CHAPTER VIII
AT DREEVER
In the days before he began to expend his surplus energy in playingRugby football, the Welshman was accustomed, whenever the monotonyof his everyday life began to oppress him, to collect a few friendsand make raids across the border into England, to the hugediscomfort of the dwellers on the other side. It was to cope withthis habit that Dreever Castle, in the county of Shropshire, cameinto existence. It met a long-felt want. In time of trouble, itbecame a haven of refuge. From all sides, people poured into it,emerging cautiously when the marauders had disappeared. In the wholehistory of the castle, there is but one instance recorded of abandit attempting to take the place by storm, and the attack was anemphatic failure. On receipt of a ladleful of molten lead, aimed toa nicety by one John, the Chaplain (evidently one of those sportingparsons), this warrior retired, done to a turn, to his mountainfastnesses, and was never heard of again. He would seem, however, tohave passed the word around among his friends, for subsequentraiding parties studiously avoided the castle, and a peasant who hadsucceeded in crossing its threshold was for the future considered tobe "home" and out of the game.
Such was the Dreever of old. In later days, the Welshman havingcalmed down considerably, it had lost its militant character. Theold walls still stood, gray, menacing and unchanged, but they werethe only link with the past. The castle was now a very comfortablecountry-house, nominally ruled over by Hildebrand Spencer Poynt deBurgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever("Spennie" to his relatives and intimates), a light-haired younggentleman of twenty-four, but in reality the possession of his uncleand aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Julia Blunt.
Lord Dreever's position was one of some embarrassment. At no pointin their history had the Dreevers been what one might call aparsimonious family. If a chance presented itself of losing money ina particularly wild and futile manner, the Dreever of the period hadinvariably sprung at it with the vim of an energetic blood-hound.The South Sea Bubble absorbed two hundred thousand pounds of goodDreever money, and the remainder of the family fortune wassquandered to the ultimate penny by the sportive gentleman who heldthe title in the days of the Regency, when Watier's and the CocoaTree were in their prime, and fortunes had a habit of disappearingin a single evening. When Spennie became Earl of Dreever, there wasabout one dollar and thirty cents in the family coffers.
This is the point at which Sir Thomas Blunt breaks into Dreeverhistory. Sir Thomas was a small, pink, fussy, obstinate man with agenius for trade and the ambition of an Alexander the Great;probably one of the finest and most complete specimens of thecame-over-Waterloo-Bridge-with-half-a crown-in-my-pocket-and-now-look-at-meclass of millionaires in existence. He had started almostliterally with nothing. By carefully excluding from his mind everythought except that of making money, he had risen in the world witha gruesome persistence which nothing could check. At the age offifty-one, he was chairman of Blunt's Stores, L't'd, a member ofParliament (silent as a wax figure, but a great comfort to the partyby virtue of liberal contributions to its funds), and a knight. Thiswas good, but he aimed still higher; and, meeting Spennie's aunt,Lady Julia Coombe-Crombie, just at the moment when, financially, theDreevers were at their lowest ebb, he had effected a verysatisfactory deal by marrying her, thereby becoming, as one mightsay, Chairman of Dreever, L't'd. Until Spennie should marry money,an act on which his chairman vehemently insisted, Sir Thomas heldthe purse, and except in minor matters ordered by his wife, of whomhe stood in uneasy awe, had things entirely his own way.
One afternoon, a little over a year after the events recorded in thepreceding chapter, Sir Thomas was in his private room, looking outof the window, from which the view was very beautiful. The castlestood on a hill, the lower portion of which, between the house andthe lake, had been cut into broad terraces. The lake itself and itsisland with the little boat-house in the center gave a glimpse offairyland.
But it was not altogether the beauty of the view that had drawn SirThomas to the window. He was looking at it chiefly because theposition enabled him to avoid his wife's eye; and just at the momenthe was rather anxious to avoid his wife's eye. A somewhat stormyboard-meeting was in progress, and Lady Julia, who constituted theboard of directors, had been heckling the chairman. The point underdiscussion was one of etiquette, and in matters of etiquette SirThomas felt himself at a disadvantage.
"I tell you, my dear," he said to the window, "I am not easy in mymind."
"Nonsense," snapped Lady Julia; "absurd--ridiculous!"
