Miss Ferriby's Clients

  Chapter 9

  The moment the man had left the room, Miss Ferriby, who had been stooping over one of the chests thrusting some clothes into it, stood erect, shut down the lid of the chest, and darting across the room to the electric switch in the wall, turned out the lights.

  The change from light to darkness was so sudden and so entirely unexpected, that Welton made a movement and a slight noise. Miss Ferriby did not seem to hear him, for she was already out of the room. But someone in the veranda below heard, and stepping out upon the lawn, was able to discern that there was a figure under the upper window.

  "Who's there?" cried a voice which Welton did not know.

  For a moment, Welton hesitated. The next, he decided rather to run the risk of an encounter in the open, than get into the house where he might be surprised at some corner.

  So he called out in reply boldly, "It's I."

  Scrambling along the veranda roof by the way he had come, he climbed down as he had got up, by way of the pipe and the nailed-up wisteria, and found himself, on reaching the ground, in a grasp which he was sure he recognized as that of the man who had mounted guard over him when he was witnessing, unwillingly, the fortune-telling in the upper room.

  Welton was glad of an opportunity of finding out in whose hands he had been that day, so he submitted without any attempt at escape when the man, who was tall and broadly built and powerful, seized and held him.

  "Well," said Welton, "what do you want with me?"

  "I want to know what you were doing up there on the veranda?" said the man, in a voice which was rather less refined than that of Box, the footman, but which was yet not quite that of an uneducated man.

  "Well, I'll tell Miss Ferriby all she wants to know about that," replied Welton coolly. "Let go of me, please."

  Still he did not struggle, and the man did not let him go. For a moment they stood still, the captor not relaxing his grip, and the captured making no attempt to get away.

  Then Welton said, "Take me to Miss Ferriby. I'll explain everything to her."

  The man appeared to be seized with a sudden access of passion at these words. "Miss Ferriby! Take you to Miss Ferriby?" he cried in a voice of extreme anger, "I dare say you think you can get round her. But you don't get round me, you prying, poking, uppish mischief-maker! You will pay for this, you will, you confounded sneak!"

  Still Welton did not say a word. He wanted his captor to take him round to the light, so that he could get a good look at him, and see whether his face was new. Perhaps the man guessed his object, for he drew his captive towards the darkness round the angle of the wall, snarling between his teeth at him, and muttering threats which, while they did not greatly alarm Welton, told him clearly that he had made himself obnoxious not to one person only, but to a gang.

  The man seemed to resent Welton's behaviour, and as he muttered his threats and oaths, he shook his captive as if trying to stir him up into resentment of a violent kind. But Welton knew that Miss Ferriby would not be long in returning to the drawing room, and he knew also that his best hope lay in her interference.

  Whatever the mutual relation of these people might be, that the woman exercised some kind of headship over them seemed to him plain. If for no other reason, he would have thought so from her manner, her airs of authority. They might all be equals nominally, but he was sure that she was the leading mind.

  Perhaps his captor knew this, for he began to appear anxious to draw the young man farther away, into the thickets of tree and shrub which dotted the garden at a little distance from the house.

  But Welton did not like the look of that mysterious darkness under the trees, and he guessed that on that side there might be another lane leading to the river, down which it might be the good pleasure of his captor to lead him. So he suddenly made a stand, and called in a loud voice, "Miss Ferriby!"

  The suddenness of this move surprised and alarmed his captor, who gasped for breath at his audacity, and would have tried to gag him, but Welton now began to struggle in good earnest, and being quite fresh, as he had not so far attempted to put out his strength, he easily held his ground, and was able to repeat his cry with all the strength of his lungs.

  Then the other man grew frightened, and from bullying began to entreat. "There, there, hold hard! You don't want to have the neighbourhood about our ears, do you?" he asked, in a more conciliatory voice. "You'll see Miss Ferriby right enough, if only you'll be quiet."

