The Shadow in the North (9 page)

It was such a startling thing to hear that Lord Wytham thought he was mistaken and merely blinked.

Bellmann went on. "It has been my intention for some time now to choose a wife. I have seen your daughter, and she will please me. How old is she?"

Lord Wyrham swallowed. This was preposterous, it was insane. Damn the man! How dare he? Then came a consciousness of the catastrophe hanging over him, poised like a wave, and he sank back in the chair, helpless.

"Seventeen. I—Mr. Bellmann, you know my posi-tion. 1—

"Quite as well as you. Probably better, since you are incompetent where money is concerned, whereas I am not. You have a month to find three hundred and ninety thousand pounds. And you will not find it. I cannot imagine what you will do. Your credit is exhausted."

"I—^Mary is—please, Mr. Bellmann. If you could see your way to . . ."

He faltered, having genuinely no idea what he was going to say next. Bellmann sat still, watching him closely with those wide, electric c^ts. Then he said, "You understand what I am saying. Your daughter. Lady Mary, will suit me very well. When we are married, I shall make you a payment of four hundred thousand pounds. Three hundred and ninety will cover your debts; the other ten thousand is in consideration of the expense you will be put to to organize the wedding. I think that is quite clear."

Lord Wytham was breathless. He had never been so dazed in his life since falling once while hunting and being knocked unconscious; it was the same sensation now—that of coming into unexpected collision with

something much bigger and more powerful than himself. It hurt almost physically.

"I—most persuasively put. Interesting proposition. Have to speak to my lawyer, naturally. I—"

"Your lawyer? What for?"

"Well, this is a family matter. My lawyer will have to examine the proposal. You must see that.*'

His brain had started to work again. It was like a fall: you were dazed, and then you found your bearings. And he saw now that if Bellmann was willing to part with four hundred thousand, he might well disgorge more.

"Yes, I see," said Bellmann. "You want to make a little more, and you think your lawyer better able to get it than yourself You are undoubtedly right. How much more were you thinking of?"

Again a fall. Bellmann was too strong, too quick; it wasn't fair. Lord Wytham felt. . . But what should he say now? Back off, and he'd look weak; ask for too little, and he'd lose a fortune; ask for too much, and he'd lose everything. . . . His mind scurried like a rat across a line of figures ending in a row of noughts.

"I have to . . . protect myself," he said cautiously. "The estate. The house in Cavendish Square. It all costs . . . Without any capital, I. . ."

Bellmann said nothing. He wasn't going to help. Lx)rd Wytham took a deep breath.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds," he said. It was half the figure he would have liked to ask.

"Very well," said Bellmann. "That sounds satisfactory to me. We agree that the value of your daughter is six hundred and fifty thousand pounds. I shall pay you a check for fifty thousand pounds when the betrothal is announced; that will take care of the most pressing debts and be an earnest for the rest. The remainder of the first figure we agreed, namely three hundred and fifty thousand, will be paid on the morning of the wedding. The extra amount, the two hundred and fifty thousand, will be paid the morning after, subject to my satisfaction with Lady Marys condition. Do I have to make that any clearer?"

The hardest fall of all, and this time the horse had trampled him into the ground. Bellmann was saying that if Lady Mary was not a virgin, there'd be no extra money. Lord Wytham felt ill and heard himself whisper; this was too cruel, too shameful, too much to bear. People shouldn't act like this. Beaten, dazed, he could hardly think, he felt so conftised.

"You will want to speak to my daughter," he said faindy.

"Of course."

"If. . . If she should . . ."

"If she should refijse?" said Bellmann.

Lord Wytham nodded. He couldn't say it.

"If she should reftise my offer of marriage, then of course I would respect her wishes. The matter must be entirely her own choice. Do you not agree?"

**Oh, by all means." Lord Wythams voice was hardly audible. He knew what was meant.

"Then, with your permission, I shall call at Cavendish Square on Friday morning to put my proposal to Lady Mary. Today is Tuesday. Three days."

Lord Wytham swallowed. In each of his long-lashed eyes there was a tear.

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "Of course."

"Then that is agreed. Now to some business. We shall draw up the contract for your directorship over the next day or so, but in the meantime I shall tell you a little about the company you are joining. I think you will find it interesting. It is called North Star Castings, Limited."

