My Strangest Case, Guy Newell Boothby [short books for teens .txt] 📗

a little sad that afternoon, for both the men who had been condemned to penal servitude had wives and children, to whose pitiful condition the learned Judge had referred when passing sentence.

"You are Mr. Fairfax, are you not?" inquired the taller of the men.

"That is my name," I admitted. "What can I do for you?"

"If we could persuade you to vouchsafe us an hour of your valuable time we should be more grateful than we could say," the man replied. "We have an important piece of business which it might possibly be to your advantage to take up. At any rate it would be worthy of your consideration."

"But why have you not come to me before?" I inquired. "You have seen me in Court every day. Why do you wait until the case is at an end?"

"Because we wanted to be quite sure of you," he answered. "Our case is so large and of such vital importance to us, that we did not desire to run any risk of losing you. We thought we would wait and familiarize ourselves with all that you have done in this affair before coming to you. Now we are satisfied that we could not place our case in better hands, and what we are anxious to do is to induce you to interest yourself in it and take it up."

"You pay me a very high compliment," I said, "but I cannot give you a decision at once. I must hear what it is that you want me to do and have time to think it over, before I can answer you. That is my invariable rule, and I never depart from it. Do you know my office?"

"We know it perfectly," returned the blind man. "It would be strange if we did not, seeing that we have stood outside it repeatedly, trying to summon up courage to enter. Would it be possible for you to grant us an interview to-night?"

"I fear not," I said. "I am tired, and stand in need of rest. If you care to come to-morrow morning, I shall be very pleased to see you. But you must bear in mind the fact that my time is valuable, and that it is only a certain class of case that I care to take up personally."

"We are not afraid of our case," the man replied. "I doubt if there has ever been another like it. I fancy you yourself will say so when you hear the evidence I have to offer. It is not as if we are destitute. We are prepared to pay you well for your services, but we must have the very best that England can supply."

My readers must remember that this conversation was being carried on at the corner of Ludgate Hill and the Old Bailey. Curious glances were being thrown at my companions by passers-by, and so vehement were the taller man's utterances becoming, that a small crowd was gradually collecting in our neighbourhood.

"Very well," I said, "if you are really desirous of consulting me, I shall be very glad to see you at my office at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. I must ask you, however, not to be late, as I have several other appointments."

"We shall not be late," the man answered, "you may rely upon that. We have too much at stake to run any risks of losing your assistance. We will be with you to-morrow morning at ten o'clock punctually."

He thereupon bade me good-bye and raising his hat politely was led along the street by his companion in an opposite direction to that I was taking. They seemed delighted that I had given them an appointment, but for my part I am afraid I was too absorbed by the memories of the day, and the punishment that had been allotted to the two principal members in the swindle, to think very much of them and their business. Indeed, although I made a note of the appointment, it was not until I had arrived at the office on the following morning that I recollected their promised visit. I had just finished my correspondence, and had dictated a few letters to my managing clerk, when a junior entered with two cards, which he placed before me. The first I took up bore the name of Mr. Septimus Codd, that of the second, Mr. George Kitwater. When I had finished the letter I was in the act of dictating, I bade the clerk admit them, and a moment later the blind man and his companion whom I had seen on Ludgate Hill the previous evening, were ushered into my presence. I cannot remember a more venerable appearance than that presented by the taller man. His was a personality that would have appealed forcibly to any student of humanity. It was decidedly an open countenance, to which the long white beard that descended almost to his waist gave an added reverence. His head was well shaped and well set upon his shoulders, his height was six feet two if an inch, and he carried himself with the erectness of a man accustomed to an outdoor life. He was well dressed, and for this reason I surmised that he was the possessor of good manners. His companion was as much below the middle height as he was above it. His was a peculiar countenance resembling that of a boy when seen at a distance, and that of an old man when one was close to him. His eyes, as I have already said, were small, and they were set deep in his head. This, in itself, was calculated to add to his peculiar appearance. He steered his blind companion into the room and placed him in a seat. Then he perched himself on a chair beside him and waited for me to open the debate.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," I said. "Allow me to congratulate you on your punctuality."

