entitled’?”
“Don’t you think I am?” he asked gently.
Her eyes went up to his for a second, and then dropped, as she read
something there that thrilled and hurt her. Without a word she went
out into the hall and knocked at Arthur’s door.
“What does he want? I can’t be bothered to-night,” said Arthur Gwyn
fretfully. “What a fellow he is for interrupting people when they’re
busy!”
“I think you’d better see him, Arthur,” she said, and added: “And get
it over.”
He shot a quick glance at her.
“What do you mean--get what over?” he asked.
“Whatever there is to get over,” said Leslie quietly.
Arthur looked down at the picturesque confusion of papers that covered
his library table.
“All right, shoot him in,” he said ungraciously.
XVII
He did not attempt to rise from his chair when Dick entered, closing
the door behind him.
“Sit down, will you, Alford? Leslie tells me you want to see me.”
“Leslie need not have given you that message. I’d already told you
this afternoon that I would come to you for an explanation.”
“Of what?”
“Of the unpleasant happening at Gilder’s flat. This man proposed to
your sister--you know that?”
“Leslie told me,” said the other, after a moment’s silence.
“And you were annoyed, one supposes? You will dismiss this clerk of
yours to-morrow?”
The other leaned back in his chair.
“I don’t see why I should,” he said coolly. “After all, it’s no crime
for any man to propose to a pretty girl. Of course, he’s not the sort
of fellow I should choose for a brother-in-law, but if brothers had to
choose husbands for their sisters, you know, Alford, there would be
some very queer marriages!”
“What is his pull?” asked Dick quietly.
“I don’t----”
“What is his hold on you?”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“Just what I say. You would never tolerate a man like Gilder paying
attentions to your sister, apart from the insult he offered to a
prospective Countess of Chelford, unless he had such a grip on you
that all your natural indignation was crushed by the fear of some
consequence he held over your head.”
Arthur Gwyn found it difficult to control his voice.
“My dear fellow, how very melodramatic!” he scoffed. “Hold over me!
You must have been studying the latest Drury Lane play! Naturally, I
would rather see Leslie married to your brother, but I certainly would
put no obstacle in her way if her heart was set elsewhere.”
“On Gilder, in fact?”
“On Gilder,” nodded Arthur gravely, as though the matter had been the
subject of deep thought and much self-communion.
And then Dick Alford asked a question that brought the man to his
feet, white and shaking.
“Is it the question of the bills?”
“The--the what?” faltered the lawyer.
“The four bills which were supposed to be backed by my brother--the
signatures being forgeries. I thought you knew that I had seen them.
They were shown to me at the bank, and fortunately I did not disclaim
them--fortunately for you, I mean. When I went to see them again they