Mysterious Mr. Sabin Part 21

"The one I was driving yesterday would be a great deal more comfortable," he said; "to-day I only thought of getting here quickly. I have a little business with Mr. Sabin."

"Is that a hint for me to go?" she asked. "You are not agreeable this morning! What possible business can you have with my uncle which does not include me? I am not inclined to go away; I shall stay and listen."

Mr. Sabin smiled faintly; the girl was showing her sense now at any rate. Wolfenden was obviously embarra.s.sed. Helene remained blandly unconscious of anything serious.

"I suppose," she said, "that you want to talk golf again! Golf! Why one hears nothing else but golf down here. Don't you ever shoot or ride for a change?"

Wolfenden was suddenly a.s.sailed by an horrible suspicion. He could scarcely believe that her unconsciousness was altogether natural. At the bare suspicion of her being in league with this man he stiffened. He answered without looking at her, conscious though he was that her dark eyes were seeking his invitingly, and that her lips were curving into a smile.

"I am not thinking of playing golf to-day," he said. "Unfortunately I have less pleasant things to consider. If you could give me five minutes, Mr. Sabin," he added, "I should be very glad."

She rose immediately with all the appearance of being genuinely offended; there was a little flush in her cheeks and she walked straight to the door. Wolfenden held it open for her.

"I am exceedingly sorry to have been in the way for a moment," she said; "pray proceed with your business at once."

Wolfenden did not answer her. As she pa.s.sed through the doorway she glanced up at him; he was not even looking at her. His eyes were fixed upon Mr. Sabin. The fingers which rested upon the door k.n.o.b seemed twitching with impatience to close it. She stood quite still for a moment; the colour left her cheeks, and her eyes grew soft. She was not angry any longer. Instinctively some idea of the truth flashed in upon her; she pa.s.sed out thoughtfully. Wolfenden closed the door and turned to Mr. Sabin.

"You can easily imagine the nature of my business," he said coldly. "I have come to have an explanation with you."

Mr. Sabin lit a fresh cigarette and smiled on Wolfenden thoughtfully.

"Certainly," he said; "an explanation! Exactly!"

"Well," said Wolfenden, "suppose you commence, then."

Mr. Sabin looked puzzled.

"Had you not better be a little more explicit?" he suggested gently.

"I will be," Wolfenden replied, "as explicit as you choose. My mother has given me her whole confidence. I have come to ask how you dare to enter Deringham Hall as a common burglar attempting to commit a theft; and to demand that you instantly return to me a letter, on which you have attempted to levy blackmail. Is that explicit enough?"

Mr. Sabin's face did not darken, nor did he seem in any way angry or discomposed. He puffed at his cigarette for a moment or two, and then looked blandly across at his visitor.

"You are talking rubbish," he said in his usual calm, even tones, "but you are scarcely to blame. It is altogether my own fault. It is quite true that I was in your house last night, but it was at your mother's invitation, and I should very much have preferred coming openly at the usual time, to sneaking in according to her directions through a window. It was only a very small favour I asked, but Lady Deringham persuaded me that your father's mental health and antipathy to strangers was such that he would never give me the information I desired, voluntarily, and it was entirely at her suggestion that I adopted the means I did. I am very sorry indeed that I allowed myself to be over-persuaded and placed in an undoubtedly false position. Women are always nervous and imaginative, and I am convinced that if I had gone openly to your father and laid my case before him he would have helped me."

"He would have done nothing of the sort!" Wolfenden declared. "Nothing would induce him to show even a portion of his work to a stranger."

Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders gently, and continued without heeding the interruption.

"As to my blackmailing Lady Deringham, you have spoken plainly to me, and you must forgive me for answering you in the same fashion. It is a lie! I had letters of hers, which I voluntarily destroyed in her presence; they were only a little foolish, or I should have destroyed them long ago. I had the misfortune to be once a favoured suitor for your mother's hand; and I think I may venture to say--I am sure she will not contradict me--that I was hardly treated. The only letter I ever had from her likely to do her the least harm I destroyed fifteen years ago, when I first embarked upon what has been to a certain extent a career of adventure. I told her that it was not in the packet which we burnt together yesterday. If she understood from that that it was still in my possession, and that I was retaining it for any purpose whatever, she was grievously mistaken in my words. That is all I have to say."

