XXVII
Mr. Fabrian Gilder, sometime head clerk to the firm of Gwyn & Gwyn, and now a gentleman of leisure, was in one sense a hard man. He did not forgive even slight injuries, and in the past had gone a long way out of his path to get even with those who had the misfortune to affront him. And Arthur Gwyn had offended beyond hope of forgiveness. A few days before, Gilder would have thought it a very simple matter to be revenged upon his enemy; but now the simple process of laying an information and of preferring a charge of forgery was contingent upon four bills which were in his possession being repudiated by the man who was alleged to have backed them.
He could do no more than present those interesting documents, and this he did through his bank. Dick had already made arrangements for their redemption. It was not entirely an act of philanthropy on his part, for he was a business man, and took over from the frankly reluctant Mr. Gwyn the choice of a number of unsalable shares which Dick regarded as having a certain value. The bills, which had been renewed from time to time, were met, and that ended Mr. Gilder’s chance of carrying his threat into execution.
He was the type of man who thrived on opposition. Though it would be true to say that he had fallen in love with Leslie Gwyn the first time he had seen her, which was months before that unpleasant scene at his flat, his desire for her grew as his chance of winning her receded farther and farther into the background.
On the night that Dick had found him examining the ruins of the Abbey, Mr. Gilder had returned to the cut road when he thought the coast was clear and had discovered yet another in quest of the treasure. He had witnessed the interview between the two men and had followed Arthur back to Willow House with no other intention than to offer his help, for a consideration, in discovering this mythical fortune. For Mr. Gilder had heard quite enough that day he surprised his employer with Mary Wenner, to know that somewhere under the Abbey lay either the fortune or its key. He had overtaken Arthur on the drive, and Arthur was in an unpleasant mood: hot with the man at the interruption of his search, smarting under the sting of Dick Alford’s sarcasm.
At first, startled by the unexpected apparition of his head clerk, Arthur had snarled round on him, and there and then discharged him from his service and defied him to do his worst. It was Gilder who had struck the first blow.
When Arthur was in his more unpleasant moods he said things that no self-respecting man could endure, and the black eye which the lawyer nursed was an advertisement of his indiscretion.
Gilder might be a bookmaker, but he was not a thief. At least, “thief” was rather an extravagant description of his duplicity. He went back to London half crazy with rage, but a day in bed restored his mental equilibrium and he sat down to plan how best he could frustrate any plans which his late employer had formed for gaining possession of the treasure. By this time Gilder, too, was convinced; his last doubts removed. He had been sceptical as to the treasure’s existence, but he knew such things had happened, and he had a natural desire to be in any scheme which produced immediately and without great labour a vast, undreamed-of sum.
His cut lip healed in a few hours, though it was still swollen, and toward the evening of the second day after his retirement from the firm of Gwyn & Gwyn, he dressed himself with great care, and, calling a taxi, drove to an address he had once scribbled on his white shirt-cuff.
Mary Wenner occupied a tiny flat, every compartment of which might have been contained in one large-sized room. It was perched on the top floor of an apartment house near Baker Street—37, Cranston Mansions. She enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the Metropolitan Railway and such shunting operations as are carried out in that busy centre, and she was as a rule free from callers; for there were no elevators in the house, and to climb up four steep flights of stairs was something of an undertaking.
Mr. Gilder was not strong for physical exertion and cursed the parsimonious builder who had neglected to put in this easy method of transportation. Nevertheless, he climbed, and presently was ringing at the polished bell of No. 135.
Mary had a daily servant, who was a charwoman in the morning, a parlour-maid in the afternoon, and her own natural self after six, at which hour she left for the night. This aged woman, with her dingy white cap askew, opened the door and took the card in to her mistress, leaving Mr. Gilder on the mat. She came back with an ingratiating smile, and pointed to the room where Mary was to be found.
“This is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Gilder,” said Miss Wenner conventionally. “I’m sure I never thought that you would be as good as your word. Sit down, won’t you?”
She really was pretty, he observed; in her plain house dress she was prettier than in a more elaborate attire. The flat, though small, was well but not expensively furnished. It left him with the impression that she had bought everything with her own money and he had rather a nice feeling toward her in consequence. For Fabrian Gilder was a queer mixture of Puritan and adventurer. Later, Mary had her flat to thank for certain pleasant developments.
There was only one chair on which he could sit, and this he took.
“You’d like a cup of tea? I’m just going to have mine,” said Miss Wenner. “I’ve been out all day shopping and everything.”
“Are you—er—working?” asked Gilder delicately.
“No, I’m not in business,” replied Miss Wenner, more correctly. Only common people “work”: the gentility “go to business.”
She went out, disappearing into a mysterious cupboard, which had just enough room for a tiny kitchen table and a gas stove, and he heard the rattle of cup against saucer, the plomp! of a gas ring being lighted, and after a while she came back, a little flushed and apologetic.
“Maids are so stupid, aren’t they?” she asked. “You can never trust these common daily people. I had an awfully nice maid but she went away and got married, the stupid child!”
She received very few visitors, she told him. Her “sewing woman” came twice a week. She had a very dear friend—a girl, she hastened to assure him—who spent Tuesday evenings with her and sometimes slept in the flat. But a male visitor was the rarest of phenomena.
“You can’t be too careful,” said Miss Wenner primly. “A girl’s character is her principal asset—don’t you agree Mr. Gilder?”
Mr. Gilder agreed.
“That is what I have always said about my work with Harry—excuse me, I mean Lord Chelford, only we were such awfully good friends that I’ve never dreamt of calling him anything but by his Christian name.”
“And did you call Richard Alford by his Christian name?” asked Mr. Gilder, not without malice.
Her nose went up in the air.
“Him!” she said contemptuously. “I don’t take any more notice of him than I do of any of the other upper servants! He’s educated and all that—went to Eton and Harrow” (even Mr. Gilder winced at this) “but you judge a man by his manners and not by his education. There’s no doubt at all that Dick Alford has the manners of a pig!”
She said this with feeling and no little vehemence. Mr. Gilder, who knew something of the circumstances, understood and almost sympathized.
“I was going to say that down at Fossaway I often felt that it wasn’t right to be in that big house with no lady there except the housekeeper, who of course is a servant, and—— Oh! here you are, Gladys!”