CHAPTER I
IT was Monday. Little requires to be said about such a day.
Charles James Sinclair Redsey, who, like Mr Milne’s Master Morrison, was commonly known as Jim, sat on the arm of one of the stout, handsome, leather-covered armchairs in the library of the Manor House at Wandles Parva, and kicked the edge of the sheepskin rug.
Mr Theodore Grayling, solicitor, sat stewing in an uncomfortably hot first-class smoking-compartment on one of England’s less pleasing railway systems and wondered irritably why his client, Rupert Sethleigh, had seen fit to drag him down to an out-of-the-way spot like Wandles Parva when he could with equal ease have summoned him to his offices in London.
Mrs Bryce Harringay, matron, lay prone upon her couch alternately sniffing languidly at a bottle of smelling- salts and calling peevishly upon her gods for a cool breeze and her maid for more eau-de-Cologne.
Only the very young were energetic. Only the rather older were content. The very young, consisting of Felicity Broome, spinster, dark-haired, grey-eyed, red-lipped, aged twenty and a half, and Aubrey Harringay, bachelor, grey-eyed, brown-faced, wiry, thin, aged fifteen and three-quarters, played tennis on the Manor House lawn. The rather older, consisting of Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, twice widowed, black-eyed, claw-fingered, age no longer interesting except to the more grasping and avaricious of her relatives, smiled the saurian smile of the sand lizard and basked in the full glare of the sun in the charming old-world garden of the Stone House, Wandles.
The train drew up at Culminster station, and Theodore Grayling alighted. There would be a luxurious limousine to meet him outside the station, he reflected happily. There would be tea under the trees or in the summer-house at the Manor. There might possibly be an invitation to stay to dinner. He had eaten Rupert Sethleigh’s dinners before. They were good dinners, and the wine was invariably above criticism. So were the cigars.
The road outside the station was deserted except for a decrepit hansom cab of an early and unpromising vintage. Theodore Grayling clicked his tongue, and shook his head with uncompromising fierceness as the driver caught his eye. He waited, screwing up his eyes against the glare of the sun, and tapping his stick impatiently against the toe of his boot. He waited a quarter of an hour.
‘They’ve forgot you, like,’ volunteered the driver, bearing him no ill-will. He flicked a fly off the horse’s back with the whip, and spat sympathetically.
Theodore Grayling laid his neat case on the ground and lit a cigarette. It looked a frivolous appendage to his dignified figure. He glanced up and caught the cabby’s eye again. Common humanity compelled him to proffer his gold case, the gift of a grateful client. The cabby lit up, and they smoked in silence for two or three minutes.
‘Wouldn’t hurt, like, to take a seat inside while you’re waiting,’ suggested the man hospitably. ‘It’s full ’ot to stand about.’
Theodore Grayling shrugged his shoulders.
‘Doesn’t look as though anyone is coming to meet me,’ he said. ‘I want the Manor House, Wandles Parva. Know it? All right. Carry on.’
The driver carried on.
The young man who received the lawyer in the fine hall of the Manor House looked apologetic when Grayling asked for Rupert Sethleigh.
‘Come into the library,’ said the young man. ‘It seems a bit awkward to explain. In fact, I can’t exactly explain it – that is to say’ – he paused, as though anxious to be certain that he was using the words he wished and intended to use – ‘it is very difficult to explain it. I mean, the fact is, he’s gone to America.’
Feeling more than surprised, Theodore Grayling followed the young man into the library.
‘I’m Redsey,’ the young man said. He was a big, untidy, likeable fellow, although his usually frank expression was marred at the moment by a look of strain and anxiety, and his nervous manner seemed at variance with his whole appearance. He stooped down and straightened the corner of the rug which he had been kicking, and invited the lawyer to be seated.
‘So your cousin has gone to America?’ said Theodore Grayling, pressing his finger-tips together and gazing benignly down at them. ‘When?’
‘To-day.’ The young man seemed definite enough on that point. ‘Early this morning.’
‘To-day? What boat is he on?’
‘Boat?’ Jim Redsey laughed unconvincingly. ‘It sounds a bit daft to say so, but I don’t know. Cunard Line, I believe – yes, I’m sure it was – but the actual name of the boat – !’ He knitted his brows. ‘I
‘To America,’ said Theodore Grayling pensively. ‘Strange! Very strange! Perhaps you can tell me why he requested me to come down here this afternoon in order to discuss and effect certain alterations in the testamentary disposal of his property!’
‘Eh?’ said Redsey, startled. ‘Do you mean he – he
The lawyer raised his eyebrows, but then nodded and turned to study the backs of the books in one of the glass-fronted shelves. Redsey, with an inaudible but heartfelt sigh of relief at what was evidently the termination of a disquieting conversation, lounged on the arm of a stout leathered-covered armchair and picked up a sporting periodical from the table.
On the lawn outside the library, two young people, the boy of fifteen and the girl of twenty, were still playing tennis. Their fresh voices and the clean, strong cello-note of rackets striking new balls came clearly into the room through the open French windows. These windows, together with part of the tennis-net, a stretch of level green turf and, occasionally, the figures of the white-clad players, were reflected darkly and strongly in the glass doors of the bookcase towards which Theodore Grayling was turned. The lawyer, however, was concerned at the moment neither with the books in the bookcase nor with the pleasant images which were reflected in the glass. He was puzzling over the news which had just been given him by the young man lounging on the arm of the massive armchair. At the end of five minutes’ fruitless pondering he shook his head, and, swinging round from the bookcase so suddenly that the startled young man beside him dropped his well-illustrated periodical on to the floor, he demanded with unusual abruptness:
‘And do you know that your cousin has invited the Vicar of Crowless-cum-Boone to spend a few weeks here to catalogue all this’ – he waved his hand round to indicate the solemnly splendid library – ‘and to give him some advice about his Alpine plants?’
