Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 10

Major Marsden frowned. "You might have chosen some one else's, surely.

He ruined her father."

"Not at all; he lent him money. Some one had to do it."

"Well, it's a grim world, and her drive can't be more so than the last she had." The remembrance evidently absorbed him, for he sat silent.

"You're looking used up, Marsden," said the other kindly. "Anything the matter?"

"Yes."

"Well, if it has to do with the Commissariat business I don't wonder.

The Colonel's private affairs are simply chaos." He pointed to the piles of papers on and below the table with a contemptuous smile.

Major Marsden shook his head. "The public ones are in fairly good order. I'm surprised at the method; but of course he had good clerks; and then the system of checks--"

"Make it possible to be inaccurate with the utmost accuracy. What's wrong?"

Philip Marsden moved uneasily in his chair and gave an impatient sigh.

"I suppose I've got to tell you, because you're the man's executor; but I don't want to."

"Never do anything you don't want, my dear fellow; it's a mistake. You don't know what will please other people, and you generally have a rough guess at your own desires."

"I don't suppose this will please you, the fact is there is a deficit of four thousand five hundred rupees in the private safe of which Colonel Stuart kept the key."

"Is that all?"

"All! Surely it is enough?"

"Quite enough; but I'm not exactly surprised."

"Then I am," returned the Major emphatically. "In fact I don't believe there really is any deficit at all. Do you think Shunker Das is the sort of man to make a false claim?"

"Not unless he has fallen upon fair proofs," said the other coolly.

"What claim does he make?"

"He says he paid in three thousand five hundred the very day of Colonel Stuart's death and produces a receipt. Another thousand was paid in by some one else the day before. It seems odd that this should just make up the deficiency."

"But you have no proof that these are actually the notes missing?"

"Curiously enough I have. Contrary to what one would have expected, Colonel Stuart made a practice of writing the numbers of notes received in a private ledger, and none of the four entered as having been given by Shunker are to be found. Now, as you were Stuart's friend, and are his executor, do you know of any large payment made to any one within two days of his death? It limits itself, you see, to that time."

"Nothing to account for three thousand five hundred," returned John Raby a little hastily. "Let's stick to Shunker's claim first; it may be false. You say he holds a receipt?"

"Yes, and gives the numbers of the notes also."

"Right?"

"All but one. The book gives a 3 where he gives a 5; but natives often confuse figures."

John Raby nodded, and leant back in his chair thinking. "I believe the notes were paid," he said at last, "and if they are not to be found, the inference, I'm afraid, is clear. The Colonel _borrowed_ them."

"I don't believe it," returned the Major slowly. He had been drawing diagrams idly on a piece of paper and now threw aside the pen with decision. "I don't believe it," he repeated, "and I'll tell you why; I'd rather not tell you, as I said before, but as you're his executor I must. When I found him dead that morning there was a paper,--it wasn't a mistake, you understand"--his hearer nodded again--"and in it he had set down the reasons, or want of reasons, clearly enough. I haven't got the paper; I burnt it. I suppose I ought to have kept it, but it seemed a pity at the time. Anyhow the total he had,--borrowed--was close on ten thousand."

"Ten! you said there was only--"

"Just so; you see, as luck would have it, I had money with me at the time. So I replaced it."

"Ten thousand?"

"No; to be strictly accurate nine thousand seven hundred and fifty.

Well,--you needn't stare so, Raby! Why the devil shouldn't I if I chose?"

John Raby gave a low whistle. "You must be awfully fond of Belle," he said after a pause.

Philip flushed a deep angry red. Ever since the possible necessity for giving his action to the world had dawned upon him he had known what comment would be made; but the knowledge did not lessen its sting.

"Don't you think we had better keep Miss Stuart's name out of the conversation? I merely tell you this to show that I have good reasons for supposing that there is some chicanery, or confusion--"

"I beg your pardon! exactly so," a.s.sented John Raby with a smile. "I am as anxious as you can be to keep her out of it; and so, as executor, I'll undertake to refund the deficiency at once. There may be some mistake, but it is best to have no inquiry."

