Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (457 page)

As he spoke his face was very grave, but the light in his eyes danced and gleamed.  He handed his open snuff-box to my father, as Ambrose followed my mother out of the room.

“You number yourself in an illustrious company by upping your finger and thumb into it,” said he.

“Indeed, sir!” said my father, shortly.

“You are free of my box, as being a relative by marriage.  You are free also, nephew, and I pray you to take a pinch.  It is the most intimate sign of my goodwill.  Outside ourselves there are four, I think, who have had access to it - the Prince, of course; Mr Pitt; Monsieur Otto, the French Ambassador; and Lord Hawkesbury.  I have sometimes thought that I was premature with Lord Hawkesbury.”

“I am vastly honoured, sir,” said my father, looking suspiciously at his guest from under his shaggy eyebrows, for with that grave face and those twinkling eyes it was hard to know how to take him.

“A woman, sir, has her love to bestow,” said my uncle.  “A man has his snuff-box.  Neither is to be lightly offered.  It is a lapse of taste; nay, more, it is a breach of morals.  Only the other day, as I was seated in Watier’s, my box of prime macouba open upon the table beside me, an Irish bishop thrust in his intrusive fingers.  ‘Waiter,’ I cried, ‘my box has been soiled!  Remove it!’  The man meant no insult, you understand, but that class of people must be kept in their proper sphere.’

“A bishop!” cried my father.  “You draw your line very high, sir.”

“Yes, sir,” said my uncle; “I wish no better epitaph upon my tombstone.”

My mother had in the meanwhile descended, and we all drew up to the table.

“You will excuse my apparent grossness, Mary, in venturing to bring my own larder with me.  Abernethy has me under his orders, and I must eschew your rich country dainties.  A little white wine and a cold bird - it is as much as the niggardly Scotchman will allow me.”

“We should have you on blockading service when the levanters are blowing,” said my father.  “Salt junk and weevilly biscuits, with a rib of a tough Barbary ox when the tenders come in.  You would have your spare diet there, sir.”

Straightway my uncle began to question him about the sea service, and for the whole meal my father was telling him of the Nile and of the Toulon blockade, and the siege of Genoa, and all that he had seen and done.  But whenever he faltered for a word, my uncle always had it ready for him, and it was hard to say which knew most about the business.

“No, I read little or nothing,” said he, when my father marvelled where he got his knowledge.  “The fact is that I can hardly pick up a print without seeing some allusion to myself: ‘Sir C. T. does this,’ or ‘Sir C. T. says the other,’ so I take them no longer.  But if a man is in my position all knowledge comes to him.  The Duke of York tells me of the Army in the morning, and Lord Spencer chats with me of the Navy in the afternoon, and Dundas whispers me what is going forward in the Cabinet, so that I have little need of the
Times
or the
Morning Chronicle.”

This set him talking of the great world of London, telling my father about the men who were his masters at the Admiralty, and my mother about the beauties of the town, and the great ladies at Almack’s, but all in the same light, fanciful way, so that one never knew whether to laugh or to take him gravely.  I think it flattered him to see the way in which we all three hung upon his words.  Of some he thought highly and of some lowly, but he made no secret that the highest of all, and the one against whom all others should be measured, was Sir Charles Tregellis himself.

“As to the King,” said he, “of course, I am
l’ami de famille
there; and even with you I can scarce speak freely, as my relations are confidential.”

“God bless him and keep him from ill!” cried my father.

“It is pleasant to hear you say so,” said my uncle.  “One has to come into the country to hear honest loyalty, for a sneer and a gibe are more the fashions in town.  The King is grateful to me for the interest which I have ever shown in his son.  He likes to think that the Prince has a man of taste in his circle.”

“And the Prince?” asked my mother.  “Is he well-favoured?”

“He is a fine figure of a man.  At a distance he has been mistaken for me.  And he has some taste in dress, though he gets slovenly if I am too long away from him.  I warrant you that I find a crease in his coat to-morrow.”

We were all seated round the fire by this time, for the evening had turned chilly.  The lamp was lighted and so also was my father’s pipe.

“I suppose,” said he, “that this is your first visit to Friar’s Oak?”

My uncle’s face turned suddenly very grave and stern.

“It is my first visit for many years,” said he.  “I was but one-and-twenty years of age when last I came here.  I am not likely to forget it.”

I knew that he spoke of his visit to Cliffe Royal at the time of the murder, and I saw by her face that my mother knew it also.  My father, however, had either never heard of it, or had forgotten the circumstance.

“Was it at the inn you stayed?” he asked.

“I stayed with the unfortunate Lord Avon.  It was the occasion when he was accused of slaying his younger brother and fled from the country.”

We all fell silent, and my uncle leaned his chin upon his hand, looking thoughtfully into the fire.  If I do but close my eyes now, I can see the light upon his proud, handsome face, and see also my dear father, concerned at having touched upon so terrible a memory, shooting little slanting glances at him betwixt the puffs of his pipe.

“I dare say that it has happened with you, sir,” said my uncle at last, “that you have lost some dear messmate, in battle or wreck, and that you have put him out of your mind in the routine of your daily life, until suddenly some word or some scene brings him back to your memory, and you find your sorrow as raw as upon the first day of your loss.”

My father nodded.

“So it is with me to-night.  I never formed a close friendship with a man - I say nothing of women - save only the once.  That was with Lord Avon.  We were of an age, he a few years perhaps my senior, but our tastes, our judgments, and our characters were alike, save only that he had in him a touch of pride such as I have never known in any other man.  Putting aside the little foibles of a rich young man of fashion,
les indescrétions d’une jeunesse dorée
, I could have sworn that he was as good a man as I have ever known.”

