"Any particular reason? No; there"s only the general reason that I"m all mops and brooms; that I start at shadows. Besides, I"m going into it, and you"re going with me."
"Am I? That"s news."
"Luker, if you"ll come with me to Pitmuir, and stick to me while I find Cuthbert Grahame"s money, I"ll give you five hundred pounds."
"Hard cash?--before we start?"
"I can"t do that; you know I can"t do that. But, Luker, I"ll give you a thousand when I"ve found the money. I"ll set down my promise in writing; give you any sort of undertaking you like."
"Yes; but suppose you don"t find the money; suppose what that girl told you is nothing but a c.o.c.k-and-bull story? I tell you plainly that I can"t make head or tail of the whole business.
I"ve no faith in the girl, or her story, or her motives. And I"m pretty sure that she has no intention, under any circ.u.mstances or on any conditions, of presenting you with Cuthbert Grahame"s fortune, or of putting you in the way of getting it for yourself either."
"But I know it"s there. I can"t explain to you how I know it--I don"t understand myself--but I do. And though it seems queer, at the back of my head I"ve known it all the time. Luker, as sure as you are living, that money"s there."
"Then, in that case, instead of going yourself, why not instruct some one on the spot to examine the premises on your behalf; to pull down this famous mantelpiece, or the whole house if necessary, and report the results to you?"
"Who shall I instruct? Before they move they"ll perhaps want money--I expect my position is pretty generally known--and where am I to find it? In any case, they"ll take their own time, and time is precious. Besides, there are enough fingers meddling in my affairs already. And who am I to trust? I don"t want any one except myself to know how much I find. To speak of nothing else, shouldn"t I have to pay succession duty if it were known?"
"I suppose you would. Isabel, you"re a curious person; a little too fond, perhaps, of doing things for yourself; yet, in delicate matters--in very delicate matters--it"s a fault on the right side. How do you know you can trust me?"
"You and I have seen too much of each other for me not to know when, and where, and how far I can trust you. I"m not afraid."
"You"re right; you needn"t be. I don"t think I am likely to round on you. But, on the other hand, frankly, I"m afraid of you."
"Nor need you be afraid of me. It"s only when I"m upset that--that I"m trying--that"s all."
"Even if it is all, it"s a pretty big all."
"About the thousand pounds. As I said, I"ll give you any sort of bond you like, undertaking, if you stick to me, to pay you the moment I get the money in my hands. Anyhow you know that you"ll be safe. It"s not bad pay for what I"m asking you to do."
"I don"t say it is. When do you propose to start?"
"To-morrow morning, by the ten o"clock train from King"s Cross.
I planned it all out before I came."
"That"s quick work."
"It"ll have to be quick work. If I don"t have money, and plenty of it, within forty-eight hours, I"m undone."
"I understand. By the way, I presume that you"re prepared to pay all out-of-pocket expenses, for both parties, as we go on. For instance, I shall require you to hand me a return ticket to wherever we are going before I set foot inside the train. I"m a poor man, although you sometimes amuse yourself by pretending to think otherwise, and I, at any rate, can afford to take no risks."
"You shall have your ticket, and I"ll pay everything. I"ve the money to do it--but it"s about as much as I have got."
"Ah, but by to-morrow, about this time, you"ll be more than a millionaire. I"ve always understood that that wonderful quarter of a million of Mr. Grahame"s produced, on an average, more than twenty per cent.; so that if you had a million, averaging a modest three per cent.--and some millionaires would be glad to get as much--your income would be less. Then there are the arrears, which have been accruing! Think of the arrears, Mrs.
Lamb--on a quarter of a million, at twenty per cent.! Now if you will sit down here, and will give me, on this sheet of paper, that little undertaking you mentioned, I think that, on my part, I can undertake to accompany you on your little trip to the north."
CHAPTER x.x.xI
MRS. LAMB RETURNS TO PITMUIR
When Mr. Isaac Luker and his client, Mrs. Gregory Lamb, arrived at the small roadside station, in the county of Forfar, towards which they had been journeying throughout the day, they were neither of them in the best of tempers. It had been a long day"s journey. There had been some misunderstanding about the connection of the trains at Dundee. They had missed the one by which they had meant to travel; there had been a dreary wait for the next. When at last they started on the last stage of their journey the engine went dawdling along the branch line in a style which both, in their then frame of mind, found equally trying. They would hardly, at any time, have been called a sympathetic couple. Neither, for instance, would have selected the other as an only companion on a desert island. By the time the train paused for, so far as they were concerned, its final stoppage, either would have been almost willing to fly to a desert island to escape the other"s society.
It was between nine and ten at night--a misty night. The damp seemed to be rising out of the ground, and to be covering the country with a corpse-like pallor. There was a faint movement in the air, which it did not need a very imaginative mind to compare to a whisper of death. They were the only pa.s.sengers who alighted at the station, which seemed to consist of but a narrow strip of bare earth, about the centre of which was constructed what looked like a ramshackle shed. Illumination was given by two or three oil lamps, and by a lantern which the only visible official carried in his hand. To this personage Mrs. Lamb addressed herself.
"Is any one waiting for me?"
The official proved to be a Scotsman of a peculiarly Scotch type; his manners and his temper were both his own. No attempt is made to reproduce the dialect in which he spoke.
"And who might you happen to be?"
"I"m Mrs. Gregory Lamb."
"Never heard the name. Pa.s.s out! Tickets!"
Mr. Luker nudged the lady"s arm.
"I thought you telegraphed under the name of Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame?"
She made a somewhat ill-considered attempt to correct the error she had made.
"I mean that I"m Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame."
"Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame? You said just now that you were Mrs.
Gregory Lamb."
"I spoke without thinking. I telegraphed some instructions to the station-master in the name of Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame."
"In the name of Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame? A body can"t have two names."
"I ordered a close carriage to meet Mrs. Cuthbert Grahame by the train before this, then, when I found I"d missed it, I sent a wire from Dundee to order the carriage to wait for the next."
"There"s no carriage within miles."
"No carriage? Then what is there?"
"There"s what they call a fly."
"And is the fly here?"
"Sam Harris wouldn"t let it come."
"Who"s Sam Harris?"
"He"s the man that owns it."