Mr. Osborne was not quite clear as to exactly what it was that happened. He only knew that the friend of his boyhood--the man for whom he had done so much--the only person in the world who loved him--rose and took him by the throat, and, forcing him backwards, began to rifle the pocket which contained the seventy pounds. He was so taken by surprise, so overwhelmed by a feeling of utter horror, against which he was unable even to struggle, that it was only when he felt the money being actually withdrawn from his pocket that he made an attempt at self-defence. Then, when he made a frantic clutch at his a.s.sailant"s felonious arm, all he succeeded in grasping was the empty air. The pressure was removed from his throat. He was able to look about him.
Mr. Fleming was gone. He thrust a trembling hand into his pocket--the seventy pounds had vanished too.
"Geoff! Geoff!" he cried, the tears streaming from his eyes. "Don"t play tricks with me! Give me back young Baker"s dividends!"
When no one answered and there seemed no one to hear, he began to searching round and round the room with his eyes, as if he suspected Mr. Fleming of concealing himself behind some article of furniture.
"Geoff! Geoff!" he continued crying. "Dear old boy!--give me back young Baker"s dividends!"
"Hullo!" exclaimed a voice--which certainly was not Mr. Fleming"s. Mr.
Osborne turned. Colonel Lanyon was standing with the handle of the open door in his hand. "Frank, are you rehearsing for a five-act tragedy?"
Mr. Osborne replied to the Colonel"s question with another.
"Lanyon, did Geoffrey Fleming pa.s.s you as you came in?"
"Geoffrey Fleming!" The Colonel wheeled round on his heels like a teetotum. He glanced behind him. "What the deuce do you mean, Frank? If I catch that thief under the roof which covers me, I"ll make a case for the police of him."
Then Mr. Osborne remembered what, in his agitation, he had momentarily forgotten, that Geoffrey Fleming had had no bitterer, more out-spoken, and, it may be added, more well-merited an opponent than Colonel Lanyon in the Climax Club. The Colonel advanced towards Mr. Osborne.
"Do you know that that"s the blackguard"s chair you"re standing by?"
"His chair!"
Mr. Osborne was leaning with one hand on the chair on which Mr. Fleming had, not long ago, been sitting.
"That"s what he used to call it himself,--with his usual impudence. He used to sit in it whenever he took a hand. The men would give it up to him--you know how you gave everything up to him, all the lot of you. If he couldn"t get it he"d turn nasty--wouldn"t play. It seems that he had the cheek to cut his initials on the chair--I only heard of it the other day, or there"d have been a clearance of him long ago. Look here--what do you think of that for a piece of rowdiness?"
The Colonel turned the chair upside down. Sure enough in the woodwork underneath the seat were the letters, cut in good-sized characters--"G.
F."
"You know that rubbishing way in which he used to talk. When men questioned his exclusive right to the chair, I"ve heard him say he"d prove his right by coming and sitting in it after he was dead and buried--he swore he"d haunt the chair. Idiot!--What is the matter with you Frank? You look as if you"d been in a rough and tumble--your necktie"s all anyhow."
"I think I must have dropped asleep, and dreamed--yes, I fancy I"ve been dreaming."
Mr. Osborne staggered, rather than walked, to the door, keeping one hand in the inside pocket of his coat. The Colonel followed him with his eyes.
"Frank"s ageing fast," was his mental comment as Mr. Osborne disappeared. "He"ll be an old man yet before I am."
He seated himself in Geoffrey Fleming"s chair.
It was, perhaps, ten minutes afterwards that Edward Jackson went into the smoking room--"Scientific" Jackson, as they call him, because of the sort of catch phrase he is always using--"Give me science!" He had scarcely been in the room a minute before he came rushing to the door shouting--
"Help, help!"
Men came hurrying from all parts of the building. Mr. Griffin came from the billiard-room, where he is always to be found. He had a cue in one hand, and a piece of chalk in the other. He was the first to address the vociferous gentleman standing at the smoking-room door.
"Jackson!--What"s the matter?"
Mr. Jackson was in such a condition of fl.u.s.ter and excitement that it was a little difficult to make out, from his own statement, what was the matter.
"Lanyon"s dead! Have any of you seen Geoff Fleming? Stop him if you do--he"s stolen my pocket-book!" He began mopping his brow with his bandanna handkerchief, "G.o.d bless my soul! an awful thing!--I"ve been robbed--and old Lanyon"s dead!"
