The Riddle of the Night

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "HOW SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH"

  Cleek found his cigar at last, and rose with it in his hand, leavingyoung Barch to finish his story in his own inimitable way.

  "Yes," he continued, "what I call a regular facer for me. I was swindledinto going away by a forged letter, which I swear he wrote himself.Recollect, don't you, that when you came to meet me at the ruin, I toldyou I'd suddenly been called away? Well, so I had. While I was waitingthere at the ruin for you to get shot of that muff Geoff Clavering andcome to join me, up walks the pater and hands me a letter--a typewrittenletter, mark you--with word that a messenger had just brought it. Nowlisten to this closely, Barch! Last January some fool of an editorsuggested to my pater that he should write a series of articles upon theproper cultivation of hot-house fruits for his tomfool paper, and saidthat typewritten copy was absolutely necessary. Out goes the pater andbuys a typewriter, and engages a girl to operate it. Got her from sometypewriting school in town, and a rippin' fine little girl she was, too!Name, Katie Walters. Pretty as a picture and lively as a cricket. Well,Katie and I became jolly good pals. Pater found it out, and then justwhat you might have expected happened. I got a lecture, and Katie gotthe sack and was packed off to town before I could get a private wordwith her. Now, the letter my father handed me this afternoon wassupposed to come from that girl."

  "And didn't?"

  "No, it didn't. It asked me to run up to town and meet her just outsidethe typewriting school when the day's work was over. I went, but Ididn't do exactly as I'd been asked. I suppose the party that wrote ithoped that I'd wait there until dark, and that when she didn't come outI'd come to the conclusion that I'd missed her, and, being in town,would probably go somewhere else and make a night of it, as I mostlikely should have done under ordinary circumstances. But I didn't feellike waiting round for that bally school to close; so as soon as I gotthere, I walked upstairs and asked to see her."

  "Humph! And she wasn't there?"

  "No, she wasn't. And what's more, she hadn't been there for weeks andweeks. Had got a position up in Scotland, and is going to be married toa bank clerk next month."

  "Oho!" said Cleek, "I see! I see!"

  He walked over to the other side of the room, where there was a hugepotted azalea on an ebony pedestal. He had admired and he had examinedthat azalea earlier in the evening, so it was, perhaps, only naturalthat he should be attracted by it now. Still, for once in a way, it wasnot the blossoming beauty of the plant that lured him to it, much asflowers always had and always would appeal to him. He could see thetrend of young Raynor's tale now, the dim, shadowy outline of theargument he was putting forth, the suspicion he was endeavouring tolead; and he was afraid that something in his face or his eyes mightbetray the true state of his feelings if he remained there in the brightlight for the man to study him. The big azalea offered the refuge ofshadow. He walked there and stood in the shade of it, and began idlypoking at the earth in the huge pot.

  "Naturally, dear boy," he went on, "when you heard that you knew thatyou had been taken in."

  "So I did, on the instant," said young Raynor, tackling yet a fourthglass of brandy. "It was as plain as the nose on your face that somebodyhad tried to spoof me; somebody had an interest in sending me off totown on a wild-goose chase and getting me out of this neighbourhoodto-night, and that that somebody hadn't reckoned upon my doing what Idid, and didn't know about my having promised you to take you to seeMignon de Varville, when that blithering letter intervened. And speakingof that-- I say, Barchie, we'll go to-night, if you like--eh, what?"

  "Sorry, dear boy," said Cleek, whose intention was to get out on theCommon to-night and test the truth of Geoff Clavering's story; "sorry,but I'm afraid we'll have to put that off until to-morrow. Thinking youweren't coming back in time, I arranged with the ladies for an eveningof bridge; so, if you don't join us, you'll have to pay your respects to'Pink Gauze' to-night without me. And, by the way, how did you get thatbit of pink gauze, old chap? Any particular significance attached toit?"

  "Lord, no! Bit of gauze scarf she wore the other night--always wearspink, by the way--caught in my watch chain. Tore in gettin' loose, and Ikept the bit as a memento."

  "Ah, I see. Well, get on with the other subject; I'm immenselyinterested. As soon as you'd found out that Katie What's-her-namecouldn't have written the letter, and that you'd been deceived bysomebody, then what?"

  "Why, then I put back home by the first possible train. I had mysuspicions--yes, rather--so I came back to prove them true."

  "And did you?"

  "Ah, didn't I? Nobody knew of my affair with Katie outside of my father,and my father has a typewriter ready to hand, and typewriters don'tbetray anybody's 'fist.' I went to the lodgekeeper. No messenger hadpassed him to-day. I went to Hawkins and Hamer. No messenger had broughtany letter that they knew of to the house. I couldn't ask Johnston,because this is his evening off; but no doubt that when I do ask himhe'll say the same. Well, now, you put all those things together, Barch,and see for yourself what they make. As nobody but my father knewanything about the girl, and nobody gave him a letter, and he has atypewriter ready to hand, why there you are. He wrote the letter, that'swhat. And if he wrote it to get me away and keep me away until late atnight, why he's got a devilish good reason for it; and if he has got areason for doing things at night that he doesn't want other people toknow about and doesn't want his own son to discover, then he's playing adouble game. And last, when a man sets himself up for a howling saint inthe virtue line and yet plays a double game, why he's a rotter and ahypocrite, whether he's my father or not, and I'm not going to standit." He nodded with drunken solemnity. "I'm going to have it out withhim to-night, you'll see. Come with me if you like----"

  "Not I, old man, I've promised to join the ladies, see you later, eh?"said Cleek, and with a look of unseen contempt at the drink-soddenfigure, he turned abruptly and left the youth to continue his potationsat his own sweet will.