“How came he, then, to such a crime?” asked my father.

My uncle shook his head.

“Many a time have I asked myself that question, and it comes home to me more to-night than ever.”

All the jauntiness had gone out of his manner, and he had turned suddenly into a sad and serious man.

“Was it certain that he did it, Charles?” asked my mother.

My uncle shrugged his shoulders.

“I wish I could think it were not so.  I have thought sometimes that it was this very pride, turning suddenly to madness, which drove him to it.  You have heard how he returned the money which we had lost?”

“Nay, I have heard nothing of it,” my father answered.

“It is a very old story now, though we have not yet found an end to it.  We had played for two days, the four of us: Lord Avon, his brother Captain Barrington, Sir Lothian Hume, and myself.  Of the Captain I knew little, save that he was not of the best repute, and was deep in the hands of the Jews.  Sir Lothian has made an evil name for himself since - ‘tis the same Sir Lothian who shot Lord Carton in the affair at Chalk Farm - but in those days there was nothing against him.  The oldest of us was but twenty-four, and we gamed on, as I say, until the Captain had cleared the board.  We were all hit, but our host far the hardest.

“That night - I tell you now what it would be a bitter thing for me to tell in a court of law - I was restless and sleepless, as often happens when a man has kept awake over long.  My mind would dwell upon the fall of the cards, and I was tossing and turning in my bed, when suddenly a cry fell upon my ears, and then a second louder one, coming from the direction of Captain Barrington’s room.  Five minutes later I heard steps passing down the passage, and, without striking a light, I opened my door and peeped out, thinking that some one was taken unwell.  There was Lord Avon walking towards me.  In one hand he held a guttering candle and in the other a brown bag, which chinked as he moved.  His face was all drawn and distorted - so much so that my question was frozen upon my lips.  Before I could utter it he turned into his chamber and softly closed the door.

“Next morning I was awakened by finding him at my bedside.

“‘Charles,’ said he, ‘I cannot abide to think that you should have lost this money in my house.  You will find it here upon your table.’

“It was in vain that I laughed at his squeamishness, telling him that I should most certainly have claimed my money had I won, so that it would be strange indeed if I were not permitted to pay it when I lost.

“‘Neither I nor my brother will touch it,’ said he.  ‘There it lies, and you may do what you like about it.’

“He would listen to no argument, but dashed out of the room like a madman.  But perhaps these details are familiar to you, and God knows they are painful to me to tell.”

My father was sitting with staring eyes, and his forgotten pipe reeking in his hand.

“Pray let us hear the end of it, sir,” he cried.

“Well, then, I had finished my toilet in an hour or so - for I was less exigeant in those days than now - and I met Sir Lothian Hume at breakfast.  His experience had been the same as my own, and he was eager to see Captain Barrington; and to ascertain why he had directed his brother to return the money to us.  We were talking the matter over when suddenly I raised my eyes to the corner of the ceiling, and I saw - I saw - “

My uncle had turned quite pale with the vividness of the memory, and he passed his hand over his eyes.

“It was crimson,” said he, with a shudder - “crimson with black cracks, and from every crack - but I will give you dreams, sister Mary.  Suffice it that we rushed up the stair which led direct to the Captain’s room, and there we found him lying with the bone gleaming white through his throat.  A hunting-knife lay in the room - and the knife was Lord Avon’s.  A lace ruffle was found in the dead man’s grasp - and the ruffle was Lord Avon’s.  Some papers were found charred in the grate - and the papers were Lord Avon’s.  Oh, my poor friend, in what moment of madness did you come to do such a deed?”

The light had gone out of my uncle’s eyes and the extravagance from his manner.  His speech was clear and plain, with none of those strange London ways which had so amazed me.  Here was a second uncle, a man of heart and a man of brains, and I liked him better than the first.

“And what said Lord Avon?” cried my father.

“He said nothing.  He went about like one who walks in his sleep, with horror-stricken eyes.  None dared arrest him until there should be due inquiry, but when the coroner’s court brought wilful murder against him, the constables came for him in full cry.  But they found him fled.  There was a rumour that he had been seen in Westminster in the next week, and then that he had escaped for America, but nothing more is known.  It will be a bright day for Sir Lothian Hume when they can prove him dead, for he is next of kin, and till then he can touch neither title nor estate.”

The telling of this grim story had cast a chill upon all of us.  My uncle held out his hands towards the blaze, and I noticed that they were as white as the ruffles which fringed them.

“I know not how things are at Cliffe Royal now,” said he, thoughtfully.  “It was not a cheery house, even before this shadow fell upon it.  A fitter stage was never set forth for such a tragedy.  But seventeen years have passed, and perhaps even that horrible ceiling - “

“It still bears the stain,” said I.

I know not which of the three was the more astonished, for my mother had not heard of my adventures of the night.  They never took their wondering eyes off me as I told my story, and my heart swelled with pride when my uncle said that we had carried ourselves well, and that he did not think that many of our age would have stood it as stoutly.

“But as to this ghost, it must have been the creature of your own minds,” said he.  “Imagination plays us strange tricks, and though I have as steady a nerve as a man might wish, I cannot answer for what I might see if I were to stand under that blood-stained ceiling at midnight.”

“Uncle,” said I, “I saw a figure as plainly as I see that fire, and I heard the steps as clearly as I hear the crackle of the fagots.  Besides, we could not both be deceived.”