One thing was quickly made clear--as they saw for themselves when they went crowding into the smoking-room--Lanyon was dead. He was kneeling in front of Geoffrey Fleming"s chair, clutching at either side of it with a tenacity which suggested some sort of convulsion. His head was thrown back, his eyes were still staring wide open, his face was distorted by a something which was half fear, half horror--as if, as those who saw him afterwards agreed, he had seen sudden, certain death approaching him, in a form which even he, a seasoned soldier, had found too horrible for contemplation.
Mr. Jackson"s story, in one sense, was plain enough, though it was odd enough in another. He told it to an audience which evinced unmistakable interest in every word uttered.
"I often come in for a smoke about this time, because generally the place is empty, so that you get it all to yourself."
He cast a somewhat aggressive look upon his hearers--a look which could hardly be said to convey a flattering suggestion.
"When I first came in I thought that the room was empty. It was only when I was half-way across that something caused me to look round. I saw that someone was kneeling on the floor. I looked to see who it was.
It was Lanyon. "Lanyon!" I cried. "Whatever are you doing there?" He didn"t answer. Wondering what was up with him and why he didn"t speak, I went closer to where he was. When I got there I didn"t like the look of him at all. I thought he was in some sort of a fit. I was hesitating whether to pick him up, or at once to summon a.s.sistance, when--"
Mr. Jackson paused. He looked about him with an obvious shiver.
"By George! when I think of it now, it makes me go quite creepy.
Cathcart, would you mind ringing for another drop of brandy?"
The brandy was rung for. Mr. Jackson went on.
"All of a sudden, as I was stooping over Lanyon, someone touched me on the shoulder. You know, there hadn"t been a sound--I hadn"t heard the door open, not a thing which could suggest that anyone was approaching.
Finding Lanyon like that had make me go quite queer, and when I felt that touch on my shoulder it so startled me that I fairly screeched. I jumped up to see who it was, And when I saw"--Mr. Jackson"s bandanna came into play--"who it was, I thought my eyes would have started out of my head. It was Geoff Fleming."
"Who?" came in chorus from his auditors.
"It was Geoffrey Fleming. "Good G.o.d!--Fleming!" I cried. "Where did you come from? I never heard you. Anyhow, you"re just in the nick of time.
Lanyon"s come to grief--lend me a hand with him." I bent down, to take hold of one side of poor old Lanyon, meaning Fleming to take hold of the other. Before I had a chance of touching Lanyon, Fleming, catching me by the shoulder, whirled me round--I had had no idea the fellow was so strong, he gripped me like a vice. I was just going to ask what the d.i.c.kens he meant by handling me like that, when, before I could say Jack Robinson, or even had time to get my mouth open, Fleming, darting his hand into my coat pocket, s.n.a.t.c.hed my pocket-book clean out of it."
He stopped, apparently to gasp for breath. "And, pray, what were you doing while Mr. Fleming behaved in this exceedingly peculiar way--even for Mr. Fleming?" inquired Mr. Cathcart.
"Doing!" Mr. Jackson was indignant. "Don"t I tell you I was doing nothing? There was no time to do anything--it all happened in a flash.
I had just come from my bankers--there were a hundred and thirty pounds in that pocket-book. When I realised that the fellow had taken it, I made a grab at him. And"--again Mr. Jackson looked furtively about him, and once more the bandanna came into active play--"directly I did so, I don"t know where he went to, but it seemed to me that he vanished into air--he was gone, like a flash of lightning. I told myself I was mad--stark mad! but when I felt for my pocketbook, and found that that was also gone, I ran yelling to the door."
CHAPTER IV
It was, as the old-time novelists used to phrase it, about three weeks after the events transpired which we have recorded in the previous chapter. Evening--after dinner. There was a goodly company a.s.sembled in the smoking room at the Climax Club. Conversation was general. They were talking of some of the curious circ.u.mstances which had attended the death of Colonel Lanyon. The medical evidence at the inquest had gone to shew that the Colonel had died of one of the numerous, and, indeed, almost innumerable, varieties of heart disease. The finding had been in accordance with the medical evidence. It seemed to be felt, by some of the speakers, that such a finding scarcely met the case.
"It"s all very well," observed Mr. Cathcart, who seemed disposed to side with the coroner"s jury, "for you fellows to talk, but in such a case, you must bring in some sort of verdict--and what other verdict could they bring? There was not a trace of any mark of violence to be found upon the man.
"It"s my belief that he saw Fleming, and that Fleming frightened him to death."
It was Mr. Jackson who said this. Mr. Cathcart smiled a rather provoking smile.
"So far as I observed, you did not drop any hint of your belief when you were before the coroner."
"No, because I didn"t want to be treated as a laughing-stock by a lot of idiots."