"I hardly see how that is to be prevented, for of course I had to report the matter."

John Raby literally bounded from his chair in unrestrained vexation.

"Reported it! my dear Marsden, what the devil!--Oh, I beg your pardon, but really, to begin with, you cut your own throat."

"What else could I do?" asked the other quietly. "You forget I am in charge of the office."

"Do?" returned his hearer, pausing in his rapid pacing of the room.

"Ah, I don't suppose _you_ could do anything else; but I'm not so high-flown myself, and I can't see the good of chucking ten thousand rupees into the gutter for the sake of a sentiment, and then chucking the sentiment after it. For the girl adored her father, and I warn you--"

"If we can't keep off that subject I'll go," interrupted Philip rising. "I thought you might know something. Colonel Stuart dined with you that last evening, if you remember."

The civilian needed no reminder; indeed for the last ten minutes he had been distractingly conscious of a note for a thousand rupees lying in his despatch-box which might throw-some light on the mysterious disappearances. "Yes," he replied, "he did, and,--I see what you are thinking of, Marsden--he played _ecarte_ too; but to tell the truth, he was so fuddled and excited that I refused to go on, and sent him home. See what comes of benevolence. If I had let him play and rooked him, he wouldn't have had the opportunity of brooding over difficulties and putting an end to them. Again, you see there's nothing so unsafe as unselfishness."

Philip, remembering the notice of transfer he had found open by the dead man's side, wondered if matters might not have turned out differently had it been viewed by the calm light of day.

"Well, it can't be helped now," continued the speaker. "I don't approve of what has been done, but I'll do my best,--in fact I'm bound as executor--to clear the matter up. Though I'm sure I don't know where the inquiry may not lead me. It's an infernal nuisance, nothing less! Well, hand me over the papers and--I suppose you've no objection to my searching the office?"

"None; the Colonel's room is as he left it. I was afraid of noise so near the house." The speaker frowned at his own words, annoyed to find how thought for Belle crept into all his actions.

"So far, good. And look here, Marsden, if you value that girl's opinion go and tell her the downright truth. She will be able to see you this afternoon."

A piece of sound advice meant kindly, which had the not unusual effect of making the recipient hesitate about a course of action on which he had almost decided. In after years, when he considered the tangled clew Fate held at this time for his unwinding, he never hesitated to say, "Here I went wrong;" but at the time it seemed of small importance whether he saw the girl that day or the next. And once more the a.s.sumption of authority on John Raby's part irritated him into contradiction. "It will be a pity to disturb Miss Stuart's first day,"

he replied stiffly, and rode away.

The young civilian shrugged his shoulders. Philip Marsden wasn't a bad fellow on the whole, but a prig of the first water. Imagine any one gifted with a grain of common sense acting as he had done! Why, if he wanted the girl's good graces, had he not paid up the rest of the money and finished the whole affair? It was a long price to pay, of course, but it was better than giving ten thousand for nothing. Only a morbid self-esteem could have prevented him. Really, the sense of duty to be found in some people was almost enough to engender a belief in original sin. The mere struggle for existence could never have produced such a congeries of useless sentiment.

He threw himself into a chair determining to have a quiet cigar before tasking his brain with further thought about what he had just heard.

But the first glance at the daily paper which had just come in made him throw it from him in disgust; for it contained a fulsomely flattering notice extolling Major Marsden at the expense of Colonel Stuart, and openly hinting at discrepancies in the accounts which the former officer was determined to bring home to the latter. The style betrayed the hand of some clerk toadying for promotion; but style or no style, the matter was clear, and to be read by the million. It all came from Marsden's infernal sense of duty, and John Raby had half a mind to spoil his little game by sending the paper over to Belle as usual. But with all his faults he was not a spiteful man, or one inclined to play the part of dog-in-the-manger. Consequently when Lala Shunker Das's carriage went over for Belle the _chupra.s.si_ in charge only carried a bouquet; the newspaper remained behind, keeping company with John Raby and magnanimity.