The Swindler, Ethel May Dell [distant reading TXT] 📗

the kind he always smoked. That's nearly the end of the story. You can almost guess the rest. That very night Archie did get into a hole, a bad one, and the only way my friend could lift him out was by getting down into it himself. He saved him, but it was at his own expense; for it made people begin to reflect. And in the end--in the end, when we came into harbour, they came on board, and--and arrested him early in the morning--before I knew. You see, he--he was Nat Verney."
Cynthia's dark head was suddenly bowed upon her hands. She was rocking to and fro in the firelight.
"And it was my fault," she sobbed--"all my fault. If--if he hadn't done that thing for me, no one would have known--no one would have suspected!"
She had broken down completely at last, and the man who heard her wondered, with a deep compassion, how often she had wept, in secret and uncomforted, as she was weeping now.
He bore it till his humanity could endure no longer. And then, very gently, he reached out, touched her, drew her to him, pillowed her head on his shoulder.
"Don't cry, Cynthia," he whispered earnestly. "It's heart-breaking work, dear, and it doesn't help. There! Let me hold you till you feel better. You can't refuse comfort from an old friend like me."
She yielded to him mutely for a little, till her grief had somewhat spent itself. Then, with a little quivering smile, she lifted her head and looked him straight in the face.
"Thank you, Jack," she said. "You--you've done me good. But it's not good for you, is it? I've made you quite damp. You don't think you'll catch cold?"--dabbing at his shoulder with her handkerchief.
He took her hand and stayed it.
"There is nothing in this world," he said gravely "that I would so gladly do as help you, Cynthia. Will you believe this, and treat me from this stand-point only?"
She turned back to the fire, but she left her hand in his.
"My dear," she said, in an odd little choked voice, "it's just like you to say so, and I guess I sha'n't forget it. Well, well! There's my romance in a nutshell. He didn't care a fig for me till just the last. He cared then, but it was too late to come to anything. They shipped him back again you know, and he was sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. He's done nearly twelve, and he's coming out next month on ticket-of-leave."
"Oh, Cynthia!"
Babbacombe bent his head suddenly upon her hand, and sat tense and silent.
"I know," she said--"I know. It sounds simply monstrous, put into bald words. I sometimes wonder myself if it can possibly be true--if I, Cynthia Mortimer, can really be such a fool. But I can't possibly tell for certain till I see him again. I must see him again somehow. I've waited all these years--all these years."
Babbacombe groaned.
"And suppose, when you've seen him, you still care?"
She shook her head.
"What then, Jack? I don't know; I don't know."
He pulled himself together, and sat up.
"Do you know where he is?"
"Yes. He is at Barren Hill. He has been there for five years now. My solicitor knows that I take an interest in him. He calls it philanthropy." Cynthia smiled faintly into the fire. "I was one of the people he swindled," she said. "But he paid me back."
She rose and went across the room to a bureau in a corner. She unlocked a drawer, and took something from it. Returning, she laid a packet of notes in Babbacombe's hands.
"I could never part with them," she said. "He gave them to me in a sealed parcel the last time I saw him. It's only a hundred pounds. Yes, that was the message he wrote. Can you read it? 'With apologies from the man who swindled you.' As if I cared for the wretched money!"
Babbacombe frowned over the writing in silence.
"Why don't you say what you think, Jack?" she said. "Why don't you call him a thieving scoundrel and me a poor, romantic fool!"
"I am trying to think how I can help you," he answered quietly. "Have you any plans?"
"No, nothing definite," she said. "It is difficult to know what to do. He knows one thing--that he has a friend who will help him when he comes out. He will be horribly poor, you know, and I'm so rich. But, of course, I would do it anonymously. And he thinks his friend is a man."
Babbacombe pondered with drawn brows.
"Cynthia," he said slowly, at length, "suppose I take this matter into my own hands, suppose I make it possible for you to see this man once more, will you be guided entirely by me? Will you promise me solemnly to take no rash step of any description; in short, to do nothing without consulting me? Will you promise me, Cynthia?"
He spoke very earnestly. The firelight showed her the resolution on his face.
"Of course I will promise you, Jack," she said instantly. "I would trust myself body and soul in your keeping. But what can you do?"
"I might do this," he said. "I might pose as his unknown friend--another philanthropist, Cynthia." He smiled rather grimly. "I might get hold of him when he comes out, give him something to do to keep his head above water. If he has any manhood in him, he won't mind what he takes. And I might--later, if I thought it practicable--I only say 'if,' Cynthia, for after many years of prison life a man isn't always fit company for a lady--I might arrange that you should see him in some absolutely casual fashion. If you consent to this arrangement you must leave that entirely to me."
"But you will hate to do it!" she exclaimed.
He rose. "I will do it for your sake," he said. "I shall not hate it if it makes you see things--as they are."
"Oh, but you are good," she said tremulously--"you are good!"
"I love a good woman," he answered gravely.
And with that he turned and left her alone in the firelight with her romance.


