CHAPTER XLVI.—DOWNHILL.
After that dumb leave-taking of Madge at the station, Philip returned to his chambers, passing through the human torrent of Cheapside without any sense of sound, touch, or feeling. The room in which she had so lately stood looked desolate somehow; and yet her visit was like an ill-remembered dream. Only the plaintive voice with the faint ‘Good-bye’ haunted his ears. The sound was still in them, move where he would.
He tried to shake off the stupor which had fastened upon him as the natural result of narcotics, overstrained nerves, and want of sleep. One clear idea remained to him: so far as Madge was concerned, he had acted as a man ought to act in his circumstances. Dick Crawshay would speedily satisfy her on that score. There was a tinge of bitterness in this reflection; and the bitterness brought a gleam of light, although not sufficient yet to dispel the confused shadows of his brain. It sufficed, however, to make him aware that it was Wrentham’s vague whisperings about Beecham, and Madge’s strange association with that person, which had urged him to act so harshly. For after all, there was no reason why he should not work his way out of the mess and win sufficient means to make Madge content, however far the position might be below that in which he would like to place her. But the haunting voice echoed its ‘Good-bye,’ and it seemed as if he had put away the love which might have sustained him in this time of trial. ‘What a fool, what a fool!’ And he paced the floor restlessly, repeating that melancholy confession.
He wished Wrentham would come back, so that he might discuss the state of affairs again, and obtain explanations of certain items in the accounts he had gone over during the night. There he was at last, and something particular must have happened to make him knock so violently.
He threw open the door, and Mr Shield entered in his hurried blustering way, bringing with him a mixed aroma of brandy and gin. His bushy beard and whiskers were tangled, and his somewhat bloodshot eyes stared fiercely into space.
‘Pretty mess—horrible mess,’ he muttered in his jerky manner, as he forced his way into the room and flung his huge form on the couch; ‘and I can’t get you out of it. I’m in a mess too.’
The surprise at the appearance of Shield, his rough manner, and the announcement he made, roused Philip most effectually from his own morbid broodings.
‘You in a mess, sir—I do not understand.’ In his bewilderment, he omitted the welcome which he would have given at any other time, and did not even express surprise that Shield should have answered his letter in person.
‘You’ll get it into your head quick enough.—Give me a drink first—brandy, if you have it. Take a cigar. They’re first-rate. Drink, smoke, and I’ll tell you.’
He threw a huge cigar on the table, and lit one himself in a furious way. But, in spite of his rough reckless manner, he was watching Philip narrowly from under his heavy eyebrows. Philip having mechanically placed a bottle and glass on the table, stood waiting explanations.
‘Light up.’ (The command was obeyed slowly.) ‘Give us soda.... Ah, that’s better. Take some—you’ll want it to keep your courage up.’
‘Not at present, thank you. I should be glad if you would tell me at once the meaning of your strange statement that you too are in difficulties. That fact makes my loss of your money so much the worse.’
‘It’s bad—bad. Easily told. Think of me doing it! Got into a bogus thing—lost every available penny I had. That’s why there is no help for you.’
Mr Shield did not look like a person who had fallen from the height of fortune to the depth of poverty. He drank and smoked as one indifferent to the severest buffets of fate.
‘Gracious powers—you cannot be serious!’ ejaculated Philip.
‘Fact, all the same. Not ruin exactly; but not a brass farthing to come to me for a year or more.’
Philip paced the floor in agitation, unable to realise immediately the horrible calamity which had befallen his uncle. But the severity of the shock had the effect of rousing him to new life and vigour. All his misfortunes dwindled to pettiness beside those of his benefactor. He stopped before him, calm, and with an expression of firmness to which the lines made by recent calamities added strength. There was no more wildness in the eyes; he had suddenly grown old.
‘I understand, Mr Shield, that your present position is no better than my own?’ he said slowly.
‘Not much—maybe worse.’
‘It shall not be worse, for whatever I can gain by any labour or skill is yours.’
‘So?’ grunted Shield as he drank and stared at the man through clouds of smoke.
‘Yes, my course is plain,’ Philip went on deliberately; ‘we must sell the works and material for what they will fetch; they ought to fetch more than enough to clear off the debts.’
‘Well?’
‘I believed—and still believe—that if you had been able to make the necessary advances, we could have carried the scheme to a successful issue, notwithstanding my blunders. My first mistake was in beginning on too big a scale. That cannot be helped. Now we have to look the ruin straight in the face, and whatever work can do to make you feel your losses less, it shall be done.’
‘Don’t see how it’s to be done,’ muttered Shield, as if finding a difficulty somewhere.
‘We’ll try our best at anyrate; and you will believe, Mr Shield, that I should never have touched the money, if there had ever occurred to me a suspicion that you might some day feel the loss of it. You will remember that I always understood your wealth to be almost unlimited.’
‘My wealth never was, and isn’t likely to be. Been a mighty fall in diamonds lately.’
‘Well, I understood so.’ (The emphasis on the ‘my’ was not observed by Philip.) ‘However, I hope you agree to accept the only return I can make for all your kindness to me.’
‘Don’t see how it’s to be done,’ growled Shield, again finding a difficulty somewhere.
‘We must find that out, sir,’ said Philip with quiet resolution.
‘Got to find your way out of this mess first. The works won’t bring half enough to clear off your debts. You’ve been cheated all round—paying the highest price for rubbish’——
‘Impossible!’ interrupted Philip. ‘Wrentham may have made mistakes; but he is too much a man of business to have done that.’
‘Fact it was done, all the same. Then there’s no time to turn round. That bill you drew on me falls due in a week or so.’
