Ричард Марш
A Woman Perfected

CHAPTER XXVII
A ROYAL ROAD TO FORTUNE

Mr. Nash considered. The expression which had been on his face a few minutes ago had nearly vanished. The ex-butler had expressed himself in terms which the solicitor felt might justify him in modifying the attitude he had been disposed to take up. That Morgan had been, and still was, presumptuous went without saying; at the same time, as matters were turning out, it seemed that there were things which might be said on the other side; at least so it appeared to Herbert Nash. On the whole, he was inclined to concede as much. He took a few steps, to and fro, beside the groyne; then planting himself directly in front of Morgan, he told him his mind, rather in sorrow, perhaps, than in anger; indeed his bearing altogether was very different from what it had been.

"I tell you what it is, Morgan, your conduct, from first to last, has been bad."

Mr. Morgan smiled at him, affably.

"Has it? That's good, coming from you."

"That's where you've got the wrong end of the stick; whatever I've done I've done nothing to you."

"No; and therefore you think that I've no right to put a finger in the pie you've found."

"You'd no right to force yourself into my place, and run the rule over my things."

"That was luck, Nash, pure luck. I didn't call intending to run the rule over your things; is it likely? But if you will carry papers in your letter-case, you shouldn't leave your letter-case lying about."

"Idiot that I was! I found what I'd done soon after I'd started, but I was fool enough not to come back for it."

"You weren't an idiot; not at all; it was the best thing that could have happened for both of us-that I should find it."

"I'm afraid I can't agree. To begin with, see how awkward you've made it for me with my wife."

"Have I?"

"She can't understand what I have done which gives you any title to call yourself my friend-you!"

"Can't she?"

"And how am I going to explain? I may only be-as you suggest-a poor brute of a country solicitor; but you forget that she's a lady."

"Not for one moment. Mrs. Nash is a perfect lady; none knows that better than I do. But, if I help you to make your fortune; if we become partners in, say, a mercantile speculation; if I show you how to pour gold, and all the pretty things gold can buy, into her lap, will she require any better explanation? I think not. My dear fellow, you exaggerate the difficulties she will make; believe me.

"You talk very largely, but how are you going to do these things? I had the letter, and I didn't see my way."

"You didn't? Then that shows how fortunate it was that you communicated the contents of the letter to me; because I do. Tell me-now be frank; I'll be perfectly frank with you; it's to our common interest to be frank with each other-how far did you go?"

"I looked up Mr. Frank Clifford."

"And found?"

"That Marlborough Buildings is the head office of Peter Piper's Popular Pills; of which business Clifford's the managing director."

"And what else?"

"That's as far as I got; I meant to go on after-after-"

"After the honeymoon? I see; I've got a great deal further than that, a great deal. I take it you're aware that Peter Piper's Popular Pills is one of the medicines of the hour; the profits are stupendous; sometimes amounting to a hundred thousand pounds in a year, possibly more."

"I dare say; that doesn't want much finding out, everybody knows it; but what's it to do with us?"

"A good deal."

"How?"

"We're going to have a share of the business, and of the profits, and probably of former profits also."

"Are we indeed? How are we going to manage it?"

"Do you know who the proprietor was?"

Again the two men eyed each other; this time as if Nash was trying to read in Morgan's eyes the answer to his question.

"He was Donald Lindsay of Cloverlea."

"You don't mean it?"

"I do."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly. He called himself Joseph Oldfield; he was a bachelor; he was a reserved man, standoffish, of secretive habits. He had a flat in Bloomsbury Square, I've seen it, where he was supposed to spend most of his time in thinking out new advertising dodges; the present position of Peter Piper's Popular Pills is principally owing to clever advertising. The proprietor was his own advertising agent, he was a master of the art. He called himself, as I've said, Joseph Oldfield in town, and in the country he was Donald Lindsay of Cloverlea."

"The old fox!"

