XIV.—THE SUPERSTITION OF LORD PINLOW
Mr Callander thought the matter over a long time before he came to any decision: before he even consulted Horace, his son. Horace had been in low spirits and an object of his father’s solicitude. Gladys had been in an unaccountably good humour, which did not please Mr Callander at all.
The trip might raise the drooping spirits of his son; it might even subdue the exuberance of his daughter.
For Mr Callander was not altogether a fool. He had not lived his sixty years of life without making certain fundamental discoveries. He detected certain symptoms in his daughter’s attitude toward life: a certain joyousness of voice, buoyancy of carriage, a lightness and a freshness none of which were incompatible with the possibility that she was in love.
He had thought for a very short space of time that it was Pinlow who was the object of her affection, and curiously enough the notion did not afford him the pleasure that it would have done a few weeks before. Pinlow had not—well, he had not shone. Mr Callander shook his head at the thought. No, Pinlow had decidedly fallen short.
Was it Brian?
Here again Mr Callander’s feelings had undergone a revolution.
Brian was a rascal, an associate of rascals, and a brawler.
A brawler, by Mr Callander’s strict code, was only once removed from a drunkard.
Against which, Brian had done much for him. Nobody had explained, at least, nobody had attempted to give an adequate explanation of the remarkable conversion of his worthless shares into cash. Yet, without explanation, Mr Callander knew that, in some way, Brian was the author of the miracle.
So whilst disapproving of his nephew and all his works, Mr Callander permitted himself to be tolerant.
But not to the extent of encouraging his daughter in that folly—if Pallard were the man.
He had an opportunity of consulting Horace on the Saturday night. Horace was apathetic, he was quite willing to do anything.
The interview took place in Mr Callander’s study at Hill View, and Horace was ill at ease and feverishly anxious to come to another subject.
“Father,” he said, when his parent had finished, “I want to tell you something: I’m sure you won’t mind—I hardly like to speak to you …”
He stammered away so far and caught his father’s cold eye with something like a shudder.
“It is not, I trust,” said the elder man softly, “another speculation in provisions?”
Horace went pink and white and muttered a reluctant “No.”
“I cannot tell you how grieved I was,” said Mr Callander, “to learn that you had been indulging in what I cannot but describe as a gamble—and with the people’s food. Oh, shame, Horace!”
He was very sad, but he was also severe, and Horace invented a quick lie.
“No, father, this—this is a matter—a friend of mine, an awfully good chap, in temporary difficulties, you know, and I thought you, that is I, might do something.”
“Who is this friend?” asked Mr Callander with chilling politeness.
“Oh, you wouldn’t know him!” said Horace vaguely; “he’s a man I know, and he’s got plenty of money coming along some day.”
Mr Callander crossed his legs and put the tips of his fingers together.
“I shall be glad to accommodate your friend,” he said.
“Thank you, father,” said the gratified Horace.
“To the extent of?” asked Mr Callander.
“Two thousand.” His father nodded. “Must say, governor, it is really downright decent of you.”
“I shall, of course, require security,” Mr Callander went on.
“I—of course I’ll stand as security,” said Horace eagerly.
“That will not do,” said his father, and Horace’s face fell. “I shall want convertible security, realizable security; that, of course, your friend will furnish.”
Horace had fallen from his exaltation to the depth of gloom.
“He can’t give you security, father,” he said with a touch of querulous impatience. “He could get money from a moneylender if he had security.”
“He won’t get it from me without,” said Mr Callander decisively, “and I think we will not discuss the matter any further.”
When Horace was in trouble he invariably sought his sister. He made no exception in this case. He found her in the drawing-room reading, and she did not need any information as to how the interview had gone. His face told of his despair. He flung himself down in a mild rage—Horace was never violent in anything he did.
“What did father say?” she asked.
“He wouldn’t,” he said sulkily.
“Did you tell him everything?”
He squirmed angrily on the settee.
“No—well, I told him all he need know. As a matter of fact, I didn’t say I wanted it for myself; I asked him to let me have it for a friend of mine.”
She was troubled at this.
“I do not think that you ought to have said that,” she said gently. “Why not tell him the truth—after all, £500 isn’t much.”
“I asked for two thousand,” he said.
Her eyebrows rose.
“Two thousand—why?” she asked, in consternation.
“Because that happens to be the amount I want,” he said grimly enough.
“But you told me it was only five hundred,” she persisted. “Oh, Horace, you don’t mean it?”
He turned a weary face to her.
“Now, please don’t sermonize me,” he begged. “I’ve had enough of it from father.”
There was a long and painful silence which she broke:
“Was it butter this time?” she asked meekly.
“It was eggs, or were eggs,” he said. “We sold short, thinking we could get all the eggs we wanted from Morocco, and then that infernal Pretender person started kicking up a rumpus, and we had to buy elsewhere and through the nose.”
