Till the Clock Stops Part 13

Caw shook his head. "Hardly that, sir. They had a sight of my revolver--though, of course, that was after I had made sure they had got the box, and was only a miserable attempt to give them a shake-up. But they were not to know that. Their strong point is this, sir. They have the knowledge that the existence of the diamonds is practically a secret.

Even Mr. Alan, even the lawyer has never heard of them. Only Bullard, Lancaster, and Caw knew of them; and Caw is in the minority. And they say to themselves--'Once we get the box, we have only to swear that it contained papers belonging to us, that Mr. Craig had the loan of it, and so forth.' Then how is Caw going to disprove their words? they ask themselves. 'Can't be done! If Caw begins to talk of half-a-million in diamonds left in a writing-table drawer, he'll only get laughed at, and if we've nothing better to do, we can get up an action for slander.'

There you are, sir! That's what I fancy I see at the back of their heads, and I'm sure I'm right."

"I believe you are, Caw!" cried Marjorie. "What do you say, father?"

"I am inclined to accept the diagnosis," replied the doctor, smiling at her eagerness. "Well, Caw, just one question more. What is your position, supposing those two gentlemen made an attempt by deputy?"

At that Caw smiled for the first time. "If I may say so, sir, I think your services would be required for the deputy!" Becoming grave, he added--"I have taken the liberty of running a new wire along the pa.s.sage, sir. The opening of the door of my master's room will cause a bell to ring--not too loudly--in the quarters you have kindly provided for me in this house."

"Capital!" said the doctor.

"And if you, sir, would be good enough to give your housekeeper some explanation that would satisfy her without giving away things--"

"That will be all right, Caw," Miss Handyside a.s.sured him. "When you get to know Mrs. b.u.t.ters, you will realise that she is not as others are, being a woman absolutely without curiosity."

"Thank you, miss." Caw smiled faintly and got up. "Unless there is anything more, sir--" he began.

"Nothing at all," said the doctor kindly.

"Thank you, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, miss."

"Trustworthy chap," Handyside remarked when the door had closed. "The legacy seems to have made no difference, though it upset him for the moment. And he knows all that's worth knowing about cars and electric lighting," he added rather irrelevantly. "I believe we'll be able to give him enough to do, after all."

"Between ourselves, father," said Marjorie suddenly, "have you the slightest hope of Alan Craig's return?"

"Not the slightest, my dear. He was a fine lad. I wish you had met him, but you were always gadding somewhere when he visited his uncle."

"I shan't be doing much gadding in the near future," she remarked thoughtfully.

"Why this sudden change from years of neglecting your only father?"

"I'm going to be on the spot in case anything happens next door."

"Indeed!" said the doctor drily.

CHAPTER IX

When Teddy France, bidding Doris a formal goodnight, whispered "to-morrow" he had in mind a certain reception at the house of a mutual acquaintance, and he went home looking forward to meeting her there with hopes irrepressible. He felt that the girl he had loved for years was--if not with her whole heart--on the verge of surrender; would have been his by now but for the untimely entrance of Bullard and the succeeding intervention of Mrs. Lancaster; and he lived most of the night and the following day in a state of exaltation.

Thus Doris's note, received in the evening, was a blow that seemed to crash to the centre of his soul. At first he imagined wicked, unreasonable things. Then, his wrath failing, he realised that only one thing could have made Doris act as she had done. She had been driven by a sudden overpowering pressure. Who had exerted it? Teddy did not doubt the mother's ability for coercion any more than her vaunting ambition, and he shrunk from blaming the father; yet he feared that Mr. Lancaster, beset by financial troubles of which he had long had an inkling, had sought a way out through the sacrifice of his daughter. Well, there was nothing to be done, he decided in his misery; interference on his part would be worse than vain, and would only cause Doris to suffer a little more.

At rather a late hour the craving for a glimpse of her drew him, after all, to the reception.

