“My dear Gastineau, I am only too delighted that you have given me another proof of your friendship by telling me. Luckily I have quite that at my bankers, and will draw you a cheque at once.”
“Thank you, Geof,” Gastineau said simply, and Herriard taking a blank cheque from his letter-case proceeded to fill it in.
Presently Hencher came back with a note to say that Doctor Hallamar would call early next morning.
“I will come round in the first half-hour I can snatch,” Herriard said, as he took leave. “His will be to me the most anxiously awaited of all the verdicts I have been concerned in.”
There was a strangely sarcastic smile on Gastineau’s face as he replied, “I fear Geoffrey Herriard is not going to win his case this time.”
So with much food for perplexity, Herriard left him.
CHAPTER XIII
A MAYFAIR COUNSELLOR
HERRIARD had indeed much to exercise his mind that night. Thinking over his interview with Gastineau, several things puzzled him. To begin with, he was at a loss to understand his friend’s continued attitude of disbelief in the value of Campion’s evidence. He would never even be brought to admit that there might be anything in it beyond an obvious trick for obtaining money. Every one else held the testimony to be invaluable; Gastineau alone maintained a rigid scepticism.
Then Herriard could scarcely understand Gastineau’s reception of the news about Dr. Hallamar. It was to have been expected that he, lying there a helpless cripple with an abnormally active brain, his spirit full of energy, and the desire for action, so cruelly fettered by his helpless limbs, would at least have shown more eagerness at the hope suddenly brought to him. As it was, he had fallen in with the suggestion of submitting his case to the great specialist as coolly, even casually, as though it had been merely a question of sending round to the chemist’s for a box of lozenges. True, he had lost no time about writing, and here arose another question which perplexed Herriard.
Why had he insisted upon writing himself to Dr. Hallamar? He had written the note, had sealed it up without communicating one word of its contents, and had sent it off by Hencher; whereas the more natural course would have been to let him, Herriard, who had an acquaintance with the Doctor, and had already half arranged the visit, be the messenger. He had kept him there, ostensibly to speak of his need for a thousand pounds; but surely a few seconds would have settled that simple matter. The money could not have been transferred before banking hours next day; the question might have waited till later in the evening, for Herriard, had he gone, would have returned with the Doctor, as he had practically arranged to do. Why, again, when Hallamar had expressed himself as at liberty and willing to attend that evening, had he put off his visit till the morning? Had Gastineau in his note suggested this? And, if so, why the delay? Herriard could not make it all out. Nor why his friend had suddenly found the pressing need of a thousand pounds. He had always understood that Gastineau had, during his active life, made a sufficient fortune to assure him easy, if not affluent, circumstances for the rest of his days. His house was his own freehold, and, although it was furnished in the most luxurious and costly fashion, still that had been all capital expenditure and paid for long since: his current expenses as an invalid, in an existence of the strictest seclusion, with the smallest possible household, could not be heavy. With the single exception of indulging a hobby for buying valuable books, he had, so far as Herriard knew, no extravagances. As his debtor he was only too glad to let him have the money, for the idea that all the profit of their partnership was going to his share had often given him qualms; still, why this sudden demand for a thousand pounds? Gastineau might have told him; their relations assuredly justified confidence; nevertheless his reasons had been studiously vague. A veil of mystery seemed to be falling between the two men; it was useless to blink the fact that of late their relations had been gradually changing. Sometimes there had seemed, on Gastineau’s side at least, to be a certain tacit antagonism between them. Herriard could not understand it. Was his friend thinking of making yet another man’s fortune? Had he, himself, any cause for self-reproach in his conduct towards his mentor? He could hardly charge himself with that. Until the question of Campion’s evidence had cropped up they had never had even a difference of opinion. Herriard had never found himself in a position to dispute the cleverer man’s judgment until Gastineau’s assumption of that unaccountable attitude towards the witness on whom so much depended, and his refusal to make, at least, the best of it.