“But why did you want to buy eggs?” she asked. “What were you going to do with them?”
“Oh, eat them!” he snapped. “What do people do with things they buy? They sell them, of course.”
He got up and began pacing the room.
“I really don’t know what I shall do—I know!” He stopped suddenly as an idea came to him.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ll go to that fellow Pallard,” he said. “After all, though he’s a gambler, he’ll understand; and these people who bet are frightfully generous.”
She was on her feet now, and her face was resolute.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” she said quietly. “I absolutely forbid you to see Mr Pallard.”
“What on earth do you mean?” he asked, astonished at her vehemence.
“Exactly what I say,” she said. Her lovely eyes were ablaze with anger; she was in the mood that her less resolute brother liked least. “Have you no sense of dignity, Horace? How can you ask a man to help you for whom you have no good word; of whom you cannot speak without a sneer?”
“Well, you needn’t get into a fit about it,” he growled. “You know the kind of chap he is.”
He utterly mistook her attitude, for he went on:
“After all, we are entitled to use those kind of people.”
Her face was very pale, and had he been anybody but his confident self, he would have been warned by the clouds that were gathering on her brow.
“That kind of person,” she repeated. “What do you mean by, ‘that kind of person’?”
“Oh, well—a gambling chap,” he said.
“And what are you but a—a gambling chap?” she asked sarcastically. “The only difference that I can see between you is that whilst Mr Pallard gambles on the horses he understands, you gamble on eggs and butter that you know nothing about.”
Horace eyed her severely.
“You are talking nonsense, Gladys,” he said sharply. “It is ridiculous to compare a business man with a horse-racing person.”
“It is utterly ridiculous,” she retorted, “to compare you with Mr Pallard.”
“You are infernally offensive,” he said hotly; “and if I do not go to Pallard, I shall go to Pinlow.”
“That is your affair,” she replied, unmoved by his threats;—“but if you dare ask Mr Pallard”
“Don’t dare me, please!” he began angrily, when the door opened to admit his father.
“Ah, here you are both together,” said Mr Callander, the seeds of whose geniality fell upon stony places at the moment. “I have come to see Gladys about this trip on Monday.”
“Trip, father?” she asked. “What trip is this?”
Mr Callander composed himself into an easy-chair before replying.
“I have been asked if I will take you both to—er—a training establishment, and really I am in two minds about the matter.”
“A training establishment?”
She had a dim idea that it was something to do with railways.
“Yes, Gladys. I have had a letter from your—er—Cousin Brian.” He saw the red come to her face and groaned inwardly. At that moment he resolved upon his course of action.
“I have also had a letter from the trainer of his horses—a very well-expressed letter, though I dare say it was written for him; these people can afford secretaries—seconding the invitation.”
Her heart was beating quickly with mingled delight and apprehension. Delight at the prospect of seeing the horses, and apprehension lest her father refused.
“I think we will go,” he said; and Horace looked up in astonishment. “I think you ought to see the kind of people that your cousin—er—makes friends of.”
That was the brilliant idea which had occurred to Mr Callander. He knew by hearsay the type she was likely to meet.
“Vice, unfortunately,” said Mr Callander oracularly, “wraps itself in such pleasant garb that, seen from a distance, it looks like sober virtue. The blaze of the footlights, so to speak, conceals rather than emphasizes the tawdriness of the stage. Young and romantic persons,” he looked very hard at his daughter, and she became more confused in her endeavour to appear unconcerned, “are often deceived by the glamour of distance. I think it is only fair that we should take the opportunity of a closer view what say you, Horace?”
Horace had much to say, but he contented himself with expressing the view that he thought the visit ill-advised. Mr Callander hesitated. He had a great respect for the opinion of his son—other than on matters of finance.
“Ill-advised, Horace?” repeated Gladys sweetly.
“Yes,” he said sulkily. “I don’t want you to meet these gambling people—at any rate, I shan’t come.”
“Of course, my dear,” hastened his father, “if you take that view—I would never go against your conscience.”
“Oh, do come, Horace!” pleased the girl, and there was a dangerous glitter in her eye; “it will be so good for you; besides, if you do not care to see the horses, you can go to the nearest farm and ask them about your hobby.”
“Hobby?” Mr Callander was puzzled.
“Yes, father; didn’t you know that Horace was awfully keen on poultry farming?”
It was mean of her, and she knew it; but there was a force working within her which was stronger than she was.
“Horace is very interested in poultry, aren’t you?”—she turned to the glowering youth “in chickens, and butter, and eggs”
“Oh, I’ll come!”
He mumbled his surrender, in which entreaty and rage were equally blended.
“If you’d rather not,” his father still hesitated. “I should not like to think that I had persuaded you against your will.”
