The haunted house
“Why, with your advice, Lord Hellup.”
His face admitted his relief.
“You can tell me more justly, and I would trust you more completely—as
I have said—than any living man. Tell me honestly, what ought I to
ask?”
“If I were making the offer, Mrs. Maple,” said her friend, word by word
and carefully, “I say _if_ I were, or if I were buying for a friend,
say....” Then he broke off. “Or, see here, put it this way. If I were
asked what it would fetch at an auction in a free market——” He paused
and took up another line, and began again almost affectionately, “Or,
see here, if I were trying to get the best price for you....”
Hilda Maple became impatient.
“Lord Hellup, it would be much the same figure in any case, wouldn’t
it?”
“Why, no,” he said thoughtfully. “You see, if I were buying that would
be one thing, and if I were selling for you, that would be another
thing. Then if I were bidding at an auction....”
Hilda Maple thought, not unwisely, that this might go on for ever.
During all their growing intimacy she had more and more regarded Lord
Hellup as a man of few terse phrases. It seemed there was another side
to him—and this would never do.
“Lord Hellup,” she said simply and swiftly to bring things to a crisis.
“Tell me plainly. Do you think that if I ask fifty thousand guineas I
am asking too much?”
“Why, no,” replied the First Baron Hellup, composedly, and weighing his
words. “Strictly speaking, you cairn’t ask too much. Same way, they
cairn’t offer too little.”
“I’ve been offered more in the past,” said the lady decisively.
“Well, if you didn’t take it,” he sympathetically answered, “that means
it’s worth more to _you_ than fifty thousand pounds, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said, “it is. To me, Rackham Catchings is worth untold gold.”
“Why, then,” said Lord Hellup—and she thought he might have said it
earlier, “fifty thousand pounds doesn’t sound too much, does it?”
“Guineas,” said Hilda Maple.
“Yes, guineas,” he replied, “it’s all the same to me. If it’s the way
you say it is, then fifty thousand pounds—guineas, I mean—can’t be too
much, can it?”
Hilda Maple had come to her conclusion. He was cryptic; he was evasive;
but she had heard that the great American masters of finance were
always so in the first stages of a bargain. But there could be no doubt
about it: fifty thousand guineas had seemed reasonable to this rich man.
In the silence that followed her mind worked rapidly. He had been
shrewd, and she honoured him for being shrewd. He had been cautious;
but she had no doubt now that he was a buyer, and that she had heard
an authority who would at any rate back her up in her figure of fifty
thousand guineas. He had talked of auctions and of acting for her;
he had said that guineas and pounds were the same to him; she was
content. She felt perhaps a little vaguely that another arrow also had
pierced his heart. Well, there was no harm in that.
But he hadn’t come forward as buyer with any enthusiasm. The purchase
money for Rackham must be sought from Lord Mere. But she could in a
last resort quote Lord Hellup as having offered. It was stretching a
point, but she could risk it. And when old Bruvvish had settled—as he
would settle—the purchase money would be something of a dowry to bring
even to a man as rich as Hellup was. And anyhow, the market was alive;
she had both a bidder and a valuer now.
She thanked Lord Hellup warmly and sincerely and took his hand and
shook it, to impress him with her sincerity. He said with warmth how
pleased he had been to be of any service; but not ten minutes later,
when Mrs. Maple had left the room and Bo had come in to see her father,
he confided to that admirable daughter that Englishwomen were hard to
understand.
“Do you understand them, Bo?” he said.
“More’n they do me,” said Bo, very truthfully.
“Now, that woman, Bo—well ... I won’t say all I was going to say; but
she’s an admirable woman, and she comes here and asks me what she ought
to ask for Rackham.”
“Did you tell her, Pop?” said Bo anxiously.
“Why,” said her father, in his most genial voice, “I let her talk. I
wouldn’t disappoint her. Whatever she wants to sell the place at she’s
welcome, for what I care. But she’s an admirable woman, Bo. But these
Englishwomen are subtle and difficult to understand.”
“Now see here, Bo,” said the English peer in carefully modulated slow
accents, “you women understand what we men sometimes can’t. Least, I
can’t. What’s she getting at? What’s it all about?” He paused, and then
added in a tone of despair.
“These Englishwomen are incomprehensible.”
Bo popped her cigarette out of her mouth between her fingers and spoke
short words, “She’s getting at you to buy, Pop!”
“To buy? What?” said the startled Baron.
“Why, Rackham Catchings. This.” And with the words the lovely girl
struck her right heel sharply against the floor. “All around....” she
made a circle with her finger in the air. “Roof and all. Counting the
little gadgets.”
“I don’t want it, Bo,” her father said, sitting up and speaking very
earnestly.
“She wants you to want it,” answered his daughter.
“What should I do with it?” asked her father in his bewilderment.
“Don’t you touch it, Pop,” said his daughter decisively. “Leave it on
the hook.... Now if you want to know who _will_ buy Rackham....”
But her father was musing, and interrupted her.
“I did some figuring,” he said, “just to pass the time—as I do. And I
make out this place and all the fixings, as it stands, counting the
visitors’ book, would stand me in for more’n two hundred thousand and
less than a quarter of a million dollars.”
Bo agreed.
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “Yes, I do, though” (for a thought
had struck her), “I’ve heard what the death duty was—when Henry Maple
died, before she’d built on. They paid duty on £20,000. That’s not a
quarter of a million; that’s only a hundred thousand.”
