Hugo by Arnold Bennett (all ebook reader txt) 📖

/> As he read the detailed accounts Hugo knew, perhaps for the first time in his life, what it was 'to go hot and cold all over.' However, he was decidedly inclined to be optimistic.

'Anyhow,' he said, 'it's the best ad. I ever had. Still, it's a mercy there were no deaths.'

He began to dress hurriedly, furiously. Already the second day of the sale had been in progress for more than an hour, and he had not even visited the scene of the campaign. Simon had said nothing; it was not Simon's habit to speak till he was spoken to. And Hugo did not feel inclined to ask questions; he preferred to reconnoitre in person. Yes, he would descend instantly, and afterwards, when he had satisfied himself that the evil had been repaired, he would consider about Camilla.... By neglecting all else, he could reach her in time for dinner.... Should he?... (At this point he plunged into his cold bath.) ... No! He was Hugo before he was Camilla's lover. He would be a tradesman for yet another ten hours. He had a duty to London....

Then Ravengar wandered into his thoughts and confused them.

Just as he was assuming his waistcoat, Simon entered.

'Mr. Galpin, sir.'

'And who the d---l is Mr. Galpin?' asked Hugo.

'Mr. Galpin is the gentleman who saved your life yesterday, sir,' said Simon with admirable sangfroid. 'He has called for a hundred pounds.'

'Show him in here immediately,' said Hugo.

Mr. Galpin appeared in the dressing-room, looking more than ever like an extremely successful commercial traveller. Hugo could not think of any introductory remark worthy of the occasion.

'I needn't say how grateful I am,' Hugo began.

'Certainly you needn't,' said Mr. Galpin. 'I understand. I've been under lock and key myself.'

'I should offer you more than this paltry sum,' said Hugo, with a smile, 'but I know, of course, that a man like you can always obtain all the money he really wants.'

Mr. Galpin smiled, too.

'However,' continued Hugo, detaching his watch from his waistcoat, 'I will ask you to take something that you can't get elsewhere. This is the thinnest watch in the world. Breguet, of the Rue de la Paix, Paris, made it specially for me. It is exactly the same size as a five-shilling piece. It repeats the quarters, shows the time in four cities, and does practically everything except tell the weather and the political party in power. It has one drawback. Only Breguet can clean it, and he will charge you five guineas for the job, besides probably having you arrested for unlawful possession. I must write to him. Such as it is, accept it.'

The golden, jewelled toy was offered and received with a bow. The practised hands of Mr. Galpin had opened the case in two seconds.

'How do you regulate it?' demanded Mr. Galpin, staring at the movement.

'You don't,' said Hugo proudly; 'it never needs it.'

Mr. Galpin stood corrected.

'If there's anything in my line I can do for you at any time, sir,' said he.

Hugo pondered.

Mr. Galpin put the watch in his waistcoat-pocket, and, tearing the hundred-pound note in two halves, placed one half in the left breast pocket of his coat, and the other half in the right breast pocket of his coat.

'Could you have opened that vault,' Hugo asked, 'if both keys had been lost?'

'No, sir, I could not. It's such people as you who are ruining my profession, sir.'

'You think the vault is impregnable?'

'Yes, sir,' said Mr. Galpin. 'I should say its name was just about as near being Gibraltar as makes no matter.'

'I was only wondering,' Hugo mused aloud, 'only wondering.... Ah, well, I won't trouble you with my fancies.'

'As you wish, sir. Good-bye.'

'Good-bye, Mr. Galpin. And thank you!'

'Thank _you_, sir,' said Mr. Galpin, and disappeared.

'Simon,' Hugo ordered immediately afterwards, handing Simon the token, 'run down and get me the best gold watch in the place.'

Throughout the morning Hugo's thoughts were far away. Most frequently they were in Belgium, but now and then they paid a strange incomprehensible visit with Ravengar to the vault.

While he was lunching under the dome, Albert Shawn came in with the early edition of the _Evening Herald_, containing a prominent item headed, 'Feared Suicide of Mr. Louis Ravengar.' The paper stated that Mr. Ravengar had gone to Dover on the previous evening, had been seen to board the Calais steamer, and had been missed soon after the boat had left the harbour. His hat, umbrella, rug, and bag had been found on deck. As the night was quite calm, there could be no other explanation than that of suicide. The _Evening Herald_ gave a sympathetic biography of Mr. Ravengar ('one of our proprietors'), and attributed his suicide to a fit of depression caused by the entirely groundless rumours which had circulated during the late afternoon connecting him with the scandalous disturbances at Hugo's sale.

Hugo dropped the organ of public opinion.

'H'm!' he observed to Albert.

'I'm not surprised, sir,' said Albert.

'Aren't you?' said Hugo. 'Then, there's nothing more to be said.'

Since Louis Ravengar had certainly been talking with Hugo that selfsame morning, it was obviously impossible that he should have committed suicide in the English Channel some twelve hours earlier. Why, then, had he arranged for this elaborate deception to be practised? What was his scheme? His voice through the telephone had been so quiet, so resigned, so pathetic; only towards the end had it become malevolent.

Hugo perceived that he must go down to the vault. No! He dared not go himself. The sight of that vault, after yesterday's emotions, would surely be beyond his power to bear!

