Beaumaroy Home from the Wars Part 23

"Don't like it at all," answered Mrs. Radbolt. "We'll get rid of it as soon as we can, won't we, Radbolt?" She always addressed her husband as "Radbolt."

"Don't be in a hurry, don't throw it away," Beaumaroy advised. "It's not everybody's choice, of course, but there are quarters--yes, more than one quarter--in which you might get a very good offer for this place." His eye caught Mary's for a moment. "Indeed I wish I was in a position to make you one myself. I should like to take it as it stands--lock, stock, and barrel. But I've sunk all I had in another venture--hope it'll turn out a satisfactory one! So I'm not in a position to do it. If Mrs. Radbolt wants to sell, what would you think of it, Dr. Arkroyd--as a speculation?"

Mary shook her head, smiling, glad to be able to smile with plausible reason. "I'm not as fond of rash speculations as you are, Mr.

Beaumaroy."

"It may be worth more than it looks," he pursued. "Good neighbourhood, healthy air, fruitful soil--very rich soil hereabouts."

"My dear Beaumaroy, the land about here is abominable," Naylor expostulated.

"Perhaps generally, but some rich pockets--what one may call pockets,"

corrected Beaumaroy.

"I'm not an agriculturist," remarked weaselly Mr. Radbolt in his oily tones.

"And then there's a picturesque old yarn told about it. Oh, whether it's true or not, of course I don't know. It's about a certain Captain Duggle--not the army--the Mercantile Marine, Mrs. Radbolt. You know the story, Dr. Arkroyd? And you too, Mr. Naylor? You're the oldest inhabitant of Inkston present, sir. Suppose you tell it to Mr. and Mrs.

Radbolt? I'm sure it will make them attach a new value to this really very attractive cottage--with, as Dr. Arkroyd says, the additional feature of the Tower."

"I know the story only as a friend of mine--Mr. Penrose--who takes great interest in local records and traditions, told it to me. If our host desires, I shall be happy to tell it to Mrs. Radbolt." Mr. Naylor accompanied his words with a courtly little bow to that lady, and launched upon the legend of Captain Duggle.

Mr. Radbolt was a religious man. At the end of the story he observed gravely, "The belief in diabolical personalities is not to be lightly dismissed, Mr. Beaumaroy."

"I'm entirely of your opinion, Mr. Radbolt." This time Mary felt that her smile was not so plausible.

"There seems to have been nothing in the grave," mused Mrs. Radbolt.

"Apparently not when Captain Duggle left it--if he was ever in it--at all events not when he left the house, in whatever way and by whatever agency."

"As to the latter point, I myself incline to Penrose's theory," said Mr. Naylor. "_Delirium tremens_, you know!"

Beaumaroy puffed at his cigar. "Still, I've often thought that, though it was empty then, it would have made--supposing it really exists--an excellent hiding-place for anybody who wanted such a thing. Say for a miser, or a man who had his reasons for concealing what he was worth! I once suggested the idea to Mr. Saffron, and he was a good deal amused.

He patted me on the shoulder and laughed heartily. He wasn't often so much amused as that."

A new look came into Mrs. Radbolt's green eyes. Up to now, distrust of Beaumaroy had predominated. His frank bearing, his obvious candour and simplicity, had weakened her suspicions. But his words suggested something else; he might be a fool, not a knave; Mr. Saffron had been amused, had laughed beyond his wont. That might have seemed the best way of putting Beaumaroy off the scent. The green eyes were now alert, eager, immensely acquisitive.

"The grave's in the Tower, if it's anywhere. Would you like to see the Tower, Mrs. Radbolt?"

"Yes, I should," she answered tartly. "Being part of our property as it is."

Mary exchanged a glance with Mr. Naylor, as they followed the others into the Tower. "What an abominable woman!" her glance said. Naylor smiled a despairing acquiescence.

The strangers--chief mourners, heirs-at-law, owners now of the place wherein they stood--looked round the bare brick walls of the little rotunda. Naylor examined it with interest too--the old story was a quaint one. Mary stood at the back of the group, smiling triumphantly.

How had he disposed of--everything? She had not been wrong in her unlimited confidence in his ingenuity. She did not falter in her faith in his word pledged to her.

"Safe from burglars, that grave of the Captain's, if you kept it properly concealed!" Beaumaroy pursued in a sort of humorous meditation.

"And in these days some people like to have their money in their own hands. Confiscatory legislation possible, isn't it, Mr. Naylor? You know about those things better than I do. And then the taxes--shocking, Mr.

Radbolt! By Jove, I knew a chap the other day who came in for what sounded like a pretty little inheritance. But by the time he'd paid all the duties and so on, most of the gilt was off the gingerbread! It's there--in front of the hearth--that the story says the grave is. Doesn't it, Mr. Naylor?" A sudden thought seemed to strike him. "I say, Mrs.

