The Crime and the Criminal

  CHAPTER XIII.

  AN AFTERNOON CALL.

  "You're sleeping it out. Are you going to lie in bed all day?"

  I opened my eyes. I looked up. Somebody was shaking me--Archie Beaupre.

  "You don't mean to say that you're awake? I admire your hours."

  "Is it late?"

  "I don't know what you call late. It's nearly one. Do you generallysleep to this time?"

  "Made rather a night of it, my boy. It was five when I left theClimax."

  "Oh, you went to the Climax, did you, after you left Jardine's? Win?"

  "A trifle. What brings you here--starting in the early-calling line?"

  Archie seated himself on the bed, murmuring--

  "He calls this early."

  Beaupre is the third son of the Duke of Glenlivet--one of the duke'sfamed thirteen. Not a bad sort--stone broke, like all the rest of us.Archie was born in two different sections--one-half of him makes allfor wickedness, and the other half makes all the other way--and,whichever half of him is to the fore, he's thorough. Jardine and I hadfound him in the drawing-room with Dora when we had finished ourhobnobbing--at which I was not sorry. When a man has had the sort oftalk with the father which I had had, he is not, on the instant, allagog for a _tete-a-tete_ with the child. He wants to straighten thingsout inside his head a bit. We had left the Jardines together, Beaupreand I. He had gone to some twenty-third cousin of his greatgrandmother--the man's relations are as the sands of the sea formultitude, and he keeps in with every one of them--and I had gone on tothe Climax Club. Now, I wondered what he wanted on my bed.

  When Burton had brought me my coffee, and Archie had put himselfoutside a soda, tempered, he began.

  "Don't laugh at me, old chap." Of course, when he told me not to laugh,I was at once upon the grin--it's human nature. But he went on, "I am amiserable wretch, I swear I am."

  "Who says you aren't?"

  "What a muck I've made of things!"

  "Who denies it? Give me the rascal's name?"

  "And I might have been a respectable chap once, if I had liked."

  "My dear Archie! When?"

  He was too woebegone to heed my chaff. He went and leaned his elbow onmy mantelshelf, and his head upon his hand.

  "Reggie, I've been thinking that you and I ought to cut the Jardines."

  "The deuce, you have!"

  "For their sake. It is not fair to them that we should let them run therisk of being contaminated by even a remote connection with the shadowwhich, I suppose sooner or later, is sure to fall on us. It will comespecially hard on me--because I don't mind telling you, betweenourselves, that Miss Jardine's society to me means much." I stared;things were coming out. "But the knowledge that this is so has come toolate. Unless the whole business of the club--I won't give it a name,but you know the club which meets once a month in Horseferry Road--is aghastly joke."

  "That is what it is."

  "What?"

  "A ghastly joke."

  Beaupre looked up at me. I don't know what he saw in my face, but afunny look came on his own--a look almost of fear.

  "Sometimes, Townsend, I don't know if you're a man or a devil."

  "The devil was a sublimated sort of man, and I expect he still is. Thiscoffee is just a trifle too sweet."

  It was my second cup. I was sitting up in bed and stirring it.

  "Of course, you have done nothing."

  He said "Of course"; but I saw he was uneasy.

  "Of course, I have."

  "Townsend!"

  The man gave quite a jump. He brought the back of his head with a bumpagainst the wall, without seeming to notice it.

  "I hope, as I said, on Thursday to have the pleasure of returning theHonour of the Club with its scarlet a more vivid hue."

  He was glaring at me as if I had been some sort of hideous wild animal.

  "You don't mean that you have killed some one?"

  "Certainly. What else should I mean? Though I don't perceive that thereis any necessity for you to announce it from the tiles."

  He staggered to a chair, plumping down in it with the stiffening allgone out of him.

  I laughed.

  "My dear Archie, you had better have another drink. You don't seemquite the thing."

  He looked me straight in the face, I giving him look for look. When hehad sustained my glance for a moment or two he shut his eyes andshivered. I saw a shudder go all over him. I drank my coffee.

  "You're sure that you're not joking?"

  "Some men joke most when they are most in earnest. Perhaps I am one ofthem."

  "Who was it?"

  "A little girl I knew."

  "A girl? My gracious! When was it?"

  "Sunday evening."

  He turned to me with a sort of gasp.

  "Was it near Three Bridges Station?"

  "Within half a mile."

  "My God! It's in the paper! Townsend, what have you done?"

  "It is in the paper, is it? May I ask what is in the paper?"