“These Britisher Death Duties are appraised damn low,” mused his
lordship. “And there’s been plenty of fixings in the place since then.”
“You’ll find that she won’t take less than £50,000,” said Bo decisively.
“Well, she won’t get them from me,” said the devout parent, business
side uppermost for the moment.
Bo nodded her strong little chin at him.
“That’s right, Pop. Don’t you touch it.”
“You said you knew who was buying,” said her father. He was full of
curiosity now that he was on the scent of a deal.
“Yep,” answered Bo. “It’ll make you jump. And buying gulfs under fifty
too. Oh, some boy!”
Her father had an incredulous look.
“Which?” said he.
She took time to deliver her shot, luxuriously inhaling the smoke of
her cigarette; and then told him.
“Jacko!” she said.
“Whattt!” cried the millionaire, almost jumping out of his chair.
“That’s so,” answered Bo, delighted with the effect. “Jacko. Oh, that
lad’s all planed down, tongued and grooved.” She shook her head. “No
rough lumber.”
Lord Hellup, as befitted a man who had just been shot, hesitated. He
had too much pride to accept orders off hand, and too much snap as
well. But he hesitated.
“See here, Bo,” he began slowly, after a long pause, “I’m not saying
a word against Jacko, mind you. That’s your end. I never did believe
in worrying young people, but if he can buy real estate like that,
why....” There was a tone of admiration creeping into his voice which
delighted his daughter’s ear.
“He’ll buy—settle, and clinch; leave that to him,” she said. “He’s a
little Napoleon, is Jacko.”
“Still, Bo, one doesn’t gaff Rackham Catchings at £20,000.”
“_He_ will,” nodded Bo emphatically. “You’ll see. You call _that_
making good?”
“Seems so,” said her father, with his eyes on the ceiling. “But I
can’t join the slats. Where’s it coming from?” He looked a little
suspiciously at his daughter. But her sincerity was not to be mistaken.
“You’re wrong there, Pop,” she said. “Won’t come from me or anywhere I
know of. Only I say: watch Jacko. He’ll have this place, and he’ll have
it for a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Some boy,” murmured Lord Hellup in his turn.
CHAPTER XII
The evening was far advanced. It had long been time for the ladies to
go and dress, especially in such a house as Hilda Maple’s, where things
were well organised, prompt and punctual. But to-day was an exceptional
day.
It was time for Bo to dress—if dress it can still be called—anyhow, to
wallow in warm water with Smell-Good Crystals added. But business came
before pleasure with Bo.
She sought John, and led him to where she had ready, prepared and
folded in a nice little parcel, her nice little cloak. She took it out
again and put it over his head, and adjusted the ruff on the top, and
patted the sword-hilt sewn into the slit at the side, and patted the
sheath behind. Then she crowned the headless figure with the ruff.
“You look dandy, Jacko,” she said. “I could kiss you if there was
anything to kiss.”
“I can’t see anything,” came a muffled voice from within.
“There’s an eyelet hole just about opposite your eyes, I guess. Feel
for it with your finger.”
John obeyed, found it, and so widened it; an iris and pupil, grey and
young, looked forth.
“Scares me, that does,” said Bo, drawing back. “But he’ll never see
it. You’ll find your way about. Trouble’s about your shoulders—all
slopes down, Jacko—makes you look like an elephant.”
“A small elephant,” said he.
“Yes, but broad,” answered the modest child, with a world of affection
in her voice. Then she mused, “Couldn’t we prop up them shoulders,
Jacko?”
“Might stuff ’em,” said he. “They usually have old copies of _The
Times_ stacked in the box room for packing. _The Times_ makes good
stuffing.”
The young people went off for the paper, and Bo pinned the crushed
rolls in. She put the cloak over his head again, and poised the ruff.
“That’s more like,” she said. “You’re my tall, upstanding, spectral
cavalier. You’d be a head taller with a head, Jacko.”
They debated where to lay the properties, and decided for the lad’s own
room. It was the next but one to his victim’s.
“And how’ll you get there, Dog-Man?” she asked.
“I’ll manage to slip in,” he said. “I can squeeze the cloak over my
head between the head of the bed and the wall. And I’ll be waiting in
the little room which opens out of his bedroom, and which they never
use. They always keep the door locked. And they’ve only got trunks in
there. But Corton gave me the key.”
“Find your own time, Jacko,” she said; and then, snatching a glance at
the impossible watch, she saw that she had barely time. But she guessed
that the other women would be late that night. And she was right.
It had long been time for Aunt Hilda to dress; but with her also
business came before pleasure; and after she had returned baffled from
the great attack upon the Hellup trenches she knew that something
desperate must be done, dinner or no dinner. Old Bruvvish would still
be in the library—he always went up late. She must get back there at
once, and nail him down, or confess herself defeated.
Ah! And it had been time longer since for Amathea to dress. For Amathea
had many things to think of in the affair of dressing, including the
choice of hair. But with Amathea also business came before pleasure.
She had seen from the end of the passage darling Hilda come out from
the library, which she herself had been just about to enter, to
convince her husband of the necessity of purchase. She had seen that
hostess make straight for the room where she knew Lord Hellup was
reading his Motley. She divined that the coast was clear; for the
attack on Hellup (which she knew very well was about to take place)
would not be over in ten minutes or in fifteen. Therefore it was