"I don't think you can exactly call him that; there was nothing in the opprobrious sense foxy about him. He was one of those men who live double lives, owing, one might say, to the pressure of circumstances; there are more of them about than is supposed. He bought the pill business when it was at a very low ebb; he hadn't very much money himself, at that time, and I dare say he got it for a song. Mrs. Lindsay was just dead; his girl was with her nurses, or at school; for business purposes he called himself Oldfield; it isn't every man who cares to have it known that he's associated with a patent medicine; in England it's quite a common custom for a man to carry on a business under an alias, under half-a-dozen aliases sometimes. As time went on I take it that his secretive habit grew stronger; he became less and less disposed to have it known that Donald Lindsay had anything to do with pills, which do rather stink in people's nostrils; and so he drifted into the double life. That's the word, drifted."

"You seem to have got up his history."

"I have a way of finding out things; people have noticed it before. Now take Mr. Frank Clifford; I can tell you something about him. He's a young man, a protégé of Oldfield's-we'll call him Oldfield. Oldfield had faith in him, he'd have trusted him with his immortal soul. That's how it was that it was such a shock to him to learn that he had been taking liberties with his name."

"But had he?"

"Had he what?"

"Been taking liberties with Lindsay's name?"

"He forged those bills which Guldenheim and his friends got hold of."

"That's what I guessed; but guessing's one thing, proof's another."

"Of course it is; I've the proof. I have some of the bills; I got hold of them rather neatly, though, as a matter of abstract right, I've as much title to them as anybody else. When you show Mr. Clifford one of them he won't deny he forged it."

"Yes; when I show it."

"Exactly. I said when you show it to him; and you're going to show it, if necessary, that's part of the scheme; though it mayn't be necessary, since it's quite possible he'll capitulate at once. My dear chap, at the present moment, to all intent's and purposes, Mr. Frank Clifford is the sole proprietor of one of the finest businesses in the world, and one of the largest fortunes in England, while the actual owner is starving in town."

"It's hard upon Miss Lindsay."

"It's the fortune of war. A little starving won't do her any harm; and I dare say she won't starve long. I never liked the girl."

"Nor I."

"Then there you are; why worry? She's too superior for me, too good; knocking about in the gutter may bring her down to your level, and mine; I've known it pan out that way where a young woman's concerned. I don't like any one to be too good, it makes me conscious of my own deficiencies; you see, I'm candid. However, she's a factor with whom we may, or may not, deal later. At present we've to concentrate our attention on Clifford; think of the possibilities for him, and for us. No one knows of the connection between Oldfield and Lindsay; no one even knows that he's dead. Clifford already has powers to draw cheques in the name of the firm, within certain limits; a man capable of committing forgery will soon be able to make those limits wider; there's no reason why he shouldn't appropriate to his own use every penny that comes in; as things stand nobody'll be able to call him to account for it; there's no reason why he should not lay hands on the whole of the old gentleman's investments; and they're-you may take it from me that they're magnificent. We're the only persons on this side of the grave who can stop him, and there's no reason why we should, if he gives us a proper share; in other words, if he takes us in as partners."

"It's playing with fire."

"Not a bit of it; it's playing with nothing that's in the least dangerous, if it's managed as I propose to manage it. You think it over. And now you take me in to lunch, and let me have the pleasure of meeting that charming wife of yours again; I'm starving! And if by the time we've done lunch you haven't formulated a scheme of your own I'll tell you what mine is, and then you'll see that without the slightest danger to either of us, without the shadow of a shade of danger-there's no reason why we shouldn't, within a very short space of time, be worth a quarter of a million apiece."

"A quarter of a million!"

"At least; we're going to deal with big figures, my boy. It'll pay Clifford, pay him handsomely, to split it up into three parts; and let me tell you that a third ought to come out at a good deal more than a quarter of a million."

