The accused then left the Court with his friends, one of them said lightly, as I approached. He was granted a free pardon, but bound over in his own recognisances to keep the peace for six months.
You have been getting yourself into trouble, Dick, and no mistake, observed his neighbour I am generally called Dick by my friends.
Into trouble? What do you mean? I retorted, nettled.
Why you know quite well, he answered. This Houghton affair, the scandal about the Thorolds, of course. How came you to get mixed up in it? We like you, old man, but you know it makes it a bit unpleasant for some of us. You know what people are. They will talk.
I suppose you mean that men are judged by the company they keep, and that because I happened to be at Houghton at the time of that affair, and was unwillingly dragged into prominence by the newspapers, therefore that discredit reflects on me.
Well, I should not have expressed it precisely in that way, but still
Still what?
As you ask me, I suppose I must answer. I do think it rather unfortunate you should have got yourself mixed up in the business, and both Algie and Frank agree with me dont you, Algie? he ended, turning to his friend.
Awe er awe quite so, quite so. We were talking of you just as you came in, my dear old Dick, and we all agreed it was, awe er was awe a confounded pity you had anything to do with it. Bad form, you know, old Dick, all this notoriety. Never does to be unusual, singular, or different from other people eh what? Ones friends dont like it and one dont like it oneself what?
Their shallow views and general mental vapidity, if I may put it so, jarred upon me. After spending ten minutes in their company, I went into the dining-room and lunched alone. Then I read the newspapers, dozed in an armchair for half-an-hour, and finally, at about four oclock, returned to my flat in King Street. John met me on the stairs.
Ah! there you are, sir, he exclaimed. Did you meet them?
Meet whom?
Why, they havent been gone not two minutes, so I thought you might have met them in the street, sir. They waited over half-an-hour.
But who were they? What were their names? I asked, irritated at John for not telling me at once the names of the visitors.
A young lady and a gentleman theres a card on your table, sir; I cant recall the names for the moment, he said, wrinkling his forehead as he scratched his ear to stimulate his memory. The gentleman was extremely tall, quite a giant, with a dark beard.
I hurried up the stairs, for the lift was out of order, and let myself into my flat with my latch key. On the table, in my sitting-room, was a ladys card on a salver.
Miss Thorold.
In Veras 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 most matter-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 my breath. Was it possible that my love was an actress, in the sense that she was acting a part? Had she cruelly deceived me when she had declared so earnestly that she loved me? The reflection that, were she practising deception, she would not have come to see me thus openly with the man with the black beard, relieved my feelings only a little. For how came she to be with Davies at all? And again, who was this man Davies? Also that telephone message a fortnight previously, how could I account for it under the circumstances?
Oh, come to me do come to me! I am in such trouble, my love had cried so piteously, and then had added: You alone can help me.
Some one else, apparently, must have helped her. Could it have been this big, dark man?
And was he, in consequence, supplanting me in her affection? The thought held me breathless.
At times I am something of a philosopher, though my relatives laugh when I tell them so, and reply, Not a philosopher, only a well-meaning fellow, and extremely good-natured a description I detest. Realising now the uselessness of worrying over the matter, I decided to make no further move, but to sit quiet and await developments.
If you worry, I often tell my friends, it wont in the least help to avert impending disaster, while if what you worry about never comes to pass, you have made yourself unhappy to no purpose.
A platitude? Possibly. But two-thirds of the words of wisdom uttered by great men, and handed down as tradition to a worshipping posterity, are platitudes of the most commonplace type, if you really come to analyse them.
Time hung heavily. It generally ends by hanging heavily upon a man without occupation. But put yourself for a moment in my place. I had lost my love, and those days of inactivity and longing were doubly tedious because I ached to bestir myself somehow, anyhow, to clear up a mystery which, though gradually fading from the mind of a public ever athirst for fresh sensation, was actively alive in my own thoughts the one thought, indeed, ever present in my mind. Why had the Thorolds so suddenly and mysteriously disappeared?
Thus it occurred to me, two days after Davies and Vera had called at my flat, to stroll down into Belgravia and interview the caretaker at 102, Belgrave Street. Possibly by this time, I reflected, he might have seen Sir Charles Thorold, or heard from him.
When I had rung three times, the door slowly opened to the length of its chain, and I think quite the queerest-looking little old man I had ever set eyes on, peered out. He gazed with his sharp, beady eyes up into my face for a moment or two, then asked, in a broken quavering voice
Are you another newspaper genleman?
Oh, no, I answered, laughing, for I guessed at once how he must have been harassed by reporters, and I could sympathise with him. I am not a journalist Im only a gentleman.
Of course he was too old to note the satire, but the fact that I wore a silk hat and a clean collar, seemed to satisfy him that I must be a person of some consequence, and when I had assured him that I meant him no ill, but that, on the contrary, I might have something to tell him that he would like to hear, he shut the door, and I heard his trembling old 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 a kettle purred on a gas-stove. I know him well, you know; I was staying at 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 dont you sit down and make yourself comfortable, my old friend, I went on affably. I drew forward his armchair, and he sank into it with a grunt of relief.
You are a very kind genleman, you are, very kind indeed, he said, in a tone that betrayed true gratitude. Ah! Ive known genlemen in my time, and I know a genleman when I sees one, I do.
What part of Norfolk do you come from? I asked, as I took a seat near him, for I knew the Norfolk brogue quite well.
He looked at me and grinned.
Well, now, thats strange you knowing I come from Norfolk! But its true. Oh, yes, it is right. Im a Norfolk man. I was born in Diss. I mind the time my father