  But Welton was not satisfied, and again he would have shouted, if Miss Ferriby herself, once more in her handsome dinner dress and her diamonds, had not at that moment appeared against the light of the drawing room.

  Standing in the open French window, she was bending forward to peer into the darkness, and on seeing the two struggling figures she came quickly out on the lawn, and said in a low, but very distinct voice, "Mr. Keynes, where have you been? What have you been doing?"

  Welton did not immediately answer. At the first word uttered by the lady he had come towards her, and his captor had allowed him to do so, but had come with him. Now they had both reached that part of the lawn where the light came from the drawing room, and Welton's first action was to turn and get a good look at the big man in whose clutches he found himself.

  His assailant was a tall, broad man of between thirty and forty years of age, of massive proportions, with a most repulsive and evil face. Welton was quite sure by this time that this was the man who had kept him quiet during the fortune-telling, and he even recognized the feel of the man's strong, rather rough hands.

  Having satisfied his curiosity, Welton turned to answer the lady. "I'll tell you, Miss Ferriby," he said, "as soon as you get this fellow to let me go."

  "Why don't you let Mr. Keynes go, Cockett?" asked Miss Ferriby, upon whose face Welton now thought he detected a look of some anxiety.

  "I want you first to know, ma'am, what Mr. Keynes has been doing," replied the man now identified as Cockett, in a tone which was not disrespectful, but which was not exactly that of the servant he ostensibly was. "I caught him on the top of the veranda underneath that window." He pointed up to the place where he had found the secretary.

  Miss Ferriby frowned. "And what were you doing there, Mr. Keynes?" she asked coldly.

  "I was doing what you invited me to do on a previous occasion, Miss Ferriby. I was watching you tell fortunes," he replied quietly.

  Cockett laughed mockingly. "Useful man, that, ma'am," he said in a dry tone. "If I might advise you, I should say the sooner you taught him manners the better."

  Now these words were simple enough, but there was a sort of sub tone in his voice which was full of nameless and ugly suggestion.

  Welton turned to him quickly. "I think," he said, "you and the man Box want a few lessons too."

  Miss Ferriby drew a sharp breath.

  "What in?" asked Cockett ferociously.

  "Honesty," retorted Welton loudly.

  Cockett at once dropped his hands and faced Miss Ferriby with a look which said plainly, "See the sort of fellow you've got here!"

  "Leave him to me, Cockett," she said quietly, but with firmness.

  The man hesitated. "I think you'd better have me at hand to help you deal with him," he said meaningfully.

  Miss Ferriby laughed. "It's the first time," she said in a measured voice, "that any doubt has been cast upon my ability to deal with anybody."

  "It's the first time I have doubted your ability, ma'am," retorted Cockett, in a tone which had a concealed threat in it.

  For a few moments there was dead silence, apart from the hard drawn breathing of the three. Then Cockett, standing stolidly and stubbornly in front of Miss Ferriby, glanced behind her into the drawing room, and Welton saw a smile come over his face. In an instant, without another word, he drew back, and Miss Ferriby signed to Welton to follow her into the house.

  But they were not alone. Busy with the arrangement of the magazines and papers, which Welton had turned over carelessly before leaving the dr
awing room, was the footman, Box.

  "You can go, Box," said Miss Ferriby as she came in.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  But though he spoke as respectfully as ever, he did not leave the room. After arranging the magazines, he turned to the piano, and busied himself in picking up the fallen leaves of music and in setting them carefully in their place again. Then he crossed the room and found something to do with the curtains at the end window. And all the while Miss Ferriby, shivering after the cool evening air she had encountered in her low-cut dress, was kneeling on a stool before the fire, plucking as it were, nervously at the folds of a lace scarf which she wore round her shoulders, and affecting to shiver as she held out her bejewelled hands to the blaze.

  Welton, silent, uncomfortable, wondering what was going to happen, stood a little distance from her, not heeding her invitation to be seated.