He had said it very well indeed. Wolfenden, listening intently to every word, with his eyes rigidly fixed upon the man's countenance, could not detect a single false note anywhere. He was puzzled. Perhaps his mother had been nervously excited, and had mistaken some sentence of his for a covert threat. Yet he thought of her earnestness, her terrible earnestness, and a sense of positive bewilderment crept over him.

"We will leave my mother out of the question then," he said. "We will deal with this matter between ourselves. I should like to know exactly what part of my father's work you are so anxious to avail yourself of, and for what purpose?"

Mr. Sabin drew a letter from his pocket, and handed it over to Wolfenden. It was from the office of one of the first European Reviews, and briefly contained a request that Mr. Sabin would favour them with an article on the comparative naval strengths of European Powers, with particular reference to the armament and coast defences of Great Britain. Wolfenden read it carefully and pa.s.sed it back. The letter was genuine, there was no doubt about that.

"It seemed to me," Mr. Sabin continued, "the most natural thing in the world to consult your father upon certain matters concerning which he is, or has been, a celebrated authority. In fact I decided to do so at the instigation of one of the Lords of your Admiralty, to whom he is personally well known. I had no idea of acting except in the most open manner, and I called at Deringham Hall yesterday afternoon, and sent in my card in a perfectly orthodox way, as you may have heard. Your mother took quite an unexpected view of the whole affair, owing partly to your father's unfortunate state of health and partly to some extraordinary attempts which, I am given to understand, have been made to rob him of his work. She was very anxious to help me, but insisted that it must be secretly. Last night's business was, I admit, a ghastly mistake--only it was not my mistake! I yielded to Lady Deringham's proposals under strong protest. As a man, I think I may say of some intelligence, I am ashamed of the whole affair; at the same time I am guilty only of an indiscretion which was sanctioned and instigated by your mother. I really do not see how I can take any blame to myself in the matter."

"You could scarcely attribute to Lady Deringham," Wolfenden remarked, "the injury to the watchman."

"I can take but little blame to myself," Mr. Sabin answered promptly. "The man was drunk; he had been, I imagine, made drunk, and I merely pushed him out of the way. He fell heavily, but the fault was not mine. Look at my physique, and remember that I was unarmed, and ask yourself what mischief I could possibly have done to the fellow."

Wolfenden reflected.

"You appear to be anxious," he said, "to convince me that your desire to gain access to a portion of my father's papers is a harmless one. I should like to ask you why you have in your employ a young lady who was dismissed from Deringham Hall under circ.u.mstances of strong suspicion?"

Mr. Sabin raised his eyebrows.

"It is the first time I have heard of anything suspicious connected with Miss Merton," he said. "She came into my service with excellent testimonials, and I engaged her at Willing's bureau. The fact that she had been employed at Deringham Hall was merely a coincidence."

"Was it also a coincidence," Wolfenden continued, "that in reply to a letter attempting to bribe my father's secretary, Mr. Blatherwick, it was she, Miss Merton, who kept an appointment with him?"

"That," Mr. Sabin answered, "I know nothing of. If you wish to question Miss Merton you are quite at liberty to do so; I will send for her."

Wolfenden shook his head.

"Miss Merton was far too clever to commit herself," he said; "she knew from the first that she was being watched, and behaved accordingly. If she was not there as your agent, her position becomes more extraordinary still."

"I can a.s.sure you," Mr. Sabin said, with an air of weariness, "that I am not the man of mystery you seem to think me. I should never dream of employing such roundabout means for gaining possession of a few statistics."

Wolfenden was silent. His case was altogether one of surmises; he could prove nothing.

"Perhaps," he said, "I have been precipitate. It would appear so. But if I am unduly suspicious, you have yourself only to blame! You admit that your name is an a.s.sumed one. You refuse my suit to your niece without any reasonable cause. You are evidently, to be frank, a person of much more importance than you lay claim to be. Now be open with me. If there is any reason, although I cannot conceive an honest one, for concealing your ident.i.ty, why, I will respect your confidence absolutely. You may rely upon that. Tell me who you are, and who your niece is, and why you are travelling about in this mysterious way."

Mr. Sabin smiled good-humouredly.