Bellmann bent to take some papers out of a drawer, and while he was looking away Lord Wytham brushed his hand across his eyes. His dismissal from the Cabinet had hurt, but these twenty minutes with Bellmann had taken him beyond pain into a region he'd never dreamed of, where decency and dignity and fairness were blown away like dead leaves. How could he have known that before the morning was out he'd have sold his own daughter—and sold her, what's more (like a flush of poison, the guilty thought), for so much less than he might have done? Suppose he'd asked a million?

But he wouldn't have gotten it. Bellmann knew everything; he'd never beat a man like that. Lord Wytham felt as if he'd sold his soul and found (with the

rest of eternity to think about it) that the price he'd gotten for it was no more than a mouthful of ash.

Bellmann spread out some papers on the desk. Lord Wytham composed his weak, handsome face into an expression of interest and leaned forward, trying to listen, as Bellmann began to explain.

UJeclarahon oj ^M/t

ar

Jim's LATEST MELODRAMA, ThE VAMPIRE OF LiMEHOUSE, had been sent back from the Lyceum Theatre with a note from someone called Bram Stoker, the manager.

"What d'you reckon, Mr. Webster?" he said. "Does he like it, or does he think it's a load of cobblers?"

Webster Garland took the letter and read it aloud.

"'Dear Mr. Taylor,'" he read. "'Thank you for letting me see your farce. The Vampire of Limehouse. I regret that the company's program is full for the next two years, so we are unable to consider it for production. However, I thought it had an unmistakable vigor and life, though I feel that vampires, as a subject, are played out. Yours,' etc. ... I don't know, Jim. At least he took the trouble to write."

"Perhaps I ought to go and read it to him. He probably missed half the good bits."

"Is that the one with the bloodsucking warehouseman and the barge full of corpses?"

"Yeah. Farce, he called it. It's a bleedin' tragedy, that one. Farce, my arse ..."

"^Bleedings the word," said Frederick. "It's thick with

gore from start to finish. Its not a play—it's a black pudding."

"You can laugh, mate," Jim said darkly. "I'll make me fortune yet. I'll have me name in lights."

"Liver and lights, if that play's anything to go by," Frederick said.

It was Wednesday morning, and the shop was busy. Solemn Mr. Blaine, the manager, and the assistant, Wilfred, were serving customers who wanted to buy chemicals, cameras, or tripods, while the refined Miss Renshaw at another counter dealt with appointments for portraits and other commissions. In addition to them, the staff consisted of Arthur Potts, a cheerftil middle-aged man who loaded the cameras, arranged the studio, carried the equipment when they went out, developed and printed, and helped Frederick make any items that couldn't be bought; and there was a dim boy of Jim's age, called Herbert. They'd taken him on as a general assistant and found he was hopeless—slow, for-getfiil, and clumsy. But he was the kindest soul in the world, and neither Frederick nor Sally nor Webster had the heart to get rid of him.

As Frederick stood at the back of the neat, prosperous-looking shop, with its busy staff and growing reputation, its well-furnished studio and its air of efficiency and optimism, he thought back to the day Sally had first arrived: diffident, nervous, and in deadly trouble. Frederick had been in the middle of a blazing

row with his sister; the place was shabby, half the shelves were empty, and ruin was getting closer by the day. But with the help of a series of comic stereographs which sold surprisingly well, they managed to keep afloat; and when Sally was able to put some money into the business, they began to prosper. They'd given up the stereographs now: the market was diminishing, and cartes de visite (small portraits) were the thing these days. But they were running out of space. Soon they d have to extend the premises, or even open another branch.

Frederick felt for his watch, cursed as he remembered that Mackinnon still had it, and looked up at the clock over the counter. He was half-expecting Sally to call; he had the feeling that she was planning something she hadn't told him about, and it worried him.

The manager was at the counter, writing an order for photographic paper. Frederick went up to him.

"Mr. Blaine," he said, "Miss Lockhart hasn't been in this morning, has she?"

"No, to my regret, Mr. Garland," came the mournful tones of Mr. Blaine. "I wanted to engage her in discussion as to the desirability of hiring some kind of clerical help. I fear that our friend Herbert is not greatly gifted in that department, and everyone else is fully occupied already. What is your feeling on the matter?"