Philip had been about to say, ‘Wrentham must account to us, if the materials have not been according to sample and order;’ but Wrentham was driven from his mind by the last sentence, which Shield jerked out before any interruption was possible.
‘Bill!—What bill?’
‘The one for six thousand—your brother Coutts discounted it, and’.... Here Shield made a long pause, looking steadily at Philip ... ‘but it was not signed by Austin Shield.’
The huge fist came down on the table with a thump that made the glasses rattle and the lamp shake. Philip stared for an instant, thunder-stricken by this new revelation. He recovered quickly, and gave a prompt answer.
‘If there is such a bill—I did not sign it either.’
Then they glared at each other through the smoke. Shield’s face with its shaggy hair always looked like that of a Scotch terrier, in which only the eyes give a hint of expression. Suddenly his hand was thrust out and grasped Philip’s with hearty satisfaction.
‘Right! Was sure of it without a word from you; but your brother is not sure that your signature is not genuine.’
‘Did he say so?’ (How the pale cheeks flushed with indignation at the thought that Coutts should admit the one signature to be a forgery, and doubt whether his was or not.)
‘Didn’t say it—looked it,’ answered Shield with jerky emphasis.
‘When did you see him?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Why did he not come to me then, as soon as he had seen you?’
‘Don’t know’—but there was a low guttural sound, as if Shield were inwardly chuckling with self-congratulation that he understood very well why Coutts had chosen to go to him and not to his brother.
Philip was annoyed and puzzled by this curious transaction. He had always regarded his brother as such a keen trader, that it was difficult to understand how a mistake of this magnitude could be made by him.
‘Did he say how he came to deal with a bill for so large an amount without mentioning it to me?’
‘Says he took it in the ordinary way of business from your manager Wrentham. Had no reason to doubt its genuineness till afterwards when he came to compare signatures. Then he called on me.’
‘Wrentham!’ Philip started to his feet. ‘Can the man have been cheating me all along?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘He ought to be here now. I’ll send for him’——
‘Stop! There’s more in the affair and more to be got out of it than we see at this minute. We have more than a week to work in. Let’s work.’
‘Willingly; but in this matter we have nothing more to do than repudiate the forgery, and leave Coutts and the police to settle with the forger.’
He felt bitter enough towards Coutts to have little regret for the loss which was about to fall on him. He would have felt still more bitter if he had known how eagerly Coutts had made use of this forged bill to endeavour to ingratiate himself into the place which Philip held in their uncle’s estimation.
Wrentham had assured Coutts, and given him what appeared to be conclusive evidence, that Shield had realised fabulous sums out of the diamond fields, and had it in his power to realise as much more if he chose to work the ground. The greedy eyes of Coutts Hadleigh had gleamed with wild fancies suggested by these disclosures of the man who had been for a time one of Shield’s London agents; and who must therefore be able to speak with certainty of his affairs; and the greedy brain had been for months busy devising schemes by which he might win the rich man’s esteem and confidence, with the prospect of a share, at least, of his possessions. This forged bill afforded him the opportunity he desired, and he made the most of it without committing himself to any definite charge against his brother.
The cleverest men are apt to judge others in some degree by reflection of their own natures, and so go wide of the mark. Coutts tried to reach the good-will of Mr Shield through his pocket; and he went wide of his mark. He was, however, at present happy in the idea that he had scored a bull’s-eye.
‘That all you see to do?’ queried Shield after a pause, during which he watched Philip.
‘So far as the forgery is concerned, that is all.’
‘Ah.... I see more. Maybe we can get back a little of the waste. No saying. Worth trying. Anyhow, we can have a grin at the beggars who thought us bigger fools than we looked. That’s what we’ve got to work for.’
‘I don’t quite see what advantage we are to obtain in that way.’
‘Clear enough, though. We recover a part of what is lost—maybe the greater part. Don’t give Wrentham or your brother a hint till you see me again. Go on with your arrangements as if you had heard nothing.’
‘Very well, since it is your wish. Meanwhile, I shall get another bed fitted up here, so that you can occupy it as soon as you are obliged to leave the hotel. We’ll manage to keep on the chambers somehow.’
‘All right,’ said Shield, nodding his head heavily. ‘But you don’t know what you are bringing on yourself. I’m fond of that.’
He pointed with his cigar to the brandy bottle. Philip gave his shoulders an impatient jerk; he had no need for this confession.
‘I hope not too fond, sir; although it is easy to understand how a man leading such a solitary life as yours has been may contract the habit of looking for comfort from that false friend. But if it be so, then it is better you should be with me than with strangers.’
‘Kind—very kind. I thank you. And now that I’ve given you all this bad news, here’s a bit of good news. Found an old friend of mine—takes interest in everything. Says he’ll make an offer for the works if on investigation he finds anything practicable in your scheme. More; if he finds that your failure is not due to negligence, he’ll make you an offer for your services as manager of some sort.’
This was indeed good news, and Philip’s eyes brightened with pleasure; but his first thought was for others.
‘Then we shall not starve, uncle, thank heaven; and if your friend has capital enough, I may see my project carried out under my own direction yet.’
‘Maybe. Don’t be too jolly over it. Beecham’s a crotchety cur, and may change the whole thing.’
‘Beecham!—Is he the friend you mean?’
‘Yes. Says he knows you, and rather likes you.’
‘He is very kind,’ said Philip coldly; ‘but there is a possibility of our not agreeing if brought into frequent contact.’
‘No fear of that, no fear of that.—I’m off. Good-night.’
But before going off, he helped himself from the brandy bottle again; then, without the slightest indication of unsteadiness, strode out of the room and got into the hansom which was waiting for him.