The Avenger Part 16

"You'll excuse me if I'm a bit excited, Mr. Wrayson," he continued. "I'll leave you to judge how I've been served when you hear all. He got over me, and I lent him nearly half of my savings, and he started back to England. He took this flat at two hundred pounds a year the very week he got back, and he's lived, from what I can hear, like a lord ever since.

Will you believe this, sir! He sent back the money he borrowed from me a quid at a time, and wrote me to say he was saving it with great difficulty--out of his salary of three pounds a week. When he'd paid back the lot, I never heard another line from him. I was doing rotten myself, and he knew well enough that I should have been over first steamer if I'd known about his two hundred a year flat, and all the rest of it. What do you think of my brother, sir, eh? What do you think of him? Treated me nicely, didn't he? Nine pounds ten it was I lent him, and nine pounds ten was all I had back, and here he was living like a duke, and lying to me about his three pounds a week; and there was I hawkering groceries on a barrow, selling sham diamonds, any blooming thing to get a mouthful to eat. Nice sort of brother that, eh? What?"

Wrayson repressed an inclination to smile. There was something grimly humourous about his visitor's indignation.

"You must remember," he said, "that your brother is dead, and that his death itself was a terrible one. Besides, even if you have had to wait for a little time, you are his heir now."

The young man was breathing hard. The perspiration stood out in little beads upon his forehead. He showed his teeth a little. He was becoming more and more unpleasant to look upon as his excitement increased.

"Look here, Mr. Wrayson!" he exclaimed. "I'm coming to that. I've been through his things. Clothes! I never saw such a collection. All from a West End tailor, too! And boots! Patent, with white tops; pumps, everything slap up! Heaven knows what he must have spent upon his clothes. Bills from restaurants, too; why, he seems to have thought nothing of spending a quid or two on a dinner or a supper. Photographs of ladies, little notes asking him to tea; why, between you and me, Mr.

Wrayson, sir, he was living like a prince! And look here!"

He rose to his feet and planked down a bank-book on the desk in front of Wrayson.

"Look here, sir," he declared. "Every three months, within a day or two, cash--five hundred pounds. Here you are. Here's the last: March 27--cash, 500! Look back! January 1--By cash 500! October 2--cash, 500! There you are, right back to the very day he arrived in England.

And he left South Africa with ten bob of mine in his pocket, after he'd paid his pa.s.sage! and from what I can hear, he never did a day's work after he landed. And me over there working thirteen and fourteen hours a day, and half the time stony-broke! There's a brother for you! Cain was a fool to him!"

"But you must remember that after all you are going to reap the benefit of it now," Wrayson remarked.

"Ah! but am I?" the young man exclaimed fiercely. "That's what I want to know. Look here! I've been through every letter and every sc.r.a.p of paper I can find, I've been to the bank and to his few pals, and strike me dead if I can find where that five hundred pounds came from every three months! It was in gold always; he must have gone and changed it somewhere--five hundred golden sovereigns every three months, and I can't find where they came from!"

"Have you been to a solicitor?" Wrayson asked.

"Not yet," the young man answered. "I don't see what good he'll be when I do. Morris was always one of the close sort, and I can't fancy him spending much over lawyers."

"What made you come to me?" Wrayson inquired.

"Well, the caretaker at the flat told me that you and Morris used to speak now and then, and I'm trying every one. I'm afraid he wasn't quite cla.s.sy enough for you to have palled up with, but I thought he might have let something slip perhaps."

Wrayson shook his head.

"He never spoke to me of his affairs," he said. "He always seemed to have plenty of money, though."

"Doesn't the bank-book prove it?" the young man exclaimed excitedly.

"Every one who knew anything about him says the same. There was I half starved in Cape Town, and here was he spending two thousand a year.

Beast, he was! I'll find out where it came from if it takes me a lifetime."

Wrayson leaned back in his chair. Nothing since the events of that night itself had appealed to him more than the coming of this young man and his strange story.

"I am sorry that I have no information to give you," he said. "On the other hand, if I can help you in any other way I shall be very glad."

"What should you advise me to do?" the young man asked.

"I should like to think the matter over carefully," Wrayson answered.

"What are your engagements for to-day? Can you lunch with me?"

"I have no engagements," his visitor answered eagerly. "When and what time?"

Wrayson repressed a smile.

"I shall be ready in twenty minutes," he answered. "We will go out together if you don't mind waiting."

"I'm on," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared, crossing his legs. "Don't you hurry on my account. I'll wait as long as you like."

CHAPTER XIII

SEARCHING THE CHAMBERS

Wrayson took his guest to a popular restaurant, where there was music and a five-course luncheon for three and six. Their conversation during the earlier part of the meal was limited, for Mr. Sydney Barnes showed himself possessed of an appet.i.te which his host contemplated with respectful admiration. His sallow cheeks became flushed and his nervousness had subsided, long before the arrival of the coffee.

"I say, this is all right, this place is," he said, leaning back in his chair with a large cigar between his teeth. "Jolly expensive, I suppose, isn't it?"

Wrayson smiled.

"It depends," he answered. "I don't suppose your brother would have found it so. A bachelor can do himself pretty well on two thousand a year."

"I only hope I get hold of it," Mr. Sydney Barnes declared fervently.

"This is the way I should like to live, this is."

"I hope you will," Wrayson answered. "An income of that sort could scarcely disappear into thin air, could it? By the bye, Mr. Barnes, that reminds me of a very important circ.u.mstance which, up to now, we have not mentioned. I mean the way your brother met with his death."

The young man nodded thoughtfully.

"Ah!" he remarked, "he was murdered, wasn't he? Some one must have owed him a nasty grudge. Morris always was a one to make enemies."

"I don't know whether the same thing has occurred to you," Wrayson continued, "but I can't help wondering whether there may not have been some connection between his death and that mysterious income of his."

"I've thought of that myself," the young man declared. "All the same, I can't see what he could have carried about with him worth two thousand a year."

"Exactly," Wrayson answered, "but you see the matter stands like this. He was in receipt of about 500 every three months, as his bank-book proves.

This sum would represent five per cent interest on forty thousand pounds.

Now, considering your brother's position when he left you at Cape Town, and the fact that you cannot discover at his bankers or elsewhere any doc.u.ments alluding to property or shares of any sort, one can scarcely help dismissing the hypothesis that this payment was the result of dividends or interest. At any rate, let us put that out of the question for the moment. Your brother received five hundred pounds every three months from some one. People don't give money away for nothing nowadays, you know. From whom and for what services did he receive that money?"

Mr. Sydney Barnes looked puzzled.

"Ask me another," he remarked facetiously.

"You do not know of any secrets, I suppose, which your brother may have stumbled into possession of?"

"Not I! He went about with his eyes open and his mouth closed, but I never heard of his having that sort of luck."

"He could not have had any adventures on the steamer, for he came back steerage," Wrayson continued thoughtfully, "and he was in funds almost from the moment he landed in England. I am afraid, Mr. Barnes, that he must have been deceiving you in Cape Town."

"If I could only have a dozen words with him!" the young man muttered savagely.

"It would be useful," Wrayson admitted, "but, unfortunately, it is out of the question. Either he was deceiving you, or he was in possession of something which turned out far more valuable than he had imagined."