She was dancing when he entered the room, and, with a pang of angry pain, he discovered that she was lovelier than ever. Her face gave no hint of the heart-sickness she endured; she nodded to him in the old friendly way, and the easy recognition brought home to him the cool truth that, after all, the wild hopes of the previous night had been of his own making, not hers. Yet why had she written and so quickly, to inform him of her bargain with Bullard? Was her note just an uncontrollable cry for pity, sympathy?

It was after midnight when he led her to a corner in the deserted supper-room.

"Shall I congratulate you, Doris?" he asked gently.

"Why, yes, I think you had better," she answered with a bitter little smile, "on having done my duty. Don't look so shocked, Teddy," she went on, "I had to say it, and you are the only person besides father and mother who knows what I have done. And now I'm going to ask a great favour."

"Yes, Doris?"

"It is that you will prove your friends.h.i.+p to me--prove it once more, Teddy--by never, after to-night, referring to the matter. I'm going to try hard not to let it poison my life--for a year, at any rate."

"Very well.... But I must ask at least one question."

"Ask."

"Could _I_ have done anything to prevent this?"

"No one," she answered sadly, "could have done anything, excepting one man, and he died last week--Christopher Craig."

"Christopher Craig--dead? No wonder your father has been upset. Of course I know of their long friends.h.i.+p in South Africa, and once I was Mr.

Craig's guest in Scotland along with Alan. The old man had a tremendous admiration for you, Doris."

"I loved him, though I did not see him for several years before the end.

Well, I have answered your question. Have I your promise?"

He put his hand tenderly over hers. "I will give you two promises, Doris," he said deliberately; "the one you ask for and another. I promise you that Bullard shall never call you his wife!"

"Oh!" she cried, pale. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I mean it--and it is all I have to say." He laughed shortly.

"But I am going to lay myself out to confound Mr. Bullard within the year, and I will do it. Now tell me this, Doris; are you and I to continue being friends--openly, I mean?"

"Why not? I must have one friend."

He bent and kissed her hand, and rose abruptly. "Let us go back to the dancing before I lose my head," he said, with a twisted smile.

"And I must not do that when at last I've got something to do that's worth doing!"

Teddy was a creature of impulses and instincts not by any means infallible. They had led him into blunders and sc.r.a.pes before now. On the other hand, they had protected him from mistakes no less serious. Had he been a matter-of-fact person he would have said to himself: "What can I do? I know of nothing positive against Bullard. Being a poor man, I cannot, by a stroke of the pen, make Lancaster independent of him, and I need not waste my wits in plotting to confound him by some great financial operation such as I've read of in novels," But what Teddy said to himself was something to this effect: "I suspect that Bullard is not quite straight, and if one watches such a man for twelve months as though one's life depended on the watching, one is likely to learn something.

The only question at present is where to begin."

It is not to be a.s.sumed that Teddy went home from the reception in a light-hearted, hopeful condition. On the contrary he was extremely hara.s.sed, and wished he had kept to himself the brave prophecy made to Doris. Nevertheless, dawn found him unshaken in his determination to make good that prophecy. If, instead of spending the whole morning in doing his duty to the insurance company, he had been able to spend an early part of it in a state of invisibility within Bullard's private office, he would have justified himself beyond his highest expectations.

Bullard on entering the outer office, about nine-thirty, received from the chief clerk a curious signal which was equivalent to the words "Undesirable waiting to see you. Bolt for private room." But either Bullard was slower than usual this morning, or the "Undesirable" too alert. Ere the former's hand left the open door the latter stepped round it, saying--

"How are you, Mr. Bullard? Been waiting--"

"Get out of this," said Bullard crisply, and stood away from the door.

"Really," said the visitor with an absurdly pained look, "this is a very unkind reception." He was a small individual of dark complexion, leering eyes and vulgar mouth. His clothing was respectable, if not fas.h.i.+onable; he displayed a considerable amount of starched linen of indifferent l.u.s.tre.