Herbert Nash hesitated-for his credit's sake let it be written that he did hesitate-but he took Mr. Morgan home with him to lunch. And when his wife saw the visitor coming she would have been almost glad if the earth could have opened to swallow her up; it was as if she beheld avenging fate advancing towards her in the shape of a policeman. Her husband was late; it was long after their usual hour for lunch; he had left no word as to where he had gone; half beside herself with anxiety, she would have liked to send the town crier round in search of him; she had been along the pavement to the corner of this street and the corner of that, to and fro across the common for a glimpse of him along the front; these manœuvres she had repeated again and again, and, standing on the doorstep, was frantically debating within herself as to what could have become of him, as to what she should do, when she saw him coming with Morgan at his side. Then, if she could, she would have run away, but she could not, her feet were as if they had been shod with iron weights, she could not lift them; she could not move; when they came to her she was a white-faced, shivering, terror-stricken little wretch; a poor ghost of the sunny-faced, light-hearted Elaine Harding of such a little while ago.

Mr. Nash offered a pretty lame explanation of his appearance with the man of whose presumption in claiming his acquaintance he had spoken with such scorn in the morning.

"This is Mr. Morgan; he is going to have some lunch with us; we have business to transact together. You remember Mr. Morgan, Elaine?"

As if she ever could forget him! How she would have prayed for the power to forget him if she had dared to hope that such prayers were answered. She hardly heard her husband's words; her white face was turned towards Morgan, as the convicted criminal has eyes only for the judge who is to pronounce his doom. Yet nothing could have been less judge-like than Mr. Morgan's bearing; nothing more affably respectful than the manner of his greeting. He stood before her with uncovered head, without even presuming to offer his hand.

"This is indeed an honour to be permitted to meet you again. May I venture to hope that you will allow me to offer my congratulations on the fortunate event which has occurred since I saw you last?"

She had to moisten her parched lips with her tongue before she could speak at all. Then-

"Thank you," was all she said to him; and to her husband, "I-I was wondering what had become of you."

Nash replied-

"Mr. Morgan had something which he wished to say to me." He led the way into the house; his wife and Morgan followed. He paused at the sitting-room door. "Take Mr. Morgan in there," he said to her. "I will join you in a minute."

Dumbly she obeyed; not realizing that he wanted what she did, a few minutes' solitude to enable him to pull himself together. He meant to have them, she had to do without; so that when she was in the room, and the ex-butler, coming after her, closed the door behind him he had her wholly at his mercy. She was still limp and helpless, having had no chance to recover from the shock and horror of encountering him again; a fact of which he, instantly perceiving, took prompt advantage. As he pulled the door to behind him a subtle change took place in his manner; he still smiled, but neither respectfully nor affably. He addressed the cowering woman in front of him as if she were some base creature.

"A pretty trick you played me, slipping away like that and leaving no address! Sneaking off with the man you'd paid to marry you, when, if it hadn't been for me, you'd have been in jail; and you call yourself a lady! and I'd treated you as one! Never again, my beauty, never again need you expect me to treat you like a lady, because you've shown me what you are. Now you listen to me! You'll give me five hundred pounds before I leave, or to-night you'll sleep in Littlehampton jail; and when your husband's told what kind of a character he's been diddled into marrying by way of a start he'll throw you out into the road. Now then! that five hundred pounds!"

He held out his hand, as if he expected her to give him the money there and then. She presented a pitiable spectacle; being scarcely able to stammer.

"I-I-I can't-can't give it you now."

"No lies! I'm off them! How much have you got in the house?"

"I-I-I might-" Her voice failed her; there was a hiatus in her sentence. "A hundred pounds."

"Then you'll give me a hundred pounds within half-an-hour after lunch, and you'll send another four hundred to an address I'll give you within four-and-twenty hours, or I promise you that, in less than an hour after, the man you've bought shall kick you out of this house into a policeman's arms."

Before he could speak again, or she either, the door opened to admit the diminutive maid; how she managed to open the door, as she apparently had done, was a mystery, since she was carrying a tray which was nearly as big as herself. And Mr. Nash presently appearing, the three sat down to lunch.

