The Blotting Book Part 10

"I left it at the door," he said with quiet emphasis. "Can you remember that? I left it. And I hope, Martin, that you have made a fresh start, and that I need never be obliged to tell anybody what I know about you.

You will remember my instructions? I left this at the door. Thank you.

My hat? Yes, and my stick."

Mr. Taynton went straight back to his office, and though this morning there had seemed to him to be a good deal of work to be got through, he found that much of it could be delegated to his clerks. So before leaving to go to his lunch, he called in Mr. Timmins.

"Mr. Mills not been here all morning?" he asked. "No? Well, Timmins, there is this packet which I want him to look at, if he comes in before I am back. I shall be here again by five, as there is an hour's work for me to do before evening. Yes, that is all, thanks. Please tell Mr. Mills I shall come back, as I said. How pleasant this freshness is after the rain. The 'clear shining after rain.' Wonderful words! Yes, Mr. Timmins, you will find the verse in the second book of Samuel and the twenty-third chapter."

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Taynton made but a short meal of lunch, and ate but sparingly, for he meant to take a good walk this afternoon, and it was not yet two o'clock when he came out of his house again, stick in hand. It was a large heavy stick that he carried, a veritable club, one that it would be easy to recognise amid a host of others, even as he had recognised it that morning in the rather populous umbrella stand in the hall of Mrs.

a.s.sheton's house. He had, it may be remembered, more office work to get through before evening, so he prepared to walk out as far as the limits of the time at his disposal would admit and take the train back. And since there could be nothing more pleasurable in the way of walking than locomotion over the springy gra.s.s of the downs, he took, as he had done a hundred times before, the road that led to Falmer. A hundred yards out of Brighton there was a stile by the roadside; from there a footpath, if it could be dignified by the name of path at all, led over the hills to a corner of Falmer Park. From there three or four hundred yards of highway would bring him to the station. He would be in good time to catch the 4.30 train back, and would thus be at his office again for an hour's work at five.

His walk was solitary and uneventful, but, to one of so delicate and sensitive a mind, full of tiny but memorable sights and sounds. Up on these high lands there was a considerable breeze, and Mr. Taynton paused for a minute or two beside a windmill that stood alone, in the expanse of down, watching, with a sort of boyish wonder, the huge flails swing down and aspire again in the circles of their tireless toil. A little farther on was a gra.s.s-grown tumulus of Saxon times, and his mind was distracted from the present to those early days when the unknown dead was committed to this wind-swept tomb. Forests of pine no doubt then grew around his resting place, it was beneath the gloom and murmur of their sable foliage that this dead chief was entrusted to the keeping of the kindly earth. He pa.s.sed, too, over the lines of a Roman camp; once this sunny empty down re-echoed to the clang of arms, the voices of the living were mingled with the cries and groans of the dying, for without doubt this stronghold of Roman arms was not won, standing, as it did, on the top-most commanding slope of the hills, without slaughter. Yet to-day the peaceful clumps of cistus and the trembling harebell blossomed on the battlefield.

From this point the ground declined swiftly to the main road. Straight in front of him were the palings of Falmer Park, and the tenantless down with its long smooth curves, was broken up into sudden hillocks and depressions. Dells and dingles, some green with bracken, others half full of water lay to right and left of the path, which, as it approached the corner of the park, was more strongly marked than when it lay over the big open s.p.a.ces. It was somewhat slippery, too, after the torrent of yesterday, and Mr. Taynton's stick saved him more than once from slipping. But before he got down to the point where the corner of the park ab.u.t.ted on the main road, he had leaned on it too heavily, and for all its seeming strength, it had broken in the middle. The two pieces were but luggage to him and just as he came to the road, he threw them away into a wooded hollow that adjoined the path. The stick had broken straight across; it was no use to think of having it mended.

He was out of the wind here, and since there was still some ten minutes to spare, he sat down on the gra.s.sy edge of the road to smoke a cigarette. The woods of the park basked in the fresh sunshine; three hundred yards away was Falmer Station, and beyond that the line was visible for a mile as it ran up the straight valley. Indeed he need hardly move till he saw the steam of his train on the limit of the horizon. That would be ample warning that it was time to go.

Then from far away, he heard the throbbing of a motor, which grew suddenly louder as it turned the corner of the road by the station. It seemed to him to be going very fast, and the huge cloud of dust behind it endorsed his impression. But almost immediately after pa.s.sing this corner it began to slow down, and the cloud of dust behind it died away.

At the edge of the road where Mr. Taynton sat, there were standing several thick bushes. He moved a little away from the road, and took up his seat again behind one of them. The car came very slowly on, and stopped just opposite him. On his right lay the hollow where he had thrown the useless halves of his stick, on his left was the corner of the Falmer Park railings. He had recognised the driver of the car, who was alone.

