The House 'Round the Corner Part 34

Sir Berkeley Hutton, brought to Elmdale by a neighborly curiosity strengthened by the call of the East, appeared to be overwhelmed with surprise at sight of Armathwaite. But the worthy baronet did not lose the faculty of speech. No conceivable catastrophe, short of instant death, could deprive him of that.

"G.o.d bless my soul!" he cried, advancing with outstretched hand.

"Baluchi Bob! The last man breathing I ever expected to see in Elmdale!

Did the monsoon break earlier than usual this year, or what wind of heaven blew _you_ here?"

"Hullo, Barker!" cried Armathwaite, hailing him with manifest pleasure.

"I didn't know you had pitched your tent in these parts!"

"Yes, but, dash it all, Bob, what's the game? They told me someone name of Armathwaite, in the Politicals, had taken the Grange."

"Quite true. But you know I came a cropper in India, and I was a bit tired of the _sturm und drang_ of existence, so I hied me to cover under my mother's maiden name. I suppose I have a sort of right to it, though it doesn't seem to have proved altogether successful as a cloak."

"By gad! I can hardly agree with you there. I felt as though I'd come a purler over wire when I saw Baluchi Bob dropping off that bicycle. Great Scott! You on a bike! How have the mighty fallen! But I'll lend you a hack till you collect a few useful screws, unless you're bitten by this new craze for rushing about the country in a gastank. And won't Mollie be glad to see you! It was only the other day she was talkin' about the Pup, and sayin' that if it hadn't been for you----"

"Oh, tell Mollie to forget that old tale, or she'll make me nervous!"

Each word exchanged between the two was heard distinctly by the others, and, such is the queer way in which the affairs of life sometimes take an unexpected twist, there was a marked and instant change of att.i.tude on the part of three men, at least, who had come to Elmdale that day prepared to treat the Grange's new tenant as a potential criminal.

Banks, mouthpiece of the _Nuttonby Gazette_, who had bicycled thither in the hope of securing another batch of readable copy for a special Sat.u.r.day edition, suddenly found himself reviewing, with a sinking heart, one or two rather ticklish paragraphs in the screed already published anent "The Elmdale mystery." As for the superintendent and inspector of police from Nuttonby, they forthwith recanted certain opinions formed after hearing Banks's story and reading the current issue of his newspaper.

For Sir Berkeley Hutton was a county magnate, chairman of the Nuttonby bench, an alderman of the County Council, a Deputy Lieutenant, and goodness knows what else of a power in civic and social circles, and here was he hailing this stranger as an intimate friend, being himself greeted by the nickname earned by a loud and strident utterance which never failed, speaking of Lady Hutton as "Mollie," of his eldest son as "the Pup." County police and country editors must be chary of accepting the evidence of James Walkers and Tom Blands against the guarantee of such a man, or they may get their corns trodden on most painfully!

All at once, Sir Berkeley Hutton seemed to recollect the talk which had been going on outside the locked and barred gate, for Begonia Smith and his henchmen had refused to pa.s.s anyone but the doctor and nurse, who were with their patient at that moment.

"I say, Bob," he went on, in a thunderous whisper quite as audible as his ordinary voice, "I'm devilish glad it's you--I am, 'pon my soul!--because some of these chaps have been spinnin' the queerest sort of yarn, in which a murder, a suicide, a ghost, and a pretty girl are mixed up in fine style. Just tell 'em all to go to blazes, will you?--except Dobb. Dobb's a decent fellow, and he acted for the people who used to live here--Hi! Dobb. This is----" Then it dawned on him that his friend might wish still to preserve his anonymity save in the sacred circle of the elect, so he broke off into "Come along, Dobb! I want you to meet one of the best fellows who ever wore shoe-leather!"

Dobb advanced. With him came a gentleman who was as unknown to Nuttonby as Armathwaite himself. Before the solicitor could speak, his companion said quietly:

"Sir Robert Dalrymple, I believe?"

"Yes," and Marguerite's "chosen mate" looked him very searchingly and squarely in the eyes.

"My name is Morand," said the other. "I am sent here by the India Office to tell you----" he glanced around in momentary hesitation.

"Pray, go on," said Dalrymple, as Armathwaite must be described henceforth. "There is nothing that the India Office has to communicate which I am not willing that all the world should hear."

"Happily, Sir Robert, this is a communication which all the world ought to hear. The Maharajah of Barapur is dead. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated last Monday while driving through the bazaar. His prime minister, Chalwar Singh, was with him, and was mortally wounded at the same time."

"Then India is well rid of two pestilent scoundrels," said Dalrymple unconcernedly.

"That is the view now held by the Government," was the grave answer.

"A death-bed conversion, of a sort," commented his hearer dryly.

"A death-bed confession, too," said Morand. "It was a fortunate thing that both men lived long enough to reveal that they had concocted the whole story of the Maharani's pearls in order to get you shelved. Your administration was too honest. They played on your well-known carelessness in trivial matters of detail, and bribed your native secretary, Muncherji, to include in your correspondence the letters which seemed to prove your complicity in a serious breach of trust.

