Street. John met me on the stairs.
"Ah! there you are, sir," he exclaimed. "Did you meet them?"
"Meet whom?"
"Why, they haven't been gone not two minutes, so I thought you mighthave met them in the street, sir. They waited over half-an-hour."
"But who were they? What were their names?" I asked, irritated at Johnfor not telling me at once the names of the visitors.
"A young lady and a gentleman--there's a card on your table, sir; Ican't recall the names for the moment," he said, wrinkling his foreheadas he scratched his ear to stimulate his memory. "The gentleman wasextremely tall, quite a giant, with a dark beard."
I hurried up the stairs, for the lift was out of order, and let myselfinto my flat with my latch key. On the table, in my sitting-room, was alady's card on a salver.
"Miss Thorold."
In Vera's handwriting were the words, scribbled in pencil across it--
"_So sorry we have missed you_."
CHAPTER SIX.
THE HOUSE IN THE SQUARE.
I admit that I was dumbfounded.
Vera and her mysterious friend were together, calling in the mostmatter-of-fact way possible, and just as though nothing had happened!It seemed incredible!
All at once a dreadful thought occurred to me that made me catch mybreath. Was it possible that my love was an actress, in the sense thatshe was acting a part? Had she cruelly deceived me when she haddeclared so earnestly that she loved me? The reflection that, were shepractising deception, she would not have come to see me thus openly withthe man with the black beard, relieved my feelings only a little. Forhow came she to be with Davies at all? And again, who was this manDavies? Also that telephone message a fortnight previously, how could Iaccount for it under the circumstances?
"Oh, come to me--do come to me! I am in such trouble," my love hadcried so piteously, and then had added: "You alone can help me."
Some one else, apparently, must have helped her. Could it have beenthis big, dark man?
And was he, in consequence, supplanting me in her affection? Thethought held me breathless.
At times I am something of a philosopher, though my relatives laugh whenI tell them so, and reply, "Not a philosopher, only a well-meaningfellow, and extremely good-natured"--a description I detest. Realisingnow the uselessness of worrying over the matter, I decided to make nofurther move, but to sit quiet and await developments.
"If you worry," I often tell my friends, "it won't in the least help toavert impending disaster, while if what you worry about never comes topass, you have made yourself unhappy to no purpose."
A platitude? Possibly. But two-thirds of the words of wisdom utteredby great men, and handed down as tradition to a worshipping posterity,are platitudes of the most commonplace type, if you really come toanalyse them.
Time hung heavily. It generally ends by hanging heavily upon a manwithout occupation. But put yourself for a moment in my place. I hadlost my love, and those days of inactivity and longing were doublytedious because I ached to bestir myself somehow, anyhow, to clear up amystery which, though gradually fading from the mind of a public everathirst for fresh sensation, was actively alive in my own thoughts--theone thought, indeed, ever present in my mind. Why had the Thorolds sosuddenly and mysteriously disappeared?
Thus it occurred to me, two days after Davies and Vera had called at myflat, to stroll down into Belgravia and interview the caretaker at 102,Belgrave Street. Possibly by this time, I reflected, he might have seenSir Charles Thorold, or heard from him.
When I had rung three times, the door slowly opened to the length of itschain, and I think quite the queerest-looking little old man I had everset eyes on, peered out. He gazed with his sharp, beady eyes up into myface for a moment or two, then asked, in a broken quavering voice--
"Are you another newspaper gen'leman?"
"Oh, no," I answered, laughing, for I guessed at once how he must havebeen harassed by reporters, and I could sympathise with him. "I am nota journalist--I'm only a gentleman."
Of course he was too old to note the satire, but the fact that I wore asilk hat and a clean collar, seemed to satisfy him that I must be aperson of some consequence, and when I had assured him that I meant himno ill, but that, on the contrary, I might have something to tell himthat he would like to hear, he shut the door, and I heard his tremblingold hands remove the chain.