"Good idea. But where would this clerking go on? There's no room to swing a cat in the files room,

though I daresay you could skin one in there if it didn't wriggle. We'd need a desk. And a typewriting machine—they're all using 'em now."

"Yes. It may be, Mr. Garland, that an enlargement of the premises would be called for."

"Funny. I was thinking the same thing only a minute ago. But, look here, I'm going out now. If Miss Lockhart comes in, talk to her about it. And give her my love."

He went to fetch his coat and caught a train to Streatham.

Nellie Budd was feeding her cats. Each of them, she explained to Frederick, was the reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh. The lady herself was as earthly as he remembered: deep-bosomed, sparkling-eyed, and given to glances of frank admiration at what she'd no doubt call his manly form.

He'd decided to be open from the start.

"Mrs. Budd," he said, once they were seated on a comfortable sofa in her parlor. "The other night I came to a seance in Streatham and took a photograph of you. What you get up to in the dark doesn't concern me in the least, and if your friends are gullible enough to fall for it, that's their lookout. But it's a nice photograph; there's a false hand on the table, a wire going to the tambourine, and what your right leg's doing I hardly dare think. ... In short, Mrs. Budd, I'm blackmailing you.

She grinned at him roguishly.

"Go on with you!" she said. Her voice had a touch of the north in it—^whether Lancashire or Yorkshire, he couldn't say, since it was smoothed and refined and stagey as well. "A handsome young man like you! You wouldn't have to blackmail me, dear—^just ask nicely. What d'you want?"

"Oh, good. I wasn't really going to anyway. I'm interested in what you said in your trance—^your real trance. Can you remember what it was?"

She was silent a moment. Her eyes looked troubled, and then it passed and they sparkled again.

"Lord," she said, "you're asking now. That was one of me turns, wasn't it? I've been having me turns for years now. That's what put me on to the medium game—that and Josiah. Me husband, as was, God rest him. Conjurer, you know. He taught me tricks as would amaze you. So when it comes to rattling a tambourine and squeezing hands in the dark, Nellie Budd's got few equals, though I say as shouldn't."

"Fascinating. You're good at avoiding questions, too, Mrs. Budd. What about these turns of yours?"

"Frankly, love," she said, "I haven't the faintest idea. I come all over swimmy and swoony and a minute or two later I come to meself again, but I don't remember what I say. Why?"

Frederick found himself liking her. He decided to show a bit more of his hand.

"Do you know a Mr. Bellmann?" he said.

She shook her head. "Never heard of him."

"Or a company called North Star?"

"Means nothing, I'm afraid, love."

"Look, I'll read you what you said." He took the folded piece of paper with Jim's writing on it out of his pocket and read aloud steadily. When he got to the end, he looked up and said, "Does that mean anything to your

She looked amazed. "Did I say all that?" she said. "What a load of nonsense!"

"You really don't know where all this comes from?"

"It's probably—^what do they call it?—telepathy. I'm probably reading someone's mind. Lord, I don't know. I've got as much idea about glass coffins and sparks as the man in the moon. What d'you want to know for, anyway?"

"One of the members of the Spiritualist League is a clerk in a city firm, and he's worried about some of the stuff he's heard from you. It seems to be secret business information. He thinks it'll get out, you see, and he'll be blamed for it."

"Well, I'm blowed! This is all to do with business, then?"

"Some of it," Frederick said. "And some we're just not sure of" Then a thought struck him. "You don't know a fellow called Mackinnon, by any chance?"

That took her by surprise. Her eyes widened and she sat back in the sofa.

"Alistair Mackinnon?" she said. Her voice was faint. "The one they call the Wizard of the North?"

"That's him. This man Bellmann I mentioned—he seems to be after Mackinnon for some reason. You wouldn't know anything about him, would you? Mackinnon, I mean?"

She shook her head. "I ... I've seen him on the halls. Wonderftil clever. But not a man as you could trust, I'd say. Not like my Josiah, though Josiah didn't come within a mile of him in the conjuring line. But I don't know nothing about this Bellmann."

"Or ..." He thought back to the evening at Lady Harborough's. "What about a man called Wytham?"