CHAPTER XXVIII
TO BE-OR NOT TO BE-POSTPONED

Daisy Ross was annoyed, almost indignant, and with reason. As she said to Mr. Clifford-

"It's really too ridiculous! One's wedding day is an occasion of some importance, even to a man." Mr. Clifford admitted that it was. "While to a woman it involves a frightful strain." Mr. Clifford again agreed. "Very well, then; a little consideration surely should be shown; Mr. Oldfield's conduct is absurd."

"He certainly is placing me in a very awkward position."

"I should think he was; considering that the bridesmaids' dresses are practically finished, and that two of them have to go away on the day after the one we fixed, how are we going to postpone the wedding?"

"I'm sure I don't know; but what am I to do? His conduct's most mysterious."

"My dear Frank, his conduct's not only mysterious, it's monstrous; and I don't care what you say. He knows you are going to be married."

"Of course he does; he's known about it all along."

"He knows when you are going to be married."

"Certainly, I asked him to be present; he gave me to understand that probably he would be."

"Then probably he will be."

"But suppose I see or hear nothing of him in the meanwhile?"

"He is a most exasperating man. How long is it since you have heard anything of him?"

"About two months; rather over than under."

"Something must have happened to him."

"You know his ways; I've told you about them often enough. When he leaves the office, unless he volunteers the information, I never know when I shall see him again, and unless I've some pressing reason for wanting to know I never ask; I've more sense. He dislikes being questioned about anything, and he's always shown what I've felt is really a morbid objection to being questioned about his movements; it's only quite recently that I've known his private address. It isn't as if this sort of thing hadn't happened before; it has, again and again. One evening, about a couple of years ago, he left the office quite late, after being in regular daily attendance, early and late, for some weeks; I expected he would come on the following day in the ordinary course, but I never saw or heard anything of him for close upon four months; then one morning he walked in, and, without offering a word of explanation, took up the thread of affairs just where he had left it, and, what's more, showed quite a good knowledge of what had been going on during his absence."

"But what a state things would have got into if it hadn't been for you."

"Quite so; that's just the point, he trusts me. In the ordinary course of business I have complete control of everything. If anything unusual turns up, which is of importance, I hold it over for reference to him; but in the general way I run the entire show; which, after all, isn't saying so very much, because, when all is said and done, he's a first-rate man of business and a splendid organizer, so that it's quite easy for me to do. And you know, Daisy, he treats me very generously, and always has done; I've practically a share in the concern, which is a free gift from him."

"I suppose you're worth what he gives you."

"All the same, I never put in a penny-I never had one to put; and there are hundreds, I dare say thousands, of men who could do all I do, and who'd be only too glad to do it, for a tenth part of what he gives me."

"If I were you, I shouldn't tell him so."

"He knows, my dear, he knows. He's the same with everybody about the place; it's a principle of his to treat everybody generously who does honest work for him; he wouldn't be happy if he thought that a man wasn't getting a fair share of the fruits of his own labours. In spite of his little eccentricities he's a magnificent fellow, and I couldn't do anything to annoy or disappoint him-not-well, I wouldn't do it."

Miss Ross sighed.

"You hadn't arranged to be married during that four months' absence of his."

"I certainly hadn't."

"Suppose the wedding-day had been fixed for two months after he had gone, and he had known it, would you have postponed it indefinitely, till he condescended to turn up again?"

"I don't know what I should have done, I really don't; but I tell you what we might do-that is, if you wouldn't mind very much."

"Oh, never mind what I mind; my wishes aren't of the slightest consequence; I shall begin to wish that I wasn't going to be married!"

"Daisy! don't say that, even in jest. It's as hard upon me as it is upon you."

"Honestly, Frank, I don't see it. To a man, having his wedding-day postponed, and that indefinitely, is, of course, rather a nuisance; but to a woman, it's-it's quite a different thing."

"But I'm not going to suggest that it shall be postponed."

"Then what are you going to suggest? What have you been suggesting for the last-I don't know how long?"

"That's because the idea never occurred to me until just now; I don't know why; I suppose it's because I'm stupid."