"Well," he said, "you must forgive me if I plead guilty to the false ident.i.ty--and preserve it. For certain reasons it would not suit me to take even you into my confidence. Besides which, if you will forgive my saying so, there does not seem to be the least necessity for it. We are leaving here during the week, and shall in all probability go abroad almost at once; so we are not likely to meet again. Let us part pleasantly, and abandon a somewhat profitless discussion."

For a moment Wolfenden was staggered. They were leaving England! Going away! That meant that he would see no more of Helene. His indignation against the man, kindled almost into pa.s.sionate anger by his mother's story, was forgotten, overshadowed by a keen thrill of personal disappointment. If they were really leaving England, he might bid farewell to any chance of winning her; and there were certain words of hers, certain gestures, which had combined to fan that little flame of hope, which nothing as yet had ever been able to extinguish. He looked into Mr. Sabin's quiet face, and he was conscious of a sense of helplessness. The man was too strong and too wily for him; it was an unequal contest.

"We will abandon the discussion then, if you will," Wolfenden said slowly. "I will talk with Lady Deringham again. She is in an extremely nervous state; it is possible of course that she may have misunderstood you."

Mr. Sabin sighed with an air of gentle relief. Ah! if the men of other countries were only as easy to delude as these Englishmen! What a triumphant career might yet be his!

"I am very glad," he said, "that you do me the honour to take, what I can a.s.sure you, is the correct view of the situation. I hope that you will not hurry away; may I not offer you a cigarette?"

Wolfenden sat down for the first time.

"Are you in earnest," he asked, "when you speak of leaving England so soon?"

"a.s.suredly! You will do me the justice to admit that I have never pretended to like your country, have I? I hope to leave it for several years, if not for ever, within the course of a few weeks."

"And your niece, Mr. Sabin?"

"She accompanies me, of course; she likes this country even less than I do. Perhaps, under the circ.u.mstances, our departure is the best thing that could happen; it is at any rate opportune."

"I cannot agree with you," Wolfenden said; "for me it is most inopportune. I need scarcely say that I have not abandoned my desire to make your niece my wife."

"I should have thought," Mr. Sabin said, with a fine note of satire in his tone, "that you would have put far away from you all idea of any connection with such suspicious personages."

"I have never had," Wolfenden said calmly, "any suspicion at all concerning your niece."

"She would be, I am sure, much flattered," Mr. Sabin declared. "At the same time I can scarcely see on what grounds you continue to hope for an impossibility. My niece's refusal seemed to me explicit enough, especially when coupled with my own positive prohibition."

"Your niece," Wolfenden said, "is doubtless of age. I should not trouble about your consent if I could gain hers, and I may as well tell you at once, that I by no means despair of doing so."

Mr. Sabin bit his lip, and his dark eyes flashed out with a sudden fire.

"I should be glad to know, sir," he said, "on what grounds you consider my voice in the affair to be ineffective?"

"Partly," Wolfenden answered, "for the reason which I have already given you--because your niece is of age; and partly also because you persist in giving me no definite reason for your refusal."

"I have told you distinctly," Mr. Sabin said, "that my niece is betrothed and will be married within six months."

"To whom? where is he? why is he not here? Your niece wears no engagement ring. I will answer for it, that if she is as you say betrothed, it is not of her own free will."

"You talk," Mr. Sabin said with dangerous calm, "like a fool. It is not customary amongst the cla.s.s to which my niece belongs to wear always an engagement ring. As for her affections, she has had, I am glad to say, a sufficient self-control to keep them to herself. Your presumption is simply the result of your entire ignorance. I appeal to you for the last time, Lord Wolfenden, to behave like a man of common sense, and abandon hopes which can only end in disappointment."

"I have no intention of doing anything of the sort," Wolfenden said doggedly; "we Englishmen are a pig-headed race, as you were once polite enough to observe. Your niece is the only woman whom I have wished to marry, and I shall marry her, if I can."

"I shall make it my especial concern," Mr. Sabin said firmly, "to see that all intercourse between you ends at once."

Wolfenden rose to his feet.

"It is obviously useless," he said, "to continue this conversation. I have told you my intentions. I shall pursue them to the best of my ability. Good-morning."

Mr. Sabin held out his hand.

"I have just a word more to say to you," he declared. "It is about your father."