'Albert,' he said, 'go to the Safe Deposit.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And inquire if anyone named--'

Hugo stopped.

'Named what, sir?'

'Never mind. I'll go myself. By the way,' he said, 'I must run over to Belgium to-night. Perhaps I may take you with me.'

'Don't forget the inquest on Bentley to-morrow, sir. You'll have to attend that.'

Hugo made a gesture of excessive annoyance. He had forgotten the inquest.

'Take this telegram,' he said, suddenly inspired; and he scribbled out the following words: 'Darcy, 16, Boulevard des Italiens, Paris. Please come instantly; urgent case.--HUGO, London.'

'At any rate, I've made a beginning,' he murmured when Albert had gone. 'I can find out all that is to be known about Camilla from Darcy--if he comes. I wonder if he'll come. He'd better.'

And then, collecting his powers of self-control, he went slowly down to the Safe Deposit, and entered those steely and dreadful portals.

'Getting on all right?' he said to the newly-installed manager, a young man with light hair from the counting-house.

'Oh yes, Mr. Hugo.'

'Any new customers?'

He trembled for the reply.

'Yes, sir. Two gentlemen came as soon as we opened this morning, and took Vault 39. They paid a year's rent in advance. Two hundred pounds.'

'What did they want a whole vault for?'

'I can't say, sir. There was a lot of going to and fro with parcels and things, sir, and a lot of telephoning in the waiting-room. And one of them asked for a glass and some water. They were here a long time, sir.'

'When did they go?'

'It was about ten-thirty, sir, when one of the two gentlemen called me to bring my key and lock up the vault. The vault was properly locked, first with his key, and then with mine, and then he left. Perhaps it might be a quarter to eleven, sir.'

'But the other gentleman?'

'Oh, he must have slipped off earlier, sir. I didn't see him go.'

'What did he look like?'

'Oldish man, Mr. Hugo. Gray.'

The manager was somewhat mystified by this cross-examination.

'And the name?'

'The name? Let me see. Callear. Yes, Callear, sir.'

'What?'

'C-a-l-l-e-a-r.'

'What was the address?'

'Hotel Cecil. He said he would send a permanent address in a day or two.'

In half an hour Hugo had ascertained that no person named Callear was staying at the Hotel Cecil.

He understood now, understood too clearly, the meanings of Ravengar's strange utterances on the telephone. The man had determined to commit suicide, and he had chosen a way which was calculated with the most appalling ingenuity to ruin, if anything would ruin, Hugo's peace of mind for years to come--perhaps for ever. For the world, Ravengar was drowned. But Hugo knew that his body was lying in that vault.

'Louis had an accomplice,' Hugo reflected. 'Who can that have been? Who could have been willing to play so terrible a role?'


CHAPTER XXII


DARCY

That night, when he was just writing out some cheques in aid of charities conducted by Lady Brice (_nee_ Kentucky-Webster), Simon entered with a card. The hour was past eleven.

Hugo read on the card, 'Docteur Darcy.'

He had nearly forgotten that he had sent for Darcy; in fact, he was no longer quite sure why he had sent for him, since he meant, in any case, to hasten to Belgium at the earliest moment.

'You are exceedingly prompt, doctor,' he said, when Darcy came into the dome. 'I thank you.'

The cosmopolitan physician appeared to be wearing the same tourist suit that he had worn on the night of Tudor's death. The sallowness of his impassive face had increased somewhat, and his long thin hands had their old lackadaisical air. 'You don't look at all the man for such a part,' said Hugo in the privacy of his brain, 'but you played your part devilish well that night, my pale friend. You deceived me perfectly.'

'Prompt?' smiled the doctor, shaking hands, and removing his overcoat with fatigued gestures.

'Yes; you must have caught the 4 p.m. express, and come via Folkstone and Boulogne.'

'I did,' said Darcy.

'And yet I expect you didn't get my telegram till after two o'clock.'

'I have received no telegram from you, my dear Mr. Hugo. It had not arrived when I left.'

'Then your presence here to-night is due to a coincidence merely?'

'Not at all,' said Darcy; 'it is due to an extreme desire on my part to talk to you.'

'The desire is mutual,' Hugo answered, gently insisting that Darcy should put away his cigarettes and take a Muria. 'Dare I ask--'

Darcy had become suddenly nervous, and he burst out, interrupting Hugo:

'The suicide of Mr. Ravengar was in this morning's Paris papers. And I may tell you at once that it's in connection with that affair that I'm here.'

'I also--' Hugo began.

'I may tell you at once,' Darcy proceeded with increasing self-consciousness, 'that when I had the pleasure of meeting you before, Mr. Hugo, I was forced by circumstances, and by my promise to a dead friend, to behave in a manner which was very distasteful to me. I was obliged to lie to you, to play a trick on you--in short--well, I can only ask you for your sympathy. I have a kind of a forlorn notion that you'll understand--after I've explained, as I mean to do--'

'If you refer to the pretended death of Tudor's wife--' said Hugo.

'Then you know?' Darcy cried, astounded.

'I know. I know everything, or nearly everything.'

'How?' Darcy retreated towards the