The Crime and the Criminal Part 44

He never turned a hair. I was watching the white hands, which were resting on his knee. Not a muscle quivered.

He replied to my question without a moment's hesitation, and in his ordinary tone of voice.

"He tells me that he's going to prosecute. He seems rather eager about the business, too. If the chap is guilty I don't fancy Jardine will let him slip."

I was still for a moment. I looked into my visitor's eyes with wonder, and--I don't mind owning it--with admiration. This was the sort of man it was worth one's while to know--he was a man.

"Don't you think the affair is rather an odd one?"

"Very odd, indeed--and not the least odd part of it is that I know this fellow Tennant very well."

"No!" I was startled.

"I do. He's a stockbroker. He's done a good deal of business for me.

Unless I am mistaken, he is, or was, almost a neighbour of yours."

"I know. He lives five doors down the street. But fancy your knowing him. It seems so strange."

He made a little movement with his hands.

"In this world it is the strange things which happen."

"That is true."

As I sat there, looking at him, I realised how true it was with a vividness of which he probably had no notion. This man was a study for the G.o.ds. His att.i.tude of perfect unconcern was not acting, it was nature.

I felt that, having gone so far, I must go farther.

"Do you think he's guilty?"

"It seems almost incredible. He always struck me as being one of the pleasantest and most inoffensive little chaps alive."

"Every one seems to think he's guilty."

He smiled.

"Every one's an a.s.s."

"Suppose he were to be found guilty, and was hanged, and all the time he was innocent; how dreadful it would be."

Another little movement with his hands.

"It's the way of the world. The innocent are always being hung. Half the time we guilty ones go free."

This was a man. I went still further.

"Do you know that we met each other, for the first time, on the night which the murder happened?"

"Am I likely to forget it?"

"Thank you. It's very kind of you to say so. But do you know that we must have met each other quite close to what they call the scene of the tragedy."

"I believe that we were within half a mile of it."

"And it must just have happened."

"Probably within twenty minutes of our meeting. By all of which you will perceive that our acquaintance in the beginning was cemented with blood."

What did he mean? What kind of creature was he? I really began to wonder.

We went in to dinner, for which, by the way, he already had given me an appet.i.te.

I had seen a good deal of men--of all sorts and conditions of men!--but I never saw a man who came within measurable distance of Mr. Reginald Townsend in the exercise of that very rare, and wholly indescribable gift, the gift of fascination. I should say that he would have been a favourite alike with men and women--I will stake my bottom dollar, as poor, dear Daniel would have said, that he would have been popular with every woman. To me the average "fascinating man" is a monstrosity. He so obviously bears his honours thick upon his brow. He so plainly tries his hardest to live up to them. There was nothing of that sort about Mr. Townsend. The charm was in him; it would come out of him whether he would or he would not. He was not conscious of it. There was no sign of effort. There was no effort. He was always natural, always completely at his ease. He could not help but give you pleasure. You yourself did not notice the glamour of his manner and his presence till, as it were, it had compa.s.sed you about.

Nor were his powers of fascination decreased by the fact that he was the best bred, the best dressed, the most graceful, and the handsomest man I ever saw.

This sounds like tall talking. But it is not. I am no tall talkist, especially where men are concerned. It is the simple truth. My friend, the gentleman, was a man in twenty millions; any woman would have been proud to own him.

I felt this very strongly, with a tendency to personal application, before the dinner was through. His conversation did me good. He talked as if he had been brought up in the same cradle with all the leading members of the British aristocracy. There was n.o.body who was anybody whom he did not seem to know, male and female. To listen to him talking was like reading the Almanach de Gotha and the Court Guide bound up together. Only it was better, and a deal more satisfying.

He began to speak of a particular friend of his, one Lord Archibald Beaupre, in a way which set me all of a tremble.

"I will bring Archie to call on you--if I may."

This Lord Archibald Beaupre was a son of the Duke of Glenlivet, and, so far as blood went, not very distant from the Throne itself.

"I shall be very glad to see him, or, indeed, any of your friends. Is this Sir Haselton Jardine, with whom you have been staying, a married man?"

"He is a widower."

"Has he any family?"

"He has a daughter."

I don't know what there was in his tone, but there was something when he said "He has a daughter" which made it almost seem as if he had slapped my face. I felt almost as if he had taken my breath away. I found myself echoing his words.

"A daughter? I see."

There was silence. Something seemed, all at once, to have taken the heart out of the conversation. It floundered, fell flat; seemed, for a time, to die. I knew very well what that something was just as plainly as if it had been told to me.

It was that daughter of Sir Haselton Jardine.

It may seem odd. I had never seen the girl. I had never heard of her before. But, all the same, I hated her right then. She spoilt my dinner. That's a fact. And, straight on the spot, she made me stand to arms.

I knew he loved her. And it made me feel--well, I had never thought that a little thing like that could have made me feel so queer.

I had meant to talk to him about my plans for the future. To have asked his advice upon points on which I wished him to think I needed it. I wanted to beguile him into showing interest in what I had set my heart upon, until he had drifted, though but a little, into the current of my affairs. But, somehow, after all, I did not seem to care to try. At least, not then. I let him go.

He was very nice. I was conscious that the man was almost like a woman in the quickness of his intuition. That, if it came to shooting I should have to move like lightning to get my shot in first. That he would detect any intended movement towards my gun even before the intention was wholly formed. And instinct told me that he was aware that I had perceived the intonation with which he had said "He has a daughter," and that it rankled. I do believe that for the first time in my life I had given myself away. And to a man. But this man could read the stars. And after dinner, he was particularly nice, because he happened to have read them.