The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ®. Морис Леблан
“Why, you’re not going back to Glen-Ellachie tonight, surely?” Charles exclaimed, in amazement. “Lady Vandrift will be so disappointed! Besides, this business can’t be arranged between two trains, do you think, Mr. Granton?”
Young Granton smiled. He had an agreeable smile—canny, yet open.
“Oh no,” he said frankly. “I didn’t mean to go back. I’ve put up at the inn. I have my wife with me, you know—and, I wasn’t invited.”
Amelia was of opinion, when we told her this episode, that David Granton wouldn’t stop at Seldon because he was an Honourable. Isabel was of opinion he wouldn’t stop because he had married an unpresentable young woman somewhere out in South Africa. Charles was of opinion that, as representative of the hostile interest, he put up at the inn, because it might tie his hands in some way to be the guest of the chairman of the rival company. And I was of opinion that he had heard of the castle, and knew it well by report as the dullest country-house to stay at in Scotland.
However that may be, young Granton insisted on remaining at the Cromarty Arms, though he told us his wife would be delighted to receive a call from Lady Vandrift and Mrs. Wentworth. So we all returned with him to bring the Honourable Mrs. Granton up to tea at the Castle.
She was a nice little thing, very shy and timid, but by no means unpresentable, and an evident lady. She giggled at the end of every sentence; and she was endowed with a slight squint, which somehow seemed to point all her feeble sallies. She knew little outside South Africa; but of that she talked prettily; and she won all our hearts, in spite of the cast in her eye, by her unaffected simplicity.
Next morning Charles and I had a regular debate with young Granton about the rival options. Our talk was of cyanide processes, reverberatories, pennyweights, water-jackets. But it dawned upon us soon that, in spite of his red hair and his innocent manners, our friend, the Honourable David Granton, knew a thing or two. Gradually and gracefully he let us see that Lord Craig-Ellachie had sent him for the benefit of the company, but that he had come for the benefit of the Honourable David Granton.
“I’m a younger son, Sir Charles,” he said; “and therefore I have to feather my nest for myself. I know the ground. My father will be guided implicitly by what I advise in the matter. We are men of the world. Now, let’s be business-like. You want to amalgamate. You wouldn’t do that, of course, if you didn’t know of something to the advantage of my father’s company—say, a lode on our land—which you hope to secure for yourself by amalgamation. Very well; I can make or mar your project. If you choose to render it worth my while, I’ll induce my father and his directors to amalgamate. If you don’t, I won’t. That’s the long and the short of it!”
Charles looked at him admiringly.
“Young man,” he said, “you’re deep, very deep—for your age. Is this candour—or deception? Do you mean what you say? Or do you know some reason why it suits your father’s book to amalgamate as well as it suits mine? And are you trying to keep it from me?” He fingered his chin. “If I only knew that,” he went on, “I should know how to deal with you.”
Young Granton smiled again. “You’re a financier, Sir Charles,” he answered. “I wonder, at your time of life, you should pause to ask another financier whether he’s trying to fill his own pocket—or his father’s. Whatever is my father’s goes to his eldest son—and I am his youngest.”
“You are right as to general principles,” Sir Charles replied, quite affectionately. “Most sound and sensible. But how do I know you haven’t bargained already in the same way with your father? You may have settled with him, and be trying to diddle me.”
The young man assumed a most candid air. “Look here,” he said, leaning forward. “I offer you this chance. Take it or leave it. Do you wish to purchase my aid for this amalgamation by a moderate commission on the net value of my father’s option to yourself—which I know approximately?”
“Say five percent,” I suggested, in a tentative voice, just to justify my presence.
He looked me through and through. “Ten is more usual,” he answered, in a peculiar tone and with a peculiar glance.
Great heavens, how I winced! I knew what his words meant. They were the very words I had said myself to Colonel Clay, as the Count von Lebenstein, about the purchase-money of the schloss—and in the very same accent. I saw through it all now. That beastly cheque! This was Colonel Clay; and he was trying to buy up my silence and assistance by the threat of exposure!
My blood ran cold. I didn’t know how to answer him. What happened at the rest of that interview I really couldn’t tell you. My brain reeled round. I heard just faint echoes of “fuel” and “reduction works.” What on earth was I to do? If I told Charles my suspicion—for it was only a suspicion—the fellow might turn upon me and disclose the cheque, which would suffice to ruin me. If I didn’t, I ran a risk of being considered by Charles an accomplice and a confederate.
The interview was long. I hardly know how I struggled through it. At the end young Granton went off, well satisfied, if it was young Granton; and Amelia invited him and his wife up to dinner at the castle.
Whatever else they were, they were capital company. They stopped for three days more at the Cromarty Arms. And Charles debated and discussed incessantly. He couldn’t quite make up his mind what to do in the affair; and I certainly couldn’t help him. I never was placed in such a fix in my life. I did my best to preserve a strict neutrality.
Young Granton, it turned out, was a most agreeable person; and so, in her way, was that timid, unpretending South African wife of his. She was naively surprised Amelia had never met her mamma at Durban. They both talked delightfully, and had lots of good stories—mostly with points that told against the Craig-Ellachie people. Moreover, the Honourable David was a splendid swimmer. He went out in a boat with us, and dived like a seal. He was burning to teach Charles and myself to swim, when we told him we could neither of us take a single stroke; he said it was an accomplishment incumbent upon every true Englishman. But Charles hates the water; while, as for myself, I detest every known form of muscular exercise.
However, we consented that he should row us on the Firth, and made an appointment one day with himself and his wife for four the next evening.
That night Charles came to me with a very grave face in my own bedroom. “Sey,” he said, under his breath, “have you observed? Have you watched? Have you any suspicions?”
I trembled violently. I felt all was up. “Suspicions of whom?” I asked. “Not surely of Simpson?” (he was Sir Charles’s valet).
My respected brother-in-law looked at me contemptuously.
“Sey,” he said, “are you trying to take me in? No, not of Simpson: of these two young folks. My own belief is—they’re Colonel Clay and Madame Picardet.”
“Impossible!” I cried.
He nodded. “I’m sure of it.”
“How do you know?”
“Instinctively.”
I seized his arm. “Charles,” I said, imploring him, “do nothing rash. Remember how you exposed yourself to the ridicule of fools over Dr. Polperro!”
“I’ve thought of that,” he answered, “and I mean to ca’ caller.” (When in Scotland as laird of Seldon, Charles loves both to dress and to speak the part thoroughly.) “First thing tomorrow I shall telegraph over to inquire at Glen-Ellachie; I shall find out whether this is really young Granton or not; meanwhile, I shall keep my eye close upon the fellow.”
Early next morning, accordingly, a groom was dispatched with a telegram to Lord Craig-Ellachie. He was to ride over to Fowlis, send it off at once, and wait for the answer. At the same time, as it was probable Lord Craig-Ellachie would have started for the moors before the telegram reached the Lodge, I did not myself expect to see the reply arrive much before seven or eight that evening. Meanwhile, as it was far from certain we had not the real David