Radbolt, would you like us to have a look whether we can find any indications of it?" His eyes travelled beyond the lady whom he addressed, they met Mary's. She knew their message; he was taking her into his confidence about his experiment with the chief mourners.

The stout angular woman had leapt to her conclusion. Much less money than had been expected--no signs of money having been spent--and here, not the cunning knave whom she had expected, but a garrulous open fool, giving away what was--perhaps--a golden secret! Mammon--the greed of acquisitiveness, the voracious appet.i.te for getting more--gleamed in her green eyes.

"There? Do you say it's--it's supposed to be there?" she asked eagerly, with a shake in her voice.

Her husband interposed in a suave and sanctimonious voice: "My dear, if Mr. Beaumaroy and the other gentleman won't mind my saying so, I've been feeling that these are rather light and frivolous topics for the day, and the occasion which brings us here. The whole thing is probably an unfounded story, although there is a sound moral to it. Later on--just as a matter of curiosity--if you like, my dear. But to-day--Cousin Aloysius's day of burial--is it quite seemly?"

The big woman looked at her smaller mate for just a moment--a scrutinizing look. Then she said with most unexpected meekness, "I was wrong. You always have the proper feelings, Radbolt."

"The fault was mine, entirely mine," Beaumaroy hastily interposed. "I dragged in the old yarn, I led Mr. Naylor into telling it, I told you about what I said to Mr. Saffron and how he took it. All my fault! I acknowledge the justice of your rebuke. I apologize, Mr. Radbolt! And I think that we've exhausted the interest of the Tower." He looked at his watch; "Er--how do you stand for time? Shall Mrs. Wiles make us a cup of tea, or have you a train to catch?"

"That's the woman in charge of the house, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Radbolt.

"Comes in for the day. She doesn't sleep here." He smiled pleasantly on Mrs. Radbolt. "To tell you the truth, I don't think that she would consent to sleep here by herself. Silly! But--the old story, you know!

"Don't you sleep here?" the woman persisted, though her husband was looking at her rather uneasily.

"Up to now I have," said Beaumaroy. "But there's nothing to keep me here now, and Mr. Naylor has kindly offered to put me up as long as I stay at Inkston."

"Going to leave the place with n.o.body in it?"

Beaumaroy's manner indicated surprise. "Oh, yes! There's nothing to tempt thieves, is there? Just lock the door and put the key in my pocket!"

The woman looked very surly, but flummoxed. Her husband, with his suave oiliness, came to her rescue. "My wife is always nervous, perhaps foolishly nervous, about fire, Mr. Beaumaroy. Well, with an old house like this, there is always the risk."

"Upon my soul, I hadn't thought of it! And I've packed up all my things, and your car's come and fetched them, Mr. Naylor. Still, of course I could----"

"Oh, we've no right, no claim, to trouble you, Mr. Beaumaroy. Only my wife is----"

"Fire's an obsession with me, I'm afraid," said the stout woman, with a rumbling giggle. The sound of her mirth was intolerably disagreeable to Mary.

"I really think, my dear, that you'll feel easier if I stay myself, won't you? You can send me what I want to-morrow, and rejoin me when we arrange--because we shall have to settle what's to be done with the place."

"As you please, Mr. Radbolt." Beaumaroy's tone was, for the first time, a little curt. It hinted some slight offence--as though he felt himself charged with carelessness, and considered Mrs. Radbolt's obsession mere fussiness. "No doubt, if you stay, Mrs. Wiles will agree to stay too, and do her best to make you comfortable."

"I shall feel easier that way, Radbolt," Mrs. Radbolt admitted, with another rumble of apologetic mirth.

Beaumaroy motioned his guests back to the parlour. His manner retained its shade of distance and offence. "Then it really only remains for me to wish you good-bye--and all happiness in your new property. Any information in my possession as to Mr. Saffron's affairs I shall, of course, be happy to give you. Is the car coming for you, Mr. Naylor?"

"I thought it would be pleasant to walk back; and I hope Doctor Mary will come with us and have some tea. I'll send you home afterwards, Doctor Mary."

Farewells were exchanged, but now without even a show of cordiality.

Naylor and Doctor Mary felt too much distaste for the chief mourners to attain more than a cold civility. Beaumaroy did not relax into his earlier friendliness. His apparent dislike to her husband's plan of staying at the cottage roused Mrs. Radbolt's suspicions again; was he a rogue after all, but a very plausible, a very deep one? Only Mr.

Radbolt's unctuousness--surely it would have smoothed the stormiest waves?--saved the social situation.

"Intelligent people, I thought," Beaumaroy observed, as the three friends pursued their way across the heath towards Old Place. "Didn't you, Mr. Naylor?"

Old Naylor grunted. With a twinkle in his eyes, Beaumaroy tried Doctor Mary. "What was your impression of them?"

"Oh!" moaned Mary, with a deep and expressive note. "But how did you know they'd be like that?"