The Town Traveller Part 34

Each caught the other's eye. The muscles of their faces relaxed, and they joined in a mirthful peal.

It was a long and exciting week for the town traveller. Greenacre, always on the look out for romance in common life, was never surprised when he discovered it, but to Gammon it came with such a sense of novelty that he had much ado to keep a clear head for everyday affairs.

He drove about London as usual, but beset with fantastic visions and desires. Not only was Polly quite dismissed from his thoughts (in the tender sense), but he found himself constantly occupied with the image of Mrs. Clover, heretofore seldom in his mind, notwithstanding her brightness and comeliness and the friends.h.i.+p they had so long felt for each other. Minnie he had forgotten; the mother came before him in such a new light that he could hardly believe his former wish to call her mother-in-law. This strange emotion was very disturbing. As if he had not worry enough already!

Delicacy kept him away from the china shop. He knew how hard it must be for the poor woman to disguise her feelings before Minnie and other people. Minnie, to be sure, would understand signs of distress as a result of her father's brief reappearance, but Mrs. Clover's position was no less lamentable. He wished to be at her side endeavouring to console her. Yet, as likely as not, all he said would give her more pain than comfort.

Ah, but there was a woman! Was he likely ever to meet another who had pluck and goodness and self-respect like hers? Minnie? Some day, perhaps, being her mother's daughter. But Minnie, after all, was little more than a child. And he could no longer think of her in the old way it made him uncomfortable if he tried to do so.

Polly? Ah, Polly! Polly be hanged!

He had an appointment with her for this evening--not at the theatre door, for Polly no longer went to the theatre. Change in the management had put an end to her pleasant and lucrative evenings; she had tried in vain to get like employment at other places. In a letter received this morning she remarked significantly that of course it was not worth while to take up any other pursuit again.

It could not be called a delightful letter from any point of view.

Polly had grown tired of uniform sweetness, and indulged herself in phrases of an acid flavour.

"Haven't you got anything yet to tell me about the will? If I don't hear anything from you before long I shall jolly well go and ask somebody else. I believe you know more than you want to tell, which I call it shameful. Mind you bring some news to-night."

They met at six o'clock in the Lowther Arcade; it was raining, cold, and generally comfortless. By way of cheery beginning Gammon declared that he was hungry, and invited Miss Sparkes to eat with him.

They transferred themselves to a restaurant large enough to allow of their conversing as they chose under cover of many noises. Gammon had by this time made up his mind to a very bold step, a stratagem so audacious that a.s.suredly it deserved to succeed. Only despair could have supplied him with such a suggestion and with the nerve requisite for carrying it out.

"What about that will?" asked Polly, as soon as they were seated and the order had been given.

"There is no will."

This answer, and the carelessness with which it was uttered, took away Polly's breath. She glared, and unconsciously handled a table knife in an alarming way.

"What d'you mean? Who are you kidding?"

"He's left no will. And what's more, if he had, your name wouldn't have been in it, old girl."

"Oh, indeed! We'll soon see about that! I'll go straight from 'ere to that 'ouse, see if I don't I'll see his sister for myself this very night, so there!"

"Go it, Polly, you're welcome, my dear. You'll wake 'em up in Stanhope Gardens."

The waiter interrupted their colloquy. Gammon began to eat; Polly, heeding not the savoury dish, kept fierce eyes upon him.

"What d'you mean? Don't go stuffing like a pig but listen to me, and tell me what you're up to."

"You're talking about Lord P., ain't you?" asked Gammon in a lower voice.

"Course I am."

"And you think he was your uncle? So did I till a few days ago. Well, Polly, he wasn't. Lord P. didn't know you from Adam, nor your aunt either."

He chuckled, and ate voraciously. The artifice seemed to him better and better, enjoyment of it gave him a prodigious appet.i.te.

"If you'll get on with your eating I'll tell you about it. Do you remember what I told you about the fellow Quodling in the City? Well, listen to this. Lord P. had another brother knocking about--you understand, a brother--like Quodling, who had no name of his own. And this brother, Polly, is your uncle Clover."