"Now what idea have you got into your head?"

"I think I see a way out of the difficulty; that is, if you'll agree."

"Agree to what?"

"The great thing for us is to be married, isn't it?"

"I don't know that I'm prepared to admit it till I know what you're leading up to."

"Very well, then, as one of the parties I'll admit it; the one thing for which I'm living is to be married to you; when I am married I'll be happy."

"Thank you; that's very nice of you; but I'm not going to admit anything till I know what it is you've got at the back of your head."

"We're going to be married on Thursday-that is, this day week."

"We were to have been married on Thursday; I know my wedding dress is coming home on Wednesday."

"And after the wedding we're to start for a three months' tour on the continent, something like a honeymoon."

"We were to have started for a three months' tour."

"That's what I arranged with Mr. Oldfield. I said to him, 'Mr. Oldfield, after my marriage-at which I trust you'll be present-I hope to go abroad with my wife for a month, if I can be spared from the office.' He said to me, 'Clifford, why not make it three months?' I stared; he went on: 'A man isn't married often!'"

"Frank!"

"That's what he said; and it's true. 'Therefore there's no reason why he shouldn't make the most of it when he is; you take your wife abroad for three months, I'll see you're spared from the office.' And that's how it was arranged."

"Yes, and then he goes and disappears, and I'm not to be married at all, and that's how it's disarranged."

"Not a bit of it; the wedding needn't be postponed; the more I think of it the less reason do I see why it should."

"Frank! Then what ever have you been talking to me about ever since I don't know when!"

"Mr. Oldfield's continued absence needn't prevent my sparing a day to get away from the office to be married."

"Needn't it! I'm sure it's very nice of you to talk about sparing a whole day for a trifling thing like that."

"In any case, all that need suffer is the three months' tour. If Mr. Oldfield hasn't turned up by Thursday, after we're married we'll go for a weekend honeymoon. I'll return to the office on Monday. The house is ready, all it needs is its mistress; you'll be installed a little sooner than you thought, and when Mr. Oldfield does appear we'll go for our three months' tour."

Miss Ross sat looking at him with rather a complicated expression on her pretty face, as if she did not quite know what to make of his proposition.

"Frank, why didn't you think of it before? instead of worrying me, and making my hair come out by handfuls, by keeping on saying that if Mr. Oldfield didn't return in time, you couldn't possibly desert Peter Piper's Popular Pills, and that therefore the wedding would have to be postponed till you didn't know when."

"I don't know; but I didn't. I fancy, sweetheart, that it's because I was so looking forward to that scamper through Europe. It's so long since I had a real holiday-and such a holiday-with you! If you only knew how often I have dreamed of it!"

"And do you think I haven't dreamed of it too?" They were sitting very close together; she looked at him with almost comic wistfulness as she added, "A week-end honeymoon will be rather a comedown, won't it?"

"Compared to that elaborate tour, which we have so carefully planned, in which we were to go to so many delightful places, and do so many delicious things, rather! But it won't spoil by being kept; we'll have it; and in the meanwhile a week-end will be better than nothing."

"Frank, I'll tell you something. Rather than that the wedding should be put off I'd go straight home with you to our home, from the church doors; or I'd return with you to the office, and sit on a stool, till your day's work was done."

"Sweetheart!"

There was an interval, during which more was done than said. Then she observed-

"Now let me clearly understand; even if Mr. Oldfield returns on Wednesday we go for our tour."

"Even if he puts in an appearance in the church."

"Well, let's hope he won't put it off till quite so late as that; because, though perhaps you mayn't be aware of it, there is such a thing as packing; one doesn't pack for a week-end just as one packs for three months on the Continent. But, in any case, the wedding is not to be postponed."

"It is not to be postponed. Let me put it like this. You talk it over with your father-"

"Frank! don't be absurd! I fancy I see myself talking it over with papa. Why, do you know what he says? He says he can't see why a girl need make such a fuss about such a little thing as being married; he wonders why she can't go in a 'bus to the nearest registrar's, and then go, in a spirit of meek thankfulness, to her new home in another 'bus, and start darning the old socks which her husband has been storing up against her coming."