  "They've found the body." He sprang from the chair.

  "Reggie, I wish that I had died before you did this thing, and beforeever I heard of that accursed club."

  "That is rather good, from you--the club having been a suggestion ofyour own."

  "I had been on the drink, hadn't I? I was mad. I swear, before theliving God, that I never dreamed that you fellows would take the thingup in bitter earnest."

  "My dear Archie, respect the proprieties, if you respect nothingelse--not quite that sort of language, if you please." He stared at meand laughed--a queer laugh it was. "You remember the rule which directswhat course the members shall pursue towards a colleague who, for anycause, turns tail and rats. That also, I believe, was a suggestion ofyour own."

  "Are you afraid that I shall turn tail and rat? You need have no fear.That I shall never do, especially now. If we are to go to the devil,we'll all travel the same road. But there is one thing on which I doinsist. I insist on your ceasing your connection with the Jardines."

  "You insist?"

  "I beseech you, then."

  "I don't wish to say anything which may sound at all unkind, but don'tyou think, my dear Archie, that you are taking rather a liberty inintruding yourself into my affairs? The accident of our both beingmembers of the same club gives you no warrant for anything of the kind.It certainly gives you none which I am likely to recognise even in thefaintest degree."

  He began to pace about the bedroom like a caged wild cat. Presently hemade an announcement:

  "It strikes me that I had better go home."

  "I trust that you will allow nothing which I have said to deprive me ofthe pleasure of your society, but perhaps it might do you good if youwere to toddle home and take a pill."

  "Good-day!" he shouted.

  Snatching up his hat and stick from the couch, he banged out of theroom without another word.

  I don't mind owning--since, in these pages, at any rate, candour is theorder of the day--that when Beaupre had gone I did not feel altogetherup to concert pitch. Things were going contrary. The club did bid fairto be a bit of a failure. Although the suggestion, as I had said, hadbeen Archie's, it was Pendarvon who had put it into shape.

  I don't quite know how Archie first came to think of the thing. Some ofus had been playing poker in his rooms. Pendarvon had been losing. Hebegan to tell us about a story which he had been reading in which therewas a suicide club. He said that he had half a mind to start such aclub himself. Archie at once suggested that he should go one better;instead of a suicide, let him make it a murder club. Let the membersdraw lots, and whoever drew the lot, instead of suicide let him go infor murder--for the Honour of the Club. Pendarvon took up the idea in away which startled us. We had all been drinking; there and then drawingup a sort of rough outline of the club, he got us all to promise tojoin. There were to be thirteen members; the club was to meet once amonth; lots were to be drawn; whoever drew the lot was
to kill someone,not a member of the club, within the month. On this basis Pendarvon hadactually got the thing into shape. We had had one meeting. The lot hadfallen to me.

  I can safely say that if I had had the slightest inkling that oldJardine was going to say what he had said I should have givenPendarvon's pretty little plaything the widest of wide berths. I mighteasily have succeeded in keeping Louise quiet by the use of some lessdrastic means; at any rate, until I was sure of Dora. On Sunday I hadcared for nothing. The very next day I had something for which to care.A golden future dangled before my eyes.

  It was like the irony of fate.

  Still the game might not be lost. I yet had time. I might, at any rate,make my hay and enjoy it while the sun was shining. To-morrow--whoseto-morrow it was, or what weather it might bring, no man could tell. Iwould live out to-day.

  I looked at the newspaper. It was as Archie had said; how funny that heshould be touched by Dora! They had found the body--but that wasnothing, if that was all--and it was all. I had not supposed for amoment that the body could stay hidden. It had all happened just as Iexpected. A platelayer, walking along the line, had seen somethinglying among the bushes--Louise. There was some sensational rubbish tocatch the pennies of the mob, but the whole thing merely amounted tothis, that Louise was found.

  Queer stick, old Jardine! Fancy his having taken to me, after all! Hewas a keen judge of character; I have seldom met a keener, and, as hesaid, there was that in me which differentiates strength from weakness.I had known, I had felt it, all along. I have, to begin with, thecourage of the devil. Give me something of a chance, and my foot in thebottom niche, it should not be my fault if I did not reach the top ofthe pillar of fame.

  The mischief was, my affairs were in a muddle. It was not money somuch; I could manage for that, and, if things went as they ought to go,not impossibly Jardine would stand by me there. I had a shrewdsuspicion, from the remarks which he had dropped, that he knew as muchabout my pecuniary position as he cared to know. It was other things,and one of those things was Lily Langdale. It is extraordinary how Ialways have managed to get myself mixed up with women. The teachings ofmy experience I should sum up in something like a bull--the best thingthat can happen to a man is for him to be born sexless.