II

It was early on a dark November day that the prison gate at Barren Hill opened to allow a convict who had just completed twelve years' penal servitude to pass out a free man.
A motor car was drawn up at the side of the kerb as he emerged, and a man in a long overcoat, with another slung on his arm, was pacing up and down.
He wheeled at the closing of the gate, and they stood face to face.
There was a moment's difficult silence; then the man with the motor spoke.
"Mr. West, I think?"
The other looked him up and down in a single comprehensive glance that was like the flash of a sword blade.
"Certainly," he said curtly, "if you prefer it."
He was a short, thick-set man of past forty, with a face so grimly lined as to mask all expression. His eyes alone were vividly alert. They were the bluest eyes that Babbacombe had ever seen.
He accepted the curt acknowledgment with grave courtesy, and made a motion toward the car.
"Will you get in? My name is Babbacombe. I am here to meet you, as no doubt you have been told. You had better wear this"--opening out the coat he carried.
But West remained motionless, facing him on the grey, deserted road. "Before I come with you," he said, in his brief, clipped style, "there is one thing I want to know. Are you patronising me for the sake of philanthropy, or for--some other reason?"
As he uttered the question, he fixed Babbacombe with a stare that was not without insolence.
Babbacombe did not hesitate in his reply. He was not a man to be lightly disconcerted.
"You can put it down to anything you like," he said, "except philanthropy."
West considered a moment.
"Very well, sir," he said finally, his aggressive tone slightly modified. "In that case I will come with you."
He turned about, and thrust his arms into the coat Babbacombe held for him, turned up the collar, and without a backward glance, stepped into the waiting motor.
Babbacombe started the engine, and followed him. In another moment they had glided away into the dripping mist, and the prison was left behind.
Through mile after mile they sped in silence. West sat with his chin buried in his coat, his keen eyes staring straight ahead. Babbacombe, at the wheel, never glanced at him once.
Through villages, through towns, through long stretches of open country they glided, sometimes slackening, but never stopping. The sun broke through at length, revealing a country of hills and woods and silvery running streams. They had been travelling for hours. It was nearly noon.
For the first time since their start Babbacombe spoke.
"I hope I haven't kept you going too long. We are just getting in."
"Don't mind me," said West.
Babbacombe was slackening speed.
"It's a fine hunting country," he observed.
"Whose is it?" asked West.
"Mine, most of it." They were running smoothly down a long avenue of beech trees, with a glimpse of an open gateway at the end.
"It must take some managing," remarked West.
"It does," Babbacombe answered. "It needs a capable man."
They reached the gateway, passing under an arch of stone. Beyond it lay wide stretches of park land. Rabbits scuttled in the sunshine, and under the trees here and there they had glimpses of deer.
"Ever ridden to hounds?" asked Babbacombe.
The man beside him turned with a movement half savage.
"Set me on a good horse," he said, "and I will show you what I can do."
Babbacombe nodded, conscious for the first time of a warmth of sympathy for the man. Whatever his sins, he must have suffered infernally during the past twelve years.
Twelve years! Ye gods! It was half a life-time! It represented the whole of his manhood to Babbacombe. Twelve years ago he had been an undergraduate at Cambridge.
He drove on through the undulating stretches of Farringdean Park, his favourite heritage, trying to realise what effect twelve years in a convict prison would have had upon himself, what his outlook would ultimately have become, and what in actual fact was the outlook and general attitude of the man who had come through this long purgatory.
Sweeping round a rise in the ground, they came into sudden sight of the castle. Ancient and splendid it rose before them, its battlements shining in the sun--a heritage of which any man might be proud.
Babbacombe waited for some word of admiration from his companion. But he waited in vain. West was mute.
"What do you think of it?" he asked at last, determined to wring some meed of appreciation from him, even though he stooped to ask for it.
"What--the house?" said West. "It's uncommonly like a primeval sort of prison, to my idea. I've no doubt it boasts some very superior dungeons."
The sting in the words reached Babbacombe, but without offence. Again, more strongly, he was conscious of that glow of sympathy within him, kindling to a flame of fellowship.
"It boasts better things than that," he said quietly, "as I hope you will allow me to show you."
He was conscious of the piercing gaze of West's eyes, and, after a moment, he deliberately turned his own to meet it.
"And if you find--as you probably soon will--that I make but a poor sort of host," he said, "just remember, will you, that I like my guests to please themselves, and secure your own comfort?"
For a second, West's grim mouth seemed to hesitate on the edge of a smile--a