"Well, there's something in it."

"Is there? At any rate, I'm not going to talk it over with papa; he wouldn't talk it over with me if I wanted him to."

"Then talk it over with your mother, and-and the rest of the family."

"It is a matter for my decision, not for theirs."

"Precisely; only there's no harm in observing certain forms. And I'll make another effort to see if I can find out something which will point to Oldfield's whereabouts. I'll go round to his flat in Bloomsbury Mansions; they sometimes do hear something of him there; then I'll try every other place I can think of-there aren't many places, but there are some-then I'll come round to-morrow and tell you the result of my efforts, and you'll tell me the result of the family consultation."

"I can tell you that before you go; the wedding is not to be postponed."

"Of course the wedding is not to be postponed; but still there are things you'll like to talk over with them-they'll expect it; and then they can talk them over with me-you know the sort of thing. And anyhow I hope you don't object to my coming again to-morrow, if only to be told once more that the wedding is not to be postponed."

"Of course I don't object to your coming again to-morrow; you'll hear of it if you don't."

"But in case I should be prevented, don't you think you'd better give me an extra kiss or two?"

"Frank! I'm always kissing you."

"Not always; sometimes I'm kissing you."

"You'll soon grow tired."

"Shall I? Be careful what you say! you'll be punished if you say it."

"I hope you never will grow tired."

"Sweetheart, you mustn't even say it in jest!"

The rest was that sort of talk which we have most of us talked once; those of us who haven't are to be pitied; it is a kind of talk which is well worth talking. Then Mr. Clifford went on to Bloomsbury Mansions, which was Joseph Oldfield's London address; indeed, so far as his manager knew, it was the proprietor of Peter Piper's Popular Pills' only address. As usual he found the porter in the entrance hall; of him he made inquiry.

"Well, Coles, any news of Mr. Oldfield?"

In the porter's manner, as he replied, there was a significance which Mr. Clifford did not understand.

"I can't say that there's any news of Mr. Oldfield exactly; but there's something going on."

"Going on? What do you mean?"

"In his flat."

"In his flat! What's going on in his flat?"

"That's more than I can tell you, sir; but there's some one in there; in fact, there's two people in there. One of them says he's Mr. Oldfield's solicitor; I don't know who the other is, but he may be another solicitor for all I can tell; he looks as if he might be something in that line."

Frank Clifford opened his eyes.

"His solicitor? What solicitor? What's his name?"

"Seemed to me he was shy about giving his name; but when I made it clear that he wasn't going up unless he did, he said his name was Nash-Herbert Nash. He's quite a young chap-younger than the other, though he's not old."

"Nash? Herbert Nash? I never heard Mr. Oldfield speak of a solicitor named Nash; but of course he may have a dozen solicitors of whom I know nothing. How did they get in? Did you let them in?"

"Not me; they brought Mr. Oldfield's own key; Mr. Nash had it."

"That looks as if they'd at least heard from Mr. Oldfield quite recently, which is more than I have. It's lucky I happened to come just now. Take me up, Coles; I should like to see Mr. Nash."

The porter said, as they were stepping into the lift-

"I hope, sir, there's nothing wrong with Mr. Oldfield-that he's not ill, or anything like that; but it looks odd his solicitor coming instead of him, and that without giving any notice."

"It doesn't necessarily follow, Coles, that there's anything wrong with him on that account; most probably Mr. Oldfield is abroad, and has sent his solicitor instructions, in order to carry out which Mr. Nash has to visit his flat."

The lift stopped; the porter pointed to a door.

"I hope you're right, sir; I should be sorry to hear that anything had happened to Mr. Oldfield; to my thinking he's the pleasantest gentleman we've got in the Mansions, and I don't care who hears me say so. That's his flat, sir. You'll find them in there now. Shall I ring, sir?"

"No; I'll ring."

Mr. Clifford rang.