Muncherji, by rare good chance, was not in Barapur when the Maharajah and Chalwar Singh were riddled with bullets, so he was arrested before he knew of the affair. He, too, has confessed. In fact, I can convey everything in a sentence. The Government of India has reinstated you in the High Commissionership, and you are gazetted as absent on leave. I am the bearer of ample apologies from the India Office, which will be tendered to you in person by my chief when he meets you in London.

Meanwhile, I am to request you to allow the announcement to be made public that you will return to India on a named date, while the appointment of your deputy is left open for your recommendation."

Dalrymple paled slightly, which was the only evidence he gave of the effect such a statement was bound to produce on a proud and ambitious nature, but Sir Berkeley Hutton was irrepressible.

"By gad!" he roared, "somebody's gold lace has been rolled in the dust of Calcutta before the India Department climbed down like that. I never heard anything like it--never! 'Pon me soul! Won't Mollie be pleased?"

Yet the man to whom the path of empire was again thrown open spoke no word. It was good to have his honor cleared of the stain put on it by a scheming Indian prince and his henchmen. It was good to find himself standing once more in the high place he had won by self-sacrificing work and unflinching adherence to an ideal of efficient government. But his thoughts were with a sorrow-stricken girl speeding to a sad tryst with a mother who might bring tidings that would blight her life for many a year.

Morand grew anxious. He shared Dalrymple's knowledge of the tremendous issues bound up with an affair of State of real magnitude, and he did not want to fail in this, his first confidential mission.

"If there is anything else I can say, Sir Robert----" he began, and his voice disrupted a dream.

"It's all right, Morand," said the other, letting a hand rest on the shoulder of the younger man in that characteristic way of his. "I'm not such a cur as to snarl when I have been proved right, and my traducers are ready to admit their blunder. I didn't yelp when the blow fell. I'm not going to kick up a bobbery now when I'm given back my spurs. Tell your chief that I'll come to him soon, within a week, if possible. I have business on my hands here that calls imperatively for settlement.

I'll deal first with that; then I'll come. Are you returning to town at once?"

"By the first available train. More than that, I am to telegraph your decision to Whitehall. Between you and me, some people are in a howling funk lest a question should be put in the House."

"That isn't the frontier method. Men who appeal to Parliament when things go wrong are of no value to India. But I don't want to preach."

"Won't you come in?"

"If you'll pardon me, I'll hurry back to Nuttonby. That telegram is called for urgently. What about your deputy?"

"Collins was transferred to Oudh because he supported me. Send him to Barapur. The natives will understand that better than a dozen gazettes."

"Thanks. That clinches it, Sir Robert. Mr. Dobb, do you mind if we start immediately?"

Mr. Dobb did mind. For one thing, he had not spoken a word to Sir Robert Dalrymple yet. For another, Nuttonby loomed larger in his mind than some wrangle in far-away Hindustan, and Nuttonby was seething with rumors anent present and past inhabitants of the Grange.

"We, like the State of Barapur, have our little troubles," he said guardedly. "Sir Robert has shown already that he appreciates their gravity. My car will take you to Nuttonby, Mr. Morand, and come back for me."

The representative of the India Office was only too pleased to get away on any terms. He knew that a rea.s.suring message was wanted in Whitehall.

There were wheels within wheels. A question _was_ put in the House that night, and an Under-Secretary scoffed at the notion that Sir Robert Dalrymple, "a trusted servant of his country, whose splendid work on the Indus was most thoroughly appreciated by the Government of India," had been requested to resign. As a matter of public interest, he was pleased to inform the honorable questioner that Sir Robert Dalrymple, only that day, had put forward the name of Mr. Mortimer Collins, I.C.S., to act as his deputy in Barapur until he returned from short leave granted on "urgent private affairs."

The motor was already trumpeting its way through a mob of Elmdale urchins, who seldom saw a car, and had never before seen two in one day, when Dalrymple found himself regretting he had not inquired how Morand contrived to get on his track so easily. Some weeks elapsed before he learned that the only friend in London who knew his whereabouts thought it a duty to speak when the hue and cry went forth from the India Office.

Dalrymple was with his friend, a retired general, in his club when the vexed administrator announced his intention to retire from the arena and take a well-earned rest.

"I'll a.s.sume my mother's name, Armathwaite," he had said, "and rusticate in some place where Barapur is unknown and India never mentioned. Let's have a look at the map!"

He glanced at a motoring road-book lying on the club table.

"Here we are!" he laughed. "Judging by the condition of the highways, there are backwoods near Nuttonby, in Yorkshire. My postal address will be Armathwaite, near Nuttonby, for some months. But I'll write."

So that was how it happened that Sir Robert Dalrymple came to the Grange, and met Marguerite Ogilvey. Some part of the outcome of that meeting was foreshadowed while Smith of the Begonias was unlocking the gate, because a procession of three appeared in the porch.

Dr. Scaife and a nurse were carrying Percy Whittaker between them. The doctor's distress was almost comical when he caught sight of Dalrymple.

He shouted brokenly, being rather breathless:

"For goodness' sake--Mr. Armathwaite--come and persuade this young man--to remain here. He insists--on being taken away--at once!"