Chester passed out again into the cool night, and involuntarily turned in the direction of the Park, crossed it, and walked slowly toward Highcombe Street, where, he hardly knew why, he began to promenade the pavement on the opposite side of the road, stopping at last just inside a doorway when a cab came sharply along; and his nerves began to thrill as he saw it pulled up at the door of the mansion.
Two gentlemen sprang out, and while one paid the driver, the other strolled up the steps, there was the rattle of the latch-key, the door was flung wide, and from where he stood Chester had a glimpse of the handsome hall, now looking sombre and strange with the lights half turned down.
Directly after the door was closed, and the chimes of the Palace clock rang out four times, followed by two deep, booming strokes on the great cracked bell.
“Two o’clock!” thought Chester, as he walked along past the house, fancying that there was a face at the open window of a room on the second floor, but he could not be sure, and as he turned back it was gone.
“Go abroad!” he said to himself. “At such a time. It would be madness.”
Then giving way to a sudden impulse, he hurried back to the front of the house, went up to the door and rang the bell sharply.
“Fool!” he muttered. “Why did I not speak to them then? I will have an explanation. I have a right, and it is evident that I have the whip-hand of them, or they would not act their parts like this.”
He knew that he was wildly excited and doing a foolish thing, but his actions were beyond his control now, and he was ready for Marion’s sake to take the maddest steps on her behalf, or he would not have stood at that moment where he did.
“Too late,” he muttered, as there was no reply. “I’ve let my opportunity slip.”
But all the same he dragged sharply at the bell again, and as his hand fell to his side the door was opened and he found himself face to face with the man he sought.
“Yes, what is it?” cried James Clareborough, sharply. “What! you again? Here, what the devil – Who are you? What do you want?”
“You,” said Chester, firmly, “you and your brother. I will have an explanation with you both. I will see – I will not be put off like this.”
“Confound him!” muttered James Clareborough between his teeth.
“Here, I say, old chap,” growled his brother, who now appeared, “have you been dining somewhere and over-doing it a bit? Hadn’t you better go home quietly? We don’t want to whistle for a policeman and have you locked up.”
“You hold your tongue!” cried James Clareborough. “I’ll soon settle with this gentleman. Now then, my tipsy individual, you want a few words with me – an explanation?”
“Yes and at once,” cried Chester, beside himself with rage at the very sight of the man whose conduct toward Marion absolutely maddened him.
As he spoke he pressed forward to enter, but the brothers barred the way.
“No, no,” said the elder, “none of that. We’re not going to have the house disturbed by your ravings. It’s only a few minutes to the Park – come on there and we’ll have it out, and done with it.”
“No; we won’t,” growled the younger brother, fiercely, and, placing his hands suddenly upon Chester’s breast, he gave him a heavy thrust, drove him staggering back, and almost in the one effort snatched his brother aside and banged to the door.
“What the devil do you mean by that?” cried James Clareborough, savagely, as he tried to reopen the door, but his brother placed his back to it and held him off.
“To keep you cool, old man,” growled the younger. “Get him in the Park at this time, with no one near! What did you mean to do?”
“Do what I’ll do now.”
“Got something in your pocket, old chap?”
“Yes, I have. Let me go out.”
“And have a paragraph in the papers to-morrow morning about a discovery in the Park?”
“Yes. Curse him! he’s getting dangerous. If he is not silenced, what’s to happen next? Let me go, boy. There, he’s ringing again. Let me go.”
“Not if I can stop it, old man. We’ve got risks enough as it is.”
“Curse you, Paddy, for a fool!” cried the other; and he seized his brother and tried to drag him away, while the great fellow reached down and drew a pistol from his brother’s pocket.
“Got your sting, Jem,” he cried. “You don’t use that to-night.”
“Wrong!” cried the other, snatching it away; and as the bell was rung violently again he made for the door.
Chapter Seventeen.
Assaulting the Castle
Chester stood on the doorstep for some minutes, thinking, in perfect ignorance of what was taking place inside, and twice over he rang the bell, in the determination to enter and confront these men.
But reason stepped in.
“No,” he thought, “I could do nothing. For Marion’s sake I must bring subtlety to bear, not brute force. And this is leaving England, to try and forget everything,” he added, with a mocking laugh. “No; I must stay and unravel it all.”
