The Town Traveller Part 20

By the by, I called at your place on Sunday. I was driving a very fresh pony, new to harness; promised to trot her round a little for a friend of mine. Thought you might have liked a little turn on the Surrey roads."

Greenacre chatted with his usual fluency, and seemed at ease in the world.

"You're doing well just now, eh?" said Gammon presently.

"Thanks; feel remarkably well. A touch of liver now and then, but nothing serious. By the by, anything I can do for you? Any genealogy?"

Gammon had drained his tumbler of hot whisky, and felt better for it.

With the second he became more communicative. He asked himself why, after all, he should not hang on to the clue he had obtained from Polly, and why Greenacre should not be made use of.

"Know anything about a Gildersleeve?" he asked with a laugh.

His companion smiled cheerfully, looking at once more interested.

"Gildersleeve! Why, yes, there was a boy of that name--no, no; it was Gildersleeves, I remember. Any connexion with Quodling?"

"Can't say. The people I mean live in Stanhope Gardens. I don't know anything about them."

"Like to?"

Gammon admitted that the name had a significance for him. A matter of curiosity.

"No harm in a bit of genealogy," said Greenacre. "Always interesting.

Stanhope Gardens? What number?"

He urged no further question and gave no promise, but Gammon felt sure this time that information would speedily be forthcoming. Scarcely a week pa.s.sed before Greenacre wrote to him with a request for a meeting at the Bilboes. As usual, the man of mystery approached his subject by indirect routes. Beginning with praise of London as the richest ground of romance discoverable in the world, he proceeded to tell the story of a cats'-meat woman who, after purveying for the cats at a West End mansion for many years, discovered one day that the master of the house was her own son.

"He behaved to her very handsomely. At this moment she is living in a pleasant little villa out Leatherhead way. You see her driving herself in a little donkey-carriage, and throwing bits of meat to p.u.s.s.y-cats at the cottage doors. Touch of nature that, isn't it? By the by, you were speaking of a family named Gildersleeve."

He added this, absently looking about the little room, which just now they had to themselves.

"Know anything about them?" asked Gammon, eyeing him curiously.

"I was just going to say--ah, yes, to be sure, the Gildersleeves. Now I wonder, Gammon--forgive me, I can't help wondering--_why_ this family interests you."

"Oh, nothing. I came across the name."

"Evidently." Greenacre's tone became a little more positive. "I'm sure you have no objection to telling me how and where you came across it."

Gammon had an uncomfortable sense of something unfamiliar in his friend. Greenacre had never spoken in this way to him; it sounded rather too imperative, too much the tone of a superior.

"I don't think I can tell you that," he said awkwardly.

"No? Really? I'm sorry. In that case I can't tell you anything that I have learnt. Yet I fancy it _might_ be worth your while to exchange."

"Exchange?"

"Your information for mine, you know. What I have is substantial, reliable. I think you can trust me in matters of genealogy. Come now.

Am I right in supposing this curiosity of yours is not altogether unconnected with Your interest in Francis Quodling the silk broker?

Nothing to me, Gammon; nothing, I a.s.sure you. Pure love of genealogical inquiry. Never made a penny out of such things in my life. But I have taken a little trouble, etc. As a matter of friends.h.i.+p--no? Then we'll drop the subject. By the by have you a black-and-tan to dispose of?"

He pa.s.sed into a vein so chatty and so amiable that Gammon began to repent of distrusting him. Besides, his information might be really valuable and could not easily be obtained in any other way.

"Look here, Greenacre, I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. The fact is, a man I used to know has disappeared, and I want to find him. He was seen at the theatre with a lady who lives at that house; that's the long and the short of it."

"Good! Now we're getting on in the old way. Age of the man about fifty, eh? And if I remember you said he was like Quodling in the face, Francis Quodling? Just so. H'm. I can a.s.sure you, then, that no such individual lives at the house we're speaking of."

"No, but perhaps--"

"One moment. The Gildersleeves are a young married couple. With them lives an older lady--"

Greenacre paused, meditating.

"The name of the missing man?" he added gently.

"Fellow called Clover."

"Clover--clover? _Clo_--"

Greenacre's first repet.i.tion of the name was mechanical, the next sounded a note of confused surprise, the third broke short in a very singular way, just as if his eyes had suddenly fallen on something which startled him into silence. Yet no one had entered the room, no face had appeared at the door.

"What's up?" asked Gammon.

The other regained his self-possession, as though he had for a moment wandered mentally from the subject they were discussing.

"Forgive me. What name did you say? Yes, yes, Clover. Odd name. Tell me something about him. Where did you know him? What was he?"

Having gone so far, Gammon saw no reason for refusing the details of the story. With the pleasure that every man feels in narrating circ.u.mstances known only to a few, he told all he could about the career of Mrs. Clover's husband. Greenacre listened with a placidly smiling attention.

"Just the kind of thing I am always coming across," he remarked.

"Everyday story in London. We must find this man. Do you know his Christian name?"

Mrs. Clover called him Mark.

"Mark? May or may not be his own, of course. And now, if you permit the question, who saw this man and recognized him in the theatre?"

Gammon gave a laugh. Then, fearing that he might convey a wrong impression, he answered seriously that it was a niece of Mrs. Clover, a young lady with whom he was on friendly terms, nothing whatever but friendly terms; a most respectable young lady--anxious, naturally, to bring Mrs. Clover and her husband together again, but discreet enough to have kept the matter quiet as yet. And he explained how it came about that this young lady knew only the address in Stanhope Gardens.

After reflecting upon that, Greenacre urged that it would be just as well not to take the young lady into their counsel for the present, to which his friend readily a.s.sented. And so, when they had chatted a little longer, the man of mystery rose "to keep an appointment." Gammon should hear from him in a day or two.

When ten days had gone by without the fulfilment of this promise Gammon grew uneasy. He could not communicate with Greenacre, having no idea'

where the man lived or where he was to be heard of; an inquiry at the Bilboes proved that he was not known there. One evening Gammon went to look for himself at the house in Stanhope Gardens; he hung about the place for half an hour, but saw nothing of interest or importance. He walked once or twice along Shaftesbury Avenue, but did not chance to meet Polly, and could not make up his mind to beg an interview with her. At the end of a fortnight Greenacre wrote, and that evening they met again at the obscure house of entertainment.

"It is not often," said Greenacre, in a despondent tone, "that I have found an inquiry so difficult. Of course it interests me all the more, and I shall go on with it, but I must freely confess that I've got nothing yet--absolutely nothing."

Gammon observed him vigilantly.

"Do you know what has occurred to me?" pursued the other, with a half melancholy droop of the head. "I really begin to fear that the young lady, your friend, may have made a mistake."