Chapter VII The Mysterious Packets
It was not till Tuesday evening that Benjamin Green was in a fit condition to visit his father again. He found the old man in bed, very feeble and shaky, but determined as ever that no power on earth should prevail on him to leave the homely roof which had sheltered him for so long.
“I daren’t exactly carry him off as he is,” thought Ben, after he had tried every form of persuasion and threat which occurred to him. “If he died on my hands upon the way I’d get into a pretty row, I suppose, taking him out of his house against his will. They’d say I did it only for the money. It’s a pity I ever let on that I wanted it so much.”
He leant back in his chair with his hands thrust into his pockets, and allowed his eyes to wander round the room. They lit upon his father’s desk, carefully laid out as the centre ornament on the top of the high chest of drawers at the foot of the bed.
“I wonder what he’s got in there,” the rascally son said to himself. “I’ll make a point of having a good hunt through it before long.”
“Father,” he added aloud, “did Mr. Field put his offer in writing when he promised you a hundred pounds for the cottage and the land?”
“Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t,” was the ambiguous reply. “It matters not what he said or how he said it. Here I be and here I remain, same as I have done all my life long. It’s no use you or the squire trying to make me change my mind, no manner of use, I tell you. It’s in this little room that I’ll be when the call comes to go up higher, and I’ll bide here till it reaches me, and not trouble nobody whiles I wait.”
Ben shrugged his shoulders impatiently as he rose to go. “I must see if I can’t make Mr. Field fork out the tin somehow,” he muttered. “If I wait till the house falls down, he may not see the fun of paying so much for a field that will sooner or later follow suit. It won’t be difficult to find out if the proposal’s in black and white, if only I can get to the inside of that desk.”
As Ben issued from the door of the cottage he caught sight of someone contemplating the scene from the top of the wooden stair which led to the beach. He drew back into the shelter of the porch to watch the stranger.
“Seems to me as if that man’s figure is familiar to me,” he said. “I wonder where I’ve seen him before. He appears mighty interested in the place, the way he’s staring so hard at everything. I wish I could get a better view of his face.”
As he spoke, the man apparently finished his survey and commenced to descend the steps to the shore.
A minute later, Jenkins, the Farncourt footman, walked past the end of the garden with some towels over his arm. Ben had struck up an acquaintance with him during one of his not infrequent visits to “The Bull,” and he now hailed him from the door.
“Who’s that fellow that’s just gone down there?” he asked, pointing his thumb in the direction of the sea. “A thick-set man with a jerky sort of walk, looking for all the world as if the whole place belonged to him.”
Jenkins peeped down over the edge of the cliff.
“Why, that’s my governor!” he remarked, “old Tommy himself. As it happens, the whole place does belong to him, barring your little house here that he can’t get.”
“Mr. Field!” exclaimed Ben, “Tommy, as you so respectfully call him. Sounds very natural to me somehow.” Suddenly he slapped his hand upon his thigh. “Tommy Field!” he repeated. “Tommy Field! Of course I remember now. Made his money in America, didn’t he?”
“Piles of it!” ejaculated the footman. “He’s called ‘the Silver King,’ he’s so rich. But I must be off, or I’ll get a wigging. He’s going to bathe this evening, and I’ve got his majesty’s towels.”
For some time did Ben continue to lean over the garden gate after Jenkins had left him. Judging from his preoccupied face his meditations appeared to be profound and perplexing. And so indeed they were.
His thoughts were far away, dwelling upon a scene very different to the homely English landscape now before him.
A vivid picture was being conjured up in his mind. The roar of a mountain torrent seemed again to make subdued music in his ears, and he could almost feel the night breeze which stirred the pine branches, as they waved in the moonlight over a little wooden house which stood upon the bank of the stream. Within the hut two men held converse by the glimmer of an oil lamp suspended from the rough beams of the ceiling. He seemed to be looking into the cunning, bloodshot eyes of one of the speakers, as he leant forward to emphasize some remark.
Ben laughed grimly as he recalled the scene, for the features were those of Field, and in Field’s companion he recognized himself.
“It’s strange we’ve not met again since that time,” he soliloquized as he puffed away at his pipe. “Never dreamt he’d get on in the world like this. Mighty queer he was that night, I remember, though his tongue was so glib. Rum thing altogether, now I come to think of it!”
For some minutes Ben appeared to be lost in speculations too deep for words. At last he gave a low chuckle.