Miss Sparkes did not fail to understand, but she at once and utterly declined to credit the statement.

"You mean to say it wasn't Lord P. at all as I met--as I saw at the theatre?"

"You saw his illegitimate brother, your uncle, and never Lord P. at all. Now just listen. This fellow who called himself Clover is a precious rascal. We don't know as much about him as we'd like to, but I dare say we shall find out more. How did he come to be sitting with those ladies in the theatre, you're wanting to ask? Simple enough.

Knowing his likeness to the family of Lord Polperro he palmed himself off on them as a distant relative, just come back from the colonies; they were silly enough to make things soft for him. He seems to have got money, no end of it, out of Lord P. No doubt he was jolly frightened when you spotted him, and you know how he met you once or twice and tipped you. That's the story of your Uncle Clover, Polly."

The girl was impressed. She could believe anything ill of Mrs. Clover's husband. Her astonishment at learning that he was a lord had never wholly subsided. That he should be a cunning rascal seemed vastly more probable.

"But what about that letter you sent--eh?" pursued Gammon with an artful look. "Didn't you address it to Lord P. himself? So you did, Polly. But listen to this. By that time Lord P. and his people had found out Clover's little game; never mind _how_, but they had. You remember that he wouldn't come again to meet you at Lincoln's Inn. Good reason, old girl; he had had to make himself scarce. Lord P. had set a useful friend of his--that's Greenacre--to look into Clover's history.

Greenacre, you must know, is a private detective." He nodded solemnly.

"Well now, when your letter came to Lord P. he showed it to Greenacre, and they saw at once that it couldn't be meant for him, but no doubt was meant for Clover. 'I'll see to this,' said Greenacre. And so he came to meet us that night."

"But it was _you_ told me he was Lord P.," came from the listener.

"I did, Polly. Not to deceive you, my dear, but because I was taken in myself. I'd found what they call a mare's nest. I was on the wrong scent. I take all the blame to myself."

"But why did Greenacre go on with us like that? Why didn't he say at once that it wasn't Lord P. as had met me?"

"Why? Because private detectives are cautious chaps. Greenacre wanted to catch Clover, and didn't care to go talking about the story to everybody. He deceived me, Polly, just as much as you."

She had begun to eat, swallowing a mouthful now and then mechanically, the look of resentful suspicion still on her face.

"And what do you think?" pursued her companion, after a delicious draught of lager beer. "Would you believe that only a day or two before Lord P.'s death the fellow Clover went to your aunt's house, to the china shop, and stayed overnight there! What do you think of that, eh?

He did. Ask Mrs. Clover. He went there to hide, and to get money from his wife."

This detail evidently had a powerful effect. Polly ate and drank and ruminated, one eye on the speaker.

"I got to know of that," went on the wily Gammon. "And I told Greenacre. And Greenacre made me tell it to Lord P. himself. And that's how I came to be with Lord P. on New Year's Eve! Now you've got it all."

"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Polly with ferocity.

"Ah, why? I was ashamed to, my dear. I couldn't own up that I'd made a fool of myself and you too."

"How did you know that he'd been at my aunt's?"

"She sent for me, Polly; sent for me and told me, because I was an old friend. And I was so riled at the fellow coming and going in that way that I spoke to Greenacre about it. And then Greenacre told me how things were. I felt a fool, I can tell you. But the fact is, I never saw two men so like in the face as Clover and Lord P."

"When you was there--at my aunt's--did you talk about me?" asked the girl with a peculiar awkwardness.

"Not a word, I swear! We were too much taken up with the other business."

For a minute or two neither spoke.

"And you mean to say," burst at length from Polly, "that my uncle's still alive and going about?"

"All alive and kicking, not a doubt of it, and Lord P. buried at Kensal Green; no will left behind him, and all his property going to the next of kin, of course. Now listen here, Polly. I want to tell you that I shouldn't wonder if you have a letter from Greenacre. He may be asking you to meet him."

"What for?"