  While I was dressing Burton imparted a piece of information whichbrought me to a rapid resolution.

  "Mrs. Langdale was here after you went out, sir. Made rather a noise.Talked about stopping for your return."

  "Did she?" That settled it.

  I went straight off to Miss Lily. I was plain with her. She did notlike it--she was equally plain with me. What home truths one does getfrom women! A woman in a temper is ten thousand times more candid thana man. But she had sense enough to understand that she could scarcelyexpect to score, on those lines, off me. I explained that what would bedone for her depended upon how she behaved herself, but I did notexplain that it depended much more upon Sir Haselton Jardine.

  Lily's place was in the Hammersmith Road. As I was leaving it,something like calm having followed the storm--never, if you can helpit, leave a woman in a rage, it is cruel--whom should I encounter butMrs. Daniel J. Carruth, my acquaintance of the train. Very nice shelooked, with a natty little toque on her clever head, and a fluffy furthing round her throat. I have seen many uglier women ten yearsyounger--yes, and as far as appearances went, further gone in the sereand yellow.

  She came sailing up when she saw me.

  "I hope, Mr. Townsend, that you are coming to give me a call, and thatI am just getting home in time."

  I was not going to give her a call. I had forgotten that the addressshe had given me was at West Kensington. Her very existence had escapedmy memory. But when she asked me, why, I went.

  A decent house she seemed to have, in a street at the back of St.Paul's School. An old fellow was in the drawing-room when we got in. Isay old, though I daresay he was not more than fifty. He reminded me,somehow, of some one I had seen somewhere before, and known intimately,as it seemed to me, but I could not for the life of me think whom. Hewas tall and thin, and stooped, though he looked as tough as leatherand sinewy and strong. He was bald on the top of his head. What hair hehad, and the fringe of whisker on his chin, was grey. He wore anundertaker's frock-coat, and in his open shirt-front was a diamond asbig as a pea.

  Mrs. Carruth introduced us.

  "Mr. Townsend, this is an old friend of mine, Mr Haines."

  The old chap did not stay long. I fancy he did not altogether relish myintrusion, or what he took to be such. When he had gone I told Mrs.Carruth that he seemed to remind me of some one I had known.

  "Is that so? One does sometimes fancy that one sees a resemblance. Ithink that in your case it is only fancy. Mr. Haines is an American, aWesterner. He has only recently arrived in England. He was my husband'sfriend for many years."

  I found Mrs. Carruth very pleasant. Friendly--but not too friendly. Sheseemed to do everything in fairly good style. The room in which we satwas not only prettily furnished, it was distinctly that sort ofprettiness which costs money--it had no connection with the "How tofurnish a twelve-roomed house tastefully for L200" kind of thing. Teawas served with the accompaniments of silver and Wedgewood china, by amaid who knew her work. Altogether Mrs. Carruth and her way of doingthings favourably impressed me.

  She alluded to the queerness of our meeting.

  "I hope, Mr. Townsend, that you will not allow the informal fashion ofour introduction to each other to prejudice me in your eyes."

  "Quite the other way. Chance acquaintances are sometimes thepleasantest one makes."

  "You speak from the man's point of view. From the woman's, I think thatyou are wrong. I have had my share of moving about in the world. I havefound that, generally speaking, chance acquaintances are things to beavoided."

  "It is I, then, who must warn you that both prejudgment and prejudicebegin with a 'P.'"

  "I promise, for my part, that I won't judge you until I know youbetter. Only you must give me a chance. Were you really coming to seeme when we met?"

  "No, I wasn't. Frankly, I was not at all sure that you would care tosee me. I know, as you have said, that my view of chance acquaintancesis a man's; and how was I to know that your words as you rattled off inyour hansom were not merely intended as a courteous dismissal?"

  She put down her cup and saucer, seeming quite distressed.

  "Oh, I hope you won't think that of me! I assure you, Mr. Townsend,that if I had wished to dismiss you I should have done so. I hope youwon't mind my saying--since you have yourself said so much--that as Ileft you my feeling was that, for once in a way, I had made a chanceacquaintance which it might be worth one's while to cultivate. And, asI told you, I was practically alone in this big town, and when one isalone one does want friends, and--I think that that's all."

  That might be all, but I understood. When I left I felt that I likedMrs. Carruth even better than I had done at first. She interested me ina really curious way.