"I do not desire to discuss my father, or any other matter with you," Wolfenden said quietly. "As to my father's work, I am determined to solve the mystery connected with it once and for all. I have wired for Mr. C. to come down, and, if necessary, take possession of the papers. You can get what information you require from him yourself."

Mr. Sabin rose up slowly; his long, white fingers were clasped around the head of that curious stick of his. There was a peculiar glint in his eyes, and his cheeks were pale with pa.s.sion.

"I am very much obliged to you for telling me that," he said; "it is valuable information for me. I will certainly apply to Mr. C."

He had been drawing nearer and nearer to Wolfenden. Suddenly he stopped, and, with a swift movement, raised the stick on which he had been leaning, over his head. It whirled round in a semi-circle. Wolfenden, fascinated by that line of gleaming green light, hesitated for a moment, then he sprang backwards, but he was too late. The head of the stick came down on his head, his upraised arm did little to break the force of the blow. He sank to the ground with a smothered groan.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE SECRET OF MR. SABIN'S NIECE.

At the sound of his cry, Helene, who had been crossing the hall, threw open the door just as Mr. Sabin's fingers were upon the key. Seeing that he was powerless to keep from her the knowledge of what had happened, he did not oppose her entrance. She glided into the centre of the room with a stifled cry of terror. Together, she and Mr. Sabin bent over Wolfenden's motionless figure. Mr. Sabin unfastened the waistcoat and felt his heart. She did not speak until he had held his hand there for several seconds, then she asked a question.

"Have you killed him?"

Mr. Sabin shook his head and smiled gently.

"Too tough a skull by far," he said. "Can you get a basin and a towel without any one seeing you?"

She nodded, and fetched them from her own room. The water was fresh and cold, and the towel was of fine linen daintily hemmed, and fragrant with the perfume of violets. Yet neither of these things, nor the soft warmth of her breathing upon his cheek, seemed to revive him in the least. He lay quite still in the same heavy stupor. Mr. Sabin stood upright and looked at him thoughtfully. His face had grown almost haggard.

"We had better send for a doctor," she whispered fiercely. "I shall fetch one myself if you do not!"

Mr. Sabin gently dissented.

"I know quite as much as any doctor," he said; "the man is not dead, or dying, or likely to die. I wonder if we could move him on to that sofa!"

Together they managed it somehow. Mr. Sabin, in the course of his movements to and fro about the room, was attracted by the sight of the dogcart still waiting outside. He frowned, and stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at it. Then he went outside.

"Are you waiting for Lord Wolfenden?" he asked the groom.

The man looked up in surprise.

"Yes, sir. I set him down here nearly an hour ago. I had no orders to go home."

"Lord Wolfenden has evidently forgotten all about you," Mr. Sabin said. "He left by the back way for the golf course, and I am going to join him there directly. He is not coming back here at all. You had better go home, I should think."

The man touched his hat.

"Very good, sir."

There was a little trampling up of the gravel, and Wolfenden's dogcart rapidly disappeared in the distance. Mr. Sabin, with set face and a hard glitter in his eyes went back into the morning room. Helene was still on her knees by Wolfenden's prostrate figure when he entered. She spoke to him without looking up.

"He is a little better, I think; he opened his eyes just now."

"He is not seriously hurt," Mr. Sabin said; "there may be some slight concussion, nothing more. The question is, first, what to do with him, and secondly, how to make the best use of the time which must elapse before he will be well enough to go home."

She looked at him now in horror. He was always like this, unappalled by anything which might happen, eager only to turn every trick of fortune to his own ends. Surely his nerves were of steel and his heart of iron.

"I think," she said, "that I should first make sure that he is likely to recover at all."

Mr. Sabin answered mechanically, his thoughts seemed far away.

"His recovery is a thing already a.s.sured," he said. "His skull was too hard to crack; he will be laid up for an hour or two. What I have to decide is how to use that hour or two to the best possible advantage."

She looked away from him and shuddered. This pa.s.sionate absorption of all his energies into one channel had made a fiend of the man. Her slowly growing purpose took to itself root and branch, as she knelt by the side of the young Englishman, who only a few moments ago had seemed the very embodiment of all manly vigour.

Mr. Sabin stood up. He had arrived at a determination.