"We were afraid of missing you," observed Kitwater. "Our business is so particular that we did not want to run any risk of losing our appointment."

"Perhaps you will now be good enough to tell me what that business is?" I replied, taking my note-book out of a drawer preparatory to writing down what they had to say.

"In the first place, sir," the man began, "we of course understand that everything we have to tell you will be regarded by you as strictly private and confidential?"

"That goes without saying," I replied. "If I were to divulge what my clients tell me, my business would not be worth a day's purchase. You can rest assured that everything you may impart to me will be treated in strictest confidence."

"We thank you," said Kitwater. "The story I have to tell you is perhaps the strangest that has ever been told to mortal man. To begin with, you must understand that my companion and myself have but lately arrived in England. We have been for many years missionaries in China, sowing the good seed in the Western Provinces. I do not know whether you have ever visited that country, but even if you have not you must be aware to some extent of the dangers to which our calling is subjected. We carry our lives in our hands from the moment we leave civilization until we enter it again. There are times, however, that compensate one for all the trials that have to be undergone."

"You must excuse me," I said, "if I remind you that my time is valuable, and that, however interested I may be in the missionary work of China, I cannot allow it to interfere with my business. The sooner you tell me in what way you want me to help you, the sooner I shall be able to give you the answer you are seeking."

"I must implore your pardon," the man continued, humbly enough, "I am afraid our calling, however, is apt to make us a trifle verbose. If you will allow me, I will put what I have to say in as few words as possible."

I bowed and signed to him to proceed.

"Our case is as follows," he began. "As I have told you, we have been in China for several years, and during that time we have had the good fortune to enroll not a few well-known names among our converts. To make a long story short, we were so successful as to be able to persuade even the Mandarin of the Province to listen to our message. He was an enormously rich man, one of the richest perhaps in China, and was so impressed by the good news we brought to him that, on his death-bed, he left to us for the benefit of the mission all his wealth, in gold, silver, and precious stones. It was a princely legacy, and one that would have enabled us to carry on our mission with such success as we had never before dreamed of."

"But if you were so lucky and so much in love with your profession, how does it come about that you are in England now?" I inquired.

"I will tell you why," he answered, leaning towards me and tapping with his fingers upon the edge of my writing-table. "It is a sad story, and the mere telling of it causes me more pain than you would believe. You must understand that at the time of the Mandarin's death an English traveller, who had been passing through the Western Provinces, reached our city and took up his abode with us. Needless to say we were overwhelmed with grief at the loss of our patron. The treasure he had presented us with we took to the mission and deposited it in a safe place. We had no suspicion of any sort of treachery. I fear my companion and I are not men of the world, that is to say we do not go about suspecting evil of our neighbours."

"I think I understand," I said. "You brought the treasure home, put it in what you considered a safe place, and one day awoke to find your estimable guest missing and the treasure gone with him. Have I guessed correctly?"

"You have hit the mark exactly," Kitwater replied. "We woke one day not only to find the treasure gone, but also ourselves and our mission seriously compromised. The relations of the dead man not only accused us of having alienated him from the faith of his forefathers, but also of having robbed him of his ancestral treasure. We could not but admit that we had been presented with the wealth in question, and when it was demanded of us, we could only explain that we had lost it in our turn. You can imagine the position for yourself. At the best of times the foreigner is not popular in China, and our situation was particularly unpleasant. Situated as we were in one of the wildest portions of the empire, and accused of the basest sacrilege, that is to say of violating the home of a dead man, we could hope for but small mercy. The man who had robbed us had entirely disappeared and no trace of him could be discovered. To attempt to offer any explanation, or to incriminate him, was out of the question. We could only suffer in silence."

He paused and heaved a heavy sigh.

"And what form did your punishment take?" I inquired, for I was beginning to be interested in their story.

"Can you not see for yourself?" the man answered. "Can you not see that I am blind, while my companion is dumb? That was what they condemned us to. By that man's villainy I am destined never to look upon God's earth again, while my companion will never be able to converse with his fellow-men, except by signs. We are in the world, yet out of it."

I looked at them both in amazement. Their tale seemed too terrible to be true. And yet I had the best of evidence to show that it