Lady Julia Blunt, when conversing, resembled a Maxim gun more thananything else.
"But your diamonds, my dear."
"We can take care of them."
"But why should we have the trouble? Now, if we--"
"It's no trouble."
"When we were married, there was a detective--"
"Don't be childish, Thomas. Detectives at weddings are quitecustomary."
"But--"
"Bah!"
"I paid twenty thousand pounds for that rope of diamonds," said SirThomas, obstinately. Switch things upon a cash basis, and he wasmore at ease.
"May I ask if you suspect any of our guests of being criminals?"inquired Lady Julia, with a glance of chill disdain.
Sir Thomas looked out of the window. At the moment, the sternestcensor could have found nothing to cavil at in the movements of suchof the house-party as were in sight. Some were playing tennis, someclock-golf, and others were smoking.
"Why, no," he admitted.
"Of course. Absurd--quite absurd!"
"But the servants. We have engaged a number of new servants lately."
"With excellent recommendations."
Sir Thomas was on the point of suggesting that the recommendationsmight be forged, but his courage failed him. Julia was sometimes soabrupt in these little discussions! She did not enter into his pointof view. He was always a trifle inclined to treat the castle as abranch of Blunt's Stores. As proprietor of the stores, he had made apoint of suspecting everybody, and the results had been excellent.In Blunt's Stores, you could hardly move in any direction withoutbumping into a gentlemanly detective, efficiently disguised. For thelife of him, Sir Thomas could not see why the same principle shouldnot obtain at Dreever. Guests at a country house do not as a rulesteal their host's possessions, but then it is only an occasionalcustomer at a store who goes in for shop-lifting. It was theprinciple of the thing, he thought: Be prepared against everyemergency. With Sir Thomas Blunt, suspiciousness was almost a mania.He was forced to admit that the chances were against any of hisguests exhibiting larcenous tendencies, but, as for the servants, hethoroughly mistrusted them all, except Saunders, the butler. It hadseemed to him the merest prudence that a detective from a privateinquiry agency should be installed at the castle while the house wasfull. Somewhat rashly, he had mentioned this to his wife, and LadyJulia's critique of the scheme had been terse and unflattering.
"I suppose," said Lady Julia sarcastically, "you will jump to theconclusion that this man whom Spennie is bringing down with himto-day is a criminal of some sort?"
"Eh? Is Spennie bringing a friend?"
There was not a great deal of enthusiasm in Sir Thomas's voice. Hisnephew was not a young man whom he respected very highly. Spennieregarded his uncle with nervous apprehension, as one who would dealwith his short-comings with vigor and severity. Sir Thomas, for hispart, looked on Spennie as a youth who would get into mischiefunless under his uncle's eye.
"I had a telegram from him just now," Lady Julia explained.
"Who is his friend?"
"He doesn't say. He just says he's a man he met in London."
"H'm!"
"And what does, 'H'm!' mean?" demanded Lady Julia.
"A man can pick up strange people in London," said Sir Thomas,judicially.
"Nonsense!"
"Just as you say, my dear."
Lady Julia rose.
"As for what you suggest about the detective, it is of courseabsolutely absurd."
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"Quite so, my dear."
"You mustn't think of it."
"Just as you say, my dear."
Lady Julia left the room.
What followed may afford some slight clue to the secret of SirThomas Blunt's rise in the world. It certainly suggests singlenessof purpose, which is one of the essentials of success.
No sooner had the door closed behind Lady Julia than he went to hiswriting-table, took pen and paper, and wrote the following letter:
To the Manager, Wragge's Detective Agency. Holborn Bars, London E.C.
SIR: With reference to my last of the 28th, ult., I should be gladif you would send down immediately one of your best men. Am makingarrangements to receive him. Kindly instruct him to present himselfat Dreever Castle as applicant for position of valet to myself. Iwill see and engage him on his arrival, and further instruct him inhis duties.
Yours faithfully,
THOS. BLUNT.
P. S. I shall expect him to-morrow evening. There is a good trainleaving Paddington at 2:15.
Sir Thomas read this over, put in a comma, then placed it in anenvelope, and lighted a cigar with the air of one who can bechecked, yes, but vanquished, never.