“Wonder now if I could work it?” he continued. “Sure enough I’ve got precious little to go upon, but if I’m on the right tack and play my cards well, I may be able to put the screw on somewhere. ‘Conscience makes cowards of us all,’ and if there was anything fishy about it, he’ll know, even if I don’t! At any rate it’s well worth trying.”
When Jenkins returned with the towels about half an hour later, Ben walked back with him a little way upon the road.
“Seeing your master’s so rich I suppose he’s pestered with letters of all sorts?” he said, “begging, and such-like?”
“Crowds,” replied the footman, “mostly circulars though, enough to light a bonfire every week.”
“Does he ever get threatening letters, do you happen to know?” enquired Ben, “from socialists for example, who hold it a sin to own more than your neighbours do.”
“Not that I’m aware of,” answered Jenkins, “but he doesn’t do me the honour of inviting me to share his correspondence, so you see I’ve no means of judging.”
It was two days after the above conversation when Jenkins again joined Ben as he was having his usual glass at the inn.
“It’s curious you should have asked me that question about the socialists,” he said, “for I do believe old Field got a warning from one of them only this morning. He turned green enough for anything when he read the letter.”
“What letter?” enquired Ben, carelessly.
“Well,” replied the footman, “I suppose strictly speaking it could hardly be called one. I happened to be handing him something at the table, and was standing just at his shoulder when he opened the envelope, so of course I saw right enough what was in it. It was only half a sheet of ordinary foolscap, and on it was pinned a piece of blue paper of rather an unusual shade. There was nothing written on the blue bit, but on the white was a sentence in large letters a blind man could have read.”
“What was it?” asked Ben. “Anything about cross-bones and skulls? Generally they begin that way.”
“No,” answered Jenkins. “These were the words, and very harmless they seemed to me—just this plain question—
“‘WAS IT NOT WRITTEN ON PAPER OF THIS SHADE?’”
“Was that all?” exclaimed Ben, “and yet Field turned green as he read it!”
“Green as a pea-pod,” was the reply. “For a minute he stared at the words as if he didn’t quite take in their meaning, and then he just crumpled the paper up quick and tossed it right into the fire. A good shot he made too, so I didn’t have the satisfaction of picking it out of the grate afterwards. He looked up at me sharp, as if wondering could I have seen anything, but I was gazing straight before me at the big picture on the opposite wall, like the well-trained footman that I am—so of course I saw nothing.”
“Queer,” remarked Ben. “I wonder why he was so put out. It seems to me that the words were simple enough.”
All that day Mr. Field was visibly upset. The mysterious missive of the morning had evidently got upon his nerves, and he could settle down to nothing. As the posts came in he scanned them anxiously, taking good care to open his letters in the privacy of his own room. It was, however, not till the end of the week that something else happened to disturb him still further.
“May I undo your parcels, dad?” asked Julius as he sat at breakfast with his father.
It was a special privilege accorded to the boy, to investigate the numerous advertisement samples which poured in upon the wealthy owner of Farncourt. Now it was a bottle of horse-liniment, or a dainty tin containing some new style of food for pheasants—now a neat box of super-fine cigarettes, or a packet of some special blend of tea—all professing to be the very best and cheapest of their kind ever yet put upon the market. It was an exciting occupation to cut the string and discover the contents, and Julius never failed to find amusement in the process.
“Yes, yes,” said his father impatiently, in answer to the boy’s question, as he gathered up his letters and went off to the study with them.
“Look what a very funny advertisement this is,” said Julius, a few minutes later, as he opened the study door. “Neither Jenkins nor I can understand what it’s meant for.”
He laid a narrow cardboard box before his father, in which reposed, on cottonwool, a short wooden penholder, the end of which had been evidently burnt off, as the blackened stump clearly testified.
“There was only a scrap of paper besides, with one sentence on it,” continued Julius, as he read out the following words—
“‘WAS IT NOT WRITTEN WITH A PEN LIKE THIS?’”
Mr. Field started up and seized the slip from the boy.
“Some wretched joke,” he said, but Julius saw that his father’s hand trembled as he spoke. “I’ll open my parcels for myself in the future. It’s scandalous that anyone should be subjected to vulgar pranks like this. I’ll inform the police if it goes on, and you can tell Jenkins so, if it’s true what you said about his having seen this silly hoax.”
There was only one very small parcel addressed to Mr. Field next morning, which, being marked “private,” excited Jenkins’ curiosity to the uttermost.
This time no one but the owner saw the contents, for the study door was locked when they were brought into the light of day.