He went home, had recourse to a drug again, and slept heavily till morning, and then, with his brain throbbing painfully from his anxious thoughts, he had left the house, determined to make another effort to obtain speech of Marion. That she was completely under the influence of her friends he felt sure, but if, he told himself, he could only obtain an interview, all might be well.
To this end and full of a fresh project, he took a four-wheeled cab and had himself driven to the end of Highcombe Street, where he bade the driver draw up and wait.
Here he threw himself back in one corner of the vehicle, opened a newspaper so as to screen his face and at the same time enable him to keep a strict watch upon the house.
Fortune favoured him. At the end of an hour he saw the carriage drawn up, and soon after the brothers and their wives came out and were driven off; then the butler stood airing himself upon the step for a time, and finally went in and closed the door.
Chester’s heart beat high with hope, and he waited for a few minutes, which seemed to be an hour. Then, telling the man to wait, he was going down the street, when a shout brought him back.
“Beg pardon, sir; you didn’t take my number,” said the driver, with a grin.
“No, why should I?” said Chester, wonderingly.
“So as to be able to find me agin if you forgets to come back, sir.”
“Oh, I see,” said Chester, smiling, and then placing a couple of coins in the man’s hand. “Don’t be afraid; I shall return.”
The opportunity had come, and without hesitation Chester went straight to the door and rang.
The butler answered the bell, after keeping him waiting some minutes, for it was not visiting time; and as soon as the man saw who it was he reddened a little and looked indignant.
“Take my card up to Miss Clareborough,” said Chester, quietly.
“Not at home, sir.”
“Look here, my man, I particularly wish to see your young lady, so have the goodness to take up my card.”
“Not at home, sir,” repeated the butler, pompously.
“To ordinary visitors, perhaps,” said Chester, whose temper was rising at the man’s manner; “but she will see me.”
“I told you twice over that our young lady wasn’t at home, sir,” said the butler, more offensive in speech and manner than ever.
“Yes,” said Chester, still quietly, “and I know perfectly well that this is only the customary formal reply to ordinary callers. My business is important, and I tell you that Miss Clareborough will see me, so take my card up at once.”
“Look here, sir,” said the man, insolently; “I have had my orders, and I know what to do. Once more: not at home.”
“Am I to understand that you refuse to take up my card?”
“Yes, sir; that’s it. They’ve seen your card, and master said he didn’t know you, and if you came again the family was not at home.”
“I have nothing to do with your master or his brother, my good fellow. My business is with Miss Clareborough, and I insist on seeing her.”
“Not at home,” said the man, shortly; and he drew back to close the door.
But firmly convinced that the lady he desired to see was a prisoner, Chester in his excitement stepped forward, and, to the man’s astonishment, entered the hall.
“Now,” he said angrily, “no more of this insolence, sir; take or send my card in to Miss Clareborough.”
“I say, look here,” cried the the butler, whose face grew ruddy and then white, “haven’t I told you she isn’t at home?”
“Yes, more than once, my good fellow, and I tell you now that she is, and that I will not stir from here until I have seen her.”
“Then look here, sir,” cried the butler; “I shall send for the police.”
“Do – at once,” retorted Chester.
The butler’s jaw dropped in his astonishment, but he recovered himself, closed the door, and took a few steps further into the hall, Chester following.
“Come, none of that,” cried the man. “You’ll stop there, and – ”
“What’s the meaning of this, Mr Roach?” said a familiar voice, and Chester eagerly pressed forward.
“Ah, the housekeeper,” he cried quickly. “This man has refused again and again to bear my card to Miss Marion. Will you have the goodness to take it to her, and say that I beg she will see me for a few minutes at once?”
The old lady’s white forehead puckered up beneath her grey hair, as she looked in a startled way at the speaker, and then turned to the butler, who was holding Chester’s card between his first and second fingers.
“Who is this gentleman?” she said rather sternly, and for me moment Chester was so completely taken aback that the butler had time to speak.
“Here’s his card, ma’am. He’s been before wanting to see Miss Clareborough. Master’s seen it, ma’am, and says he don’t know anything about the gentleman, and that if he had business he was to write.”