Morris got out when he had stopped the car, and then spoke aloud, though to himself.

"Yes, there's the corner," he said, "there's the path over the downs. There--"

Mr. Taynton got up and came toward him.

"My dear fellow," he said, "I have walked out from Brighton on this divine afternoon, and was going to take the train back. But will you give me the pleasure of driving back with you instead?"

Morris looked at him a moment as if he hardly thought he was real.

"Why, of course," he said.

Mr. Taynton was all beams and smiles.

"And you have seen Mills?" he asked. "You have been convinced that he was innocent of the terrible suspicion? Morris, my dear boy, what is the matter?"

Morris had looked at him for a moment with incredulous eyes. Then he had sat down and covered his face with his hands.

"It's nothing," he said at length. "I felt rather faint. I shall be better in a minute. Of course I'll drive you back."

He sat huddled up with hidden face for a moment or two. Mr. Taynton said nothing, but only looked at him. Then the boy sat up.

"I'm all right," he said, "it was just a dream I had last night. No, I have not seen Mills; they tell me he left yesterday afternoon for Brighton. Shall we go?"

For some little distance they went in silence; then it seemed that Morris made an effort and spoke.

"Really, I got what they call 'quite a turn' just now," he said. "I had a curiously vivid dream last night about that corner, and you suddenly appeared in my dream quite unexpectedly, as you did just now."

"And what was this dream?" asked Mr. Taynton, turning up his coat collar, for the wind of their movement blew rather shrilly on to his neck.

"Oh, nothing particular," said Morris carelessly, "the vividness was concerned with your appearance; that was what startled me."

Then he fell back into the train of thought that had occupied him all the way down from London.

"I believe I was half-mad with rage last night," he said at length, "but this afternoon, I think I am beginning to be sane again. It's true Mills tried to injure me, but he didn't succeed. And as you said last night I have too deep and intense a cause of happiness to give my thoughts and energies to anything so futile as hatred or the desire for revenge. He is punished already. The fact of his having tried to injure me like that was his punishment. Anyhow, I am sick and tired of my anger."

The lawyer did not speak for a moment, and when he did his voice was trembling.

"G.o.d bless you, my dear boy," he said gently.

Morris devoted himself for some little time to the guiding of the car.

"And I want you also to leave it all alone," he said after a while. "I don't want you to dissolve your partnership with him, or whatever you call it. I suppose he will guess that you know all about it, so perhaps it would be best if you told him straight out that you do. And then you can, well, make a few well-chosen remarks you know, and drop the whole d.a.m.ned subject forever."

Mr. Taynton seemed much moved.

"I will try," he said, "since you ask it. But Morris, you are more generous than I am."

Morris laughed, his usual boyish high spirits and simplicity were rea.s.serting themselves again.

"Oh, that's all rot," he said. "It's only because it's so fearfully tiring to go on being angry. But I can't help wondering what has happened to the fellow. They told me at his flat in town that he went off with his luggage yesterday afternoon, and gave orders that all letters were to be sent to his Brighton address. You don't think there's anything wrong, do you?"

"My dear fellow, what could be wrong?" asked Mr. Taynton. "He had some business to do at Lewes on his way down, and I make no doubt he slept there, probably forgetting all about his appointment with me. I would wager you that we shall find he is in Brighton when we get in."

"I'll take that," said Morris. "Half a crown."

"No, no, my usual shilling, my usual shilling," laughed the other.

Morris set Mr. Taynton down at his office, and by way of settling their wager at once, waited at the door, while the other went upstairs to see if his partner was there. He had not, however, appeared there that day, and Mr. Taynton sent a clerk down to Morris, to ask him to come up, and they would ring up Mr. Mills's flat on the telephone.

This was done, and before many seconds had elapsed they were in communication. His valet was there, still waiting for his master's return, for he had not yet come back. It appeared that he was getting rather anxious, for Mr. Taynton rea.s.sured him.

"There is not the slightest cause for any anxiety," were his concluding words. "I feel convinced he has merely been detained. Thanks, that's all.

Please let me know as soon as he returns."

He drew a shilling from his pocket, and handed it to Morris. But his face, in spite of his rea.s.suring words, was a little troubled. You would have said that though he might not yet be anxious, he saw that there was some possibility of his being so, before very long. Yet he spoke gaily enough.

"And I made so sure I should win," he said. "I shall put it down to unexpected losses, not connected with business; eh, Mr. Timmins? Or shall it be charity? It would never do to put down 'Betting losses.'"