Only an old match-box, with one dead bee carefully enshrined, rewarded Mr. Field’s research, and he was apparently completely puzzled as to the meaning of the strange consignment.
“I see they’ve written ’to be continued in our next’ on the top of the box,” he said, “so perhaps the answer to the riddle will come to-morrow.”
His supposition was correct, for sure enough a postcard which seemed to give the clue arrived by the very first mail. In one corner was scribbled the word “continued,” and in large capitals right across the card were printed the four letters—
“WARE.”
“A dead bee yesterday and a communication with ‘ware’ on it to-day,” meditated Mr. Field as he scrutinized the handwriting, “that can mean nothing but ‘beware,’ I suppose, seeing that the two are intended to supplement one another. The postmark is London, so there is not much help in that. I might as well look for a needle in a haystack, as try to track my correspondent through the post. Who can he be, and what does he know, I wonder? I’d give a good deal to find out.”
His disquietude was not allayed by the receipt a day or so afterwards of two more little matchboxes, each containing the corpse of another bee. Hour after hour he mused on the possible explanation.
“Surely it can’t be a warning of death,” he shuddered. “If so, why should bees be chosen as a sign? It is more likely that they stand for letters. Perhaps the initials of the man who sent them.”
Suddenly he started as an inspiration seemed to flash into his mind. “Why, yes, of course that’s it,” he exclaimed. “I see it all now.”
His heart seemed to stand still for a moment, and a cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. He sank down in his armchair, and covered his eyes with his hand.
“I wonder how much he knows,” he said to himself. “If it’s a question of wanting money I shan’t grudge it if only I can stop his mouth. It won’t be long, I expect, before I hear from him again.”
A week passed by and the tension on Mr. Field’s nerves grew worse and worse as each day brought no fresh light to bear upon the case. Jenkins and the chauffeur had both given notice, unable to endure the unreasonable behaviour of the master of the house.
“Such tantrums as he goes into nowadays I never did see,” bewailed the footman to his chosen cronies in the village. “No wages will ever pay for what I’ve had to put up with lately. You’d hardly believe it, but yesterday he actually threw a plate at me and nearly cut my chin, and all because there was a little spot of dust upon the rim. Catch me staying to be murdered because of the carelessness of the kitchenmaid! Not if I know it!”
It seemed an unfortunate time for Ben Green to select, when he sent up a note one evening offering to remove his father from his cottage, and to make arrangements for the sale of the land, if the squire would kindly let him know in writing the terms of the agreement.
“What impudence!” exclaimed Mr. Field, as he read the demand, “as if I would bind myself down on paper to anything of the kind. The old man wouldn’t budge when I made him the offer, fair and square, nearly a year ago now, and I’m not going to renew it to this scamp of a son, who they tell me has just returned to idle about the place like a vagabond. The next gale will take the house down on to the beach, and the sea will soon eat away the rest of their paltry field, so I’m not likely to pay this ne’er-do-weel a hundred pounds for sitting by to see it go. Once their little bit of land has disappeared I’ll be careful to put breakwaters along the shore to prevent the waves doing any further damage to my own property, but the sooner that portion of the cliff falls over the better for me.”
“Old Timothy’s son says as he’ll be much obliged if you could see him for a few minutes,” said Jenkins, who had stood meekly by during this tirade. “There’s something rather special he wants to say.”
“You may send him up then,” replied Mr. Field grimly, “and I’ll give him a piece of my mind. I don’t think he’ll favour me with a second call, once I’ve had my say.”
“You’ll have a gay old time in there,” whispered Jenkins as he ushered Ben into the room. “I wouldn’t be in your shoes for anything.”
The footman wondered at the strange smile which stole over Ben’s face at the words. “I expect I’ll get on all right,” was the reply.
Vainly did Jenkins apply his eye and ear to the keyhole, hoping to catch something of the interview within, but the apartment was a long one, and the occupants were at the further end, so he had to retire baffled to the hall.
It would have edified him could he have seen what was taking place inside. Mr. Field stood with his back to the fire, ready to let loose the fury of his wrath upon the intruder, but as Ben advanced, the great man’s countenance suddenly changed. His jaw fell and his eyes glared like some startled animal when an enemy is near. Ben walked quietly up to him.
“I suppose I’d better introduce myself as you don’t seem exactly to remember me. At any rate you don’t give the warm sort of welcome an old pal might expect. B. B., Blustering Ben, alias Benjamin Green, at your service, sir.”