The housekeeper turned to Chester, raising her eyebrows a little, and he had by this time recovered his balance.
“Of course,” he said, “I can quite understand Mr James’s action after his treatment of me, madam.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Let me speak to you alone,” he continued. “I can say nothing before this man.”
“Had you not better write to Mr Clareborough, sir, if you have business with the family?”
“No, certainly not,” said Chester. “My business is with Miss Clareborough, and I insist upon seeing her.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said the housekeeper, calmly; “as a gentleman, you must know that one of the ladies would decline to see a stranger on business unless she knew what that business was.”
“A stranger – on business!” cried Chester, angrily. “My good woman, why do you talk like this to me?”
“Really, sir, I do not understand you,” said the housekeeper, with dignity.
“Let me see you alone,” said Chester, earnestly.
“Certainly not, sir. Have the goodness to say what is your business here.”
“You know it is impossible,” cried Chester. “See me alone – send this man away.”
“Stay where you are, Mr Roach,” said the housekeeper, who might, from her calm, dignified manner, have been the mistress of the house. “Are you not making some mistake, sir? Mr Clareborough evidently does not know you.”
“Nor you either?” said Chester, sarcastically.
“I, sir? Certainly not,” replied the housekeeper.
Chester stared at her angrily.
“Do you dare to tell me this?” he cried.
“Come, sir, none of that, please,” said the butler, interfering. “We can’t have you always coming here and asking to see people who don’t want to see you.”
“Stand back, you insolent scoundrel!” cried Chester, turning upon the butler fiercely; and the man obeyed on the instant.
“There is no occasion to make a scene, sir,” said the housekeeper, gently. “Pray be calm. You have, I see, made a mistake. Had you not better go home and write to Mr Clareborough? If your business is important, he will, no doubt, make an appointment to meet you.”
“But you!” cried Chester, returning to the attack, “you deny that you know me?”
“Certainly, sir, I do not know you,” replied the housekeeper.
“Had you not better dismiss this man?”
“No, no,” said the housekeeper, smiling; and there was a very sweet look on her handsome old face. “There is no occasion for that. Pray take my advice; go back home and write what you wish to say.”
“After what has passed, madam, I can hold no communication with Mr Clareborough.”
“Indeed! Well, sir, of course all you say is foreign to me, but I must tell you that it seems the only course open; so much can be done by letter.”
“Then, as I understand,” said Chester, more quietly, “you refuse to give me a few words alone?”
“Yes, sir; you can have nothing to say to me that Mr Roach, the butler, may not hear.”
Chester looked at the woman fixedly, but she met his gaze in the calmest way – not a muscle moved, not a nerve quivered.
“Very well,” he said at last, “I see you are determined to ignore the past entirely.”
The housekeeper made a slight deprecatory movement toward him, and then signed the butler to open the door, which he did with alacrity, but Chester stood fast, looking past the housekeeper toward the end of the hall, where there was the opening into the great dining-room, the scene of the strange adventure when he first came to the house.
“Very well,” he said at last, as he mastered a wild desire to rush upstairs and call Marion by name until she replied; and he spoke now in a subdued tone of voice which the butler could not hear, “of course you are in the plot, but I shall not let matters rest here. It would have been better if you had met me as a friend – as I believed you to be – of Miss Marion and Mr Robert, but I see that you are bound up with the others. And mind this: I was disposed to assist in hushing up that trouble, but as I am convinced that Miss Marion is receiving foul play, I shall leave no stone unturned to obtain speech with her, even going so far, if necessary, as to call in the aid of the police.”
There was a calm, grave, pitying look upon the housekeeper’s countenance which literally staggered Chester, and he went out quickly and turned to the right, the butler closing the door with a bang.
“He’s a regular lunatic, ma’am,” said the butler. “Got hold of the names from the Directory or the tradesfolk; but I’m very glad you were there.”
“Poor gentleman,” said the housekeeper, gravely, “there seems to be some strange hallucination in his brain.”
Chapter Eighteen.
The Bookworm Tries to Bore
As it happened, Chester was musing as he went down the steps.