"And how long is it since Sir Charles was last here?" I said to him,when he had shown me into his little room on the ground floor, where akettle purred on a gas-stove. "I know him well, you know; I was stayingat Houghton Park when he disappeared."
He looked me up and down, surprised and apparently much interested.
"Were you indeed, sir?" he exclaimed. "Well, now--well, well!"
"Why don't you sit down and make yourself comfortable, my old friend," Iwent on affably. I drew forward his armchair, and he sank into it witha grunt of relief.
"You are a very kind gen'leman, you are, very kind indeed," he said, ina tone that betrayed true gratitude. "Ah! I've known gen'lemen in mytime, and I know a gen'leman when I sees one, I do."
"What part of Norfolk do you come from?" I asked, as I took a seat nearhim, for I knew the Norfolk brogue quite well.
He looked at me and grinned.
"Well, now, that's strange you knowing I come from Norfolk! But it'strue. Oh, yes, it is right. I'm a Norfolk man. I was born in Diss. Imind the time my father--"
"Yes, yes," I interrupted, "we'll talk about that presently," for Icould see that, once allowed to start on the subject of his relativesand his native county, he would talk on for an hour. "What I have comehere this afternoon to talk to you about is Sir Charles Thorold. Whenwas he last here?"
"It will be near two years come Michaelmas," he answered, without aninstant's hesitation. "And since then I haven't set eyes on him--Ihaven't."
"And has this house been shut up all the time?"
"Ay, all that time. I mind the time my father used to tell me--"
I damned his father under my breath, and quickly stopped him by askingwho paid him his wages.
"My wages? Oh, Sir Charles' lawyers, Messrs. Spink and Peters, ofLincoln's Inn, pays me my wages. But they are not going to pay me anymore. No. They are not going to pay me any more now."
"Not going to pay you any more? What do you mean?"
"Give me notice to quit, they did, a week ago come Saturday."
"But why?"
"Orders from Sir Charles, they said. Would you like to see theirletter, sir?"
"I should, if you have it by you."
It was brief, curt, and brutally frank--
"From Messrs. Spink and Peters, Solicitors, 582, Lincoln's Inn, W.C.
"To William Taylor, Caretaker,--
"102, Belgrave Street, S.W.
"Messrs. Spink and Peters are instructed by Sir Charles Thorold toinform William Taylor that owing to his advanced age his services willnot be needed by Sir Charles Thorold after March 25. William Taylor isrequested to acknowledge the receipt of this letter."
"They don't consider your feelings much," I said, as I refolded theletter and handed it back to him.
He seemed puzzled.
"Feelings, sir? What are those?" he asked. "I don't somehow seem toknow."
"No matter. Under the circumstances it is, perhaps, as well youshouldn't know. Now, I want to ask you a few questions, my old friend--and look here, I am going, first of all, to make you a little present."
I slipped my fingers into my waistcoat pocket, produced ahalf-sovereign, and pressed it into the palm of his wrinkled old hand.
"To buy tobacco with--no, don't thank me," I said quickly, as he beganto express gratitude. "Now, answer a few questions I am going to put toyou. In the first place, how long have you been in Sir Charles'service?"
"Sixteen years, come Michaelmas," he answered promptly. "I came fromDiss. I mind the time my father--"
"How did Sir Charles, or Mr. T
horold as he was then, first hear of you?"
"He was in Downham Market. I was caretaker for the Reverend GeorgeLattimer, and Sir Charles, I should say, Mr. Thorold, came to see thehouse. I think he thought of buying it, but he didn't buy it. I showedhim into every room, I remember, and as he was leaving he put his handinto his pocket, pulled out a sov'rin', and gave it to me, just as youhave done. And then he said to me, he said: `Ole man,' he said, `wouldyou like a better job than this?' Those were his very words, `Ole man,would you like a better job than this?'"
He grinned and chuckled at the reflection, showing his