  There was a long silence. Miss Ferriby still knelt before the fire, without casting so much as a look in the direction either of Welton or of the over-busy footman.

  Welton himself remained very still, watching the two alternately. Box, after arranging the curtains, went in a leisurely manner to the French window by which Miss Ferriby and Welton had entered the room, and shutting it carefully, began the readjustment of the curtains, just as he had done with the others.

  All the time he appeared to be intent upon his work, and never cast so much as a glance either at the lady or the secretary.

  Welton began to think that he had better take his leave and allow explanations to be postponed until the next day, when suddenly Miss Ferriby sprang erect from her footstool, and turning majestically towards the footman, pointed to the door, and said in a voice which, though not very loud, sounded like the roll of distant thunder, "Leave the room."

  The man turned, and on his fair-skinned, handsome face Welton saw a look of rage and defiance which made him hold his breath. Only for a moment. Then he stole a look at Miss Ferriby. And on the large, masculine features he saw an expression which, in its fierce, dogged determination, showed such a reserve of character that he at once decided that it would be with her that the victory would lie.

  There was another short, deathlike silence, and then the footman with a slow, reluctant step, and with a look at Welton which made the young man feel a cold shiver down his back, went out of the room.

  The moment she and Welton were alone, Miss Ferriby hurried across the room and turned the key quickly in the door. Then she locked the second door which led to the staircase to the upper room. And then, disappearing through the curtains which separated the long drawing room from the little one, she locked the door of that room also, and returning, stood panting and excited before the young man.

  "Now," she said. "What does this mean? You have been playing the spy!"

  He stood his ground. "Miss Ferriby," he said, "you invited me to witness your fortune-telling once, and I took the liberty of watching it again. Or rather, I went to see if you had told me the truth when you said you were going to tell your visitor's fortune."

  "What business was it of yours?"

  "I have a right to know in what sort of employ I am."

  Her grey eyes flashed fire. "Do you dare to make insinuations against me and my actions?" she cried fiercely.

  "Oh, no, I insinuate nothing. But I know you were not telling fortunes this evening. You were helping to disguise a thief, so that he might escape from the punishment which ought to be his."

  "Upon my word, you are a very impertinent young fool to presume to talk to me in this strain, and to call my friends and visitors thieves!" exclaimed Miss Ferriby with indignation.

  "Well, I'm sorry if you think so. I think I had a right to know whether you were telling me the truth."

  "What makes you say my friends are thieves?

  "I have already met here two: one the murderer, Henry Ward, and the other, the jewel thief, Fergus Johnston."

  It was plain that Miss Ferriby was startled. "What jewel thief? Johnston? I've never heard of him."

  "But you took ten pounds from him for making up his disguise as a Dissenting minister," retorted Welton, suddenly raising his voice and speaking with passion.

  She was shocked, overwhelmed, not having dreamed that he could find out so much.

  There was a long silence. At last she raised her head, and said in quite a different voice, quiet, tranquil, cynical, "And supposing that were so, what of it? You know nothing about this man, and I do."

  "I know nothing more about him than the police know," replied Welton promptly. "But that's enough for me, and it ought to be enough to prevent decent people from helping him to escape. Miss Ferriby, I am sorry to have to speak like this, for you have been very nice to me. But I don't care to remain in a house where criminals are assisted to escape from justice."

  Miss Ferriby sprang from her seat and pointed at him a warning finger. "Take care," she said, "take care. Not only criminals of the sort you've seen, but absconding bankrupts, come to me for assistance. Mr. Keynes, I have helped to disguise your father."

  Welton uttered a cry of rage, incredulity and dismay. "My father was never an absconding bankrupt," he cried.

  "He was. He is," retorted Miss Ferriby fiercely. "He was not drowned on the Ostend boat, as was supposed. He is alive, in England, in London. And a word from me would put the police on his track tomorrow."