“They treat me as if I were mad. Have I got some strange notion in my head? No woman could possibly meet one with such a – Ah! good-day!” he cried quickly, for, as he was passing the next door, the grey, dreamy-looking old occupant was in the act of inserting the latch-key.
He turned slowly, pushed back his rather broad-brimmed hat, and blinked at the speaker through his spectacles.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, rather wonderingly; “I – can’t see; yes, to be sure, I remember now;” and the old man’s face lit up. “I remember now. My young friend who was making inquiries. Will you step in, sir? I do not have many visitors.”
He threw open the door and stood smiling holding it back, giving Chester a smile of invitation which made him enter – that, in combination with the sudden thought that he might perhaps learn something about the next-door neighbours.
“Really,” he said frankly, “as a perfect stranger, this is somewhat of an intrusion.”
“Not at all, my dear young friend, not at all. Glad to see you. I lead such an old-world, lost kind of life. I am very glad to have a caller. Come in, my dear young friend, come in. No, no; don’t set your hat down there; it will be covered with dust. Let me put it here. Now, then, come in.”
He led the way into the room on their left, and took a couple of very old folios off a chair.
“A dusty place – a very dusty place; but I dare not trust servants. They have no idea of the value of books, my dear sir. I found one had torn out some pages from a very rare specimen of Wynkyn de Worde to burn under some damp fire-wood. Can’t trust them – can’t trust them. I’ve just had a very serious disappointment. Been down to an auction.”
“Indeed?” said Chester, looking at the old man curiously and wondering where he had seen a face something like his before.
“Yes. One of the big sales. There was a priceless copy of one of Marie de Medici’s books in the list, and I fancy it was with a Grolier binding – just his style; but two other people wanted it. I bid up to four hundred and then stopped. A bit of a bibliomaniac, my dear sir, but not book-mad enough to go higher; couldn’t afford it, even for a unique, tall copy. Knocked down for se-ven hun-dred and forty-nine pounds, sir. A fact. Well, did you find your friends whom you were looking for?”
“Yes – no,” said Chester.
“Dear me; but is not that rather contradictory, my dear sir?” said the old man, smiling.
“Perhaps so, but there is a little mystery about the matter, sir,” replied Chester. “By the way, though, can you tell me anything about your next-door neighbours?”
“My next-door neighbours, my dear sir,” said the old man, smiling and rubbing his thin hands together softly; “well, not much, I am so unsociable a body; and here in London one can be so isolated. Let me see, he is something in the House of Commons – a clerk, or master-at-arms, or usher, or something.”
“Mr Clareborough is?” cried Chester, sharply.
“No – no! That is on the other side. Quite a large family party. Very gay people who have plenty of fashionable callers, and carriages, and parties. I fancy they go a great deal to operas and theatres. The confectioner’s people come sometimes, and musicians, and rout seats. Not in my way, my young friend – not in my way,” continued the old gentleman in his quiet, amiable manner, as he took down the great bulky London Directory. “Yes, yes, yes; here we are – Highcombe Street, Clareborough. There’s the name. Very wealthy, gay family, I believe. Clareborough. That’s it, and I think I’ve heard somehow – I don’t quite know how it was, unless one of the tradespeople told me – that they have a fine place somewhere in Kent – The Towers, I think they call it, and they are often down there, and this place is shut up. I like it to be, because it is so much more quiet for a man busy with his books.”
“Have you – have you noticed anything peculiar about the family?” said Chester in a hesitating way.
The old man beamed upon him through his glasses, then took them off deliberately, and wiped each carefully with an old silk handkerchief, gazing at his questioner with his face wrinkled up as if he were puzzled.
“Anything peculiar?” he said at last. “Well, no, I think not, unless it is that they seem to spend a great deal of money in ephemeral pleasures. Yes, I remember now thinking that they must waste a great deal, and that with so much at their command they might accumulate a grand collection of books.”
“Anything more?” said Chester.
“N-no, my dear sir. I think, now you mention it, that I have taken more notice of my neighbour on the other side. Yes, I am sure I have. I remember thinking how bad it must be for his health.”
“Indeed?” said Chester, inquiringly, but with the intention of leading the old man back into talking about his other neighbours.
“Oh yes. You see, I often hear him coming home extremely late in the night. Twelve, one, and two o’clock, sometimes even by broad daylight. Not that I was watching him, but I often lie awake for hours, musing about some particular book that I have not obtained. I’m afraid I shall not sleep to-night for thinking of that book I missed at the sale to-day. But I put it to you, my dear sir; it was too much to give, was it not?”
“Certainly,” said Chester, smiling, as he seized the opportunity to turn back the conversation to the other side; “but I suppose, according to your showing, the sum named would have been a trifle to your other neighbours.”
“Hah! Yes, I suppose it would – yes, I suppose it would. But are you a collector?”
“I? Oh no,” said Chester, smiling, “only a very ignorant body.”
“No, no, no, no,” said the old man, smiling pleasantly. “I know better than that. One gets to know what a person is more or less by his conversation, my dear sir, and I could vouch for it that you are a student.”
“Well, I must own to that, more or less, as to medicine and surgery.”
“I thought so, I thought so,” said the old man, bending down to clasp his hands about one knee and sit as if thinking deeply over something, while Chester gladly availed himself of the silence to give free rein to his own thoughts.
For an idea had suddenly occurred to him which lit up his troubled brain like a flash of light.
He was in the next house – the old man leading his solitary life seemed pleased to have found someone ready to converse with him. Why should he not try and cultivate the old fellow’s acquaintance, and take advantage of the opportunities it would afford him of watching his neighbours?
He had hardly thought this when the old man looked up, smiling at him in a child-like, pleasant way.
“How strange – how very strange it all is, my dear sir. Now, you will hardly credit me when I tell you that for some time past I have been suffering from little symptoms which at their frequent and more frequent recurrence suggest to me that I ought to consult a medical man.”
“Indeed?” said Chester.
“Yes, my dear sir, indeed; but you see, I am a very old man now, and I fear that I have grown weak and vacillating; I may add cowardly too. I have shrunk from going to a doctor for fear that he should tell me that I must give up my studies – that I am failing and coming very near to the end of my span.”
“Oh, surely not,” said Chester. “You look a very healthy subject, sir.”
“I – I don’t know, my dear sir, but I have been afraid to go; and here, all at once, in the most casual way, I suddenly make the acquaintance of a medical man, and find him seated opposite to me, talking in a friendly way which quite invites my confidence. It is strange, is it not?”
“Very strange, indeed,” said Chester, gazing hard in the pleasant, bland old countenance before him. “But really, my dear sir, I do not think you require medical advice.”
The old man returned the fixed gaze and then said appealingly —
“I hope, my dear sir, you are speaking sincerely.”
“Of course,” replied Chester.
“Not as doctors sometimes do, to encourage their patients?”
“Certainly not,” cried Chester. “There is every sign of a vigorous, green old age about you.”
“That is very pleasant to hear, my dear sir,” said the old man, “very pleasant. I don’t think I am one ready to repine, or one who would seek to live for selfish considerations – love of pleasure or the like – but I have so much to do. I want years yet to complete my collection, and I may have to go over to Leyden, Leipsic, Nuremberg, Florence, and several of the other Continental towns which were the birthplaces of many of these old tomes which you see upon my shelves.”
“I see no reason why you should not live for years yet, sir,” said Chester, encouragingly.
“But my head – my brain. I find I grow forgetful, my dear sir. I put away books and forget their places. All little symptoms, are they not, of failing powers?”
“To be perfectly candid, certainly they are,” said Chester; “but in a healthy old age these failings come very, very gradually, and nature suggests so many ways of palliating them. For instance, a clever young secretary with a methodical turn of mind would relieve you of a trouble like this. Really I do not think that you have any occasion to trouble yourself about such a symptom as that, any more than you have about the failing powers of sight which compelled you to take to glasses.”
“My dear young friend!” cried the old man, leaning forward to catch at his visitor’s hand, “I cannot find words to express my gratitude. You do not know what a relief your words have been to me. It is wonderful, and upon such a casual acquaintanceship. But I sincerely hope that you will let me see more of you – er – that is, if I am not troublesome to you; such a wearisome old bookworm as I fear I must be. But the mouse helped the lion, you know, and who knows but what I may be able to help you with some information about your friends next door – let me see, I think you said it was the people next door whom you had been trying to find.”