“It’s not against my will,” growled the other ungraciously. “I’d rather like to see this fellow’s horses.”
Mr Callander nodded.
“Well, that’s settled,” he said, and turned his attention to his daughter. “I think,” he said, in his best quizzical manner, “I rather think that you will find your visit an experience.”
“I’m sure I shall, father,” she replied fervently.
“I once visited such an establishment,” mused Mr Callander, “many years ago, when I was a young man. I am not sure whether it was a horse-racing stable or a trotting stable—the two are not synonymous, you will be surprised to learn,” he explained. “At any rate, it was—er—an adventure. The trainer was a terrible man, somewhat on an intellectual level with Charles, the groom. I believe most trainers are of the same class. You may expect to meet some rather curious people.”
He checked himself saying too much. It would be as well if Gladys saw these things with her own eyes. It might be a mistake to prepare her.
“I shan’t be at church to-morrow, father,” said Horace. Mr Callander looked over his glasses in pained surprise.
“Not at church, Horace?” he repeated reprovingly.
“No; the fact is, I have promised to go to town,” said Horace. “I’ve got to see a man who is sailing for South Africa on Monday.”
His father nodded slowly.
“It cannot be helped, I suppose,” he said, “though I must confess that I am adverse to Sunday travelling.”
Horace did not pursue his excuse. He meant to see Pinlow, though he despaired of convincing him to a sense of his urgent need.
Pinlow had not exactly been sympathetic on the one occasion when he had sought his assistance. In fact, his lordship had not given him an opportunity of explaining his position.
That, at any rate, was a comfort. Pinlow did not know, and therefore had not refused his help.
The following morning Horace left for London by a slow train. He reached town soon after one, and lunched in the Haymarket.
He came to Lord Pinlow’s flat in Pall Mall a little before three. Lord Pinlow was out, said the man. “Will you wait, sir?”
He knew Horace as a friend of Pinlow’s. “Is he likely to be long?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the man. “He had a very bad night, and went over to see his doctor—at least, not his lordship’s doctor, but a Dr Jellis.”
Horace decided to wait.
After an hour’s stay he rang the bell.
“I’ll go for a little walk in the Park,” he said. “Will you tell his lordship that I wish to see him urgently, and that I will return in an hour?”
It was a little more than the hour before he came back.
Pinlow had not returned, and Horace was debating in his mind whether he would go out again when the bell rang, and his quarry entered.
Pinlow looked tired; there were dark shadows under his eyes, and hard lines at the corners of his mouth. He favoured Horace with an involuntary scowl.
“Hello, Callander!” he said, in no friendly tone; “what the devil do you want?”
Horace observed that he carried a little black box in his hand, and carried it gingerly. It was about two inches square, and looked what it was, a very ordinary cartel such as is employed for packing medicinal powders.
Horace observed that his host placed this very carefully on the top shelf of a bookcase before turning his attention to him.
“What do I want?” repeated Horace, attempting the jocular. “Well, I want many things, but most immediately I require some money.”
Pinlow stared at him.
“You don’t mean it?” he said.
“I do,” said the youth. “Fact is, I have been speculating, and I’ve lost two thousand.”
Pinlow laughed long and loud. It was the first amusing thing that had happened to him for two days.
“You poor devil!” he said; “you poor devil! I never thought you were so human—and what horse did you lose it on?”
“I never back horses,” said Horace, with dignity. “I hope I am not such a fool as to back horses.”
“It doesn’t matter very much how you lost it,” said the other sarcastically, “so long as you have been fool enough to lose it. How did it happen?”
Thereupon Horace related the sad story of the speculation in provisions. Pinlow heard him through, and then burst into a fit of immoderate laughter.
“What a mug!” he laughed, wiping his eyes. “What an easy mug! Oh, you innocent child! Now what do you want me, or expect me, to do?”
“I thought you might lend me the money,” said Horace stiffly. He saw nothing amusing in his cruel dilemma.
“Lend it to you?—don’t talk nonsense,” said Pinlow, coming back to the seriousness of his own affairs with a snarl. “If I’d any luck, I could have lent it to you, but I’m”
He stopped.
“Are you a friend of Pallard’s?” he asked.
Horace shrugged his shoulders.
“You know perfectly well I’m not,” he said; “I’ve never forgiven him”
“Never mind about your forgiveness,” said Pinlow impatiently; “are you on visiting terms with him?”
This was a heaven-sent opportunity, thought Pinlow. All the way from Watford he had been wondering how the essential part of his scheme could be carried into effect. And here at hand was the instrument.
Seeing Horace hesitate, he repeated his question.
“Well, I’m not exactly on visiting terms,” replied the other; “as a matter of fact, I never see him, and besides, I can’t ask him. There are some things a fellow can’t do, and that is one of them.”
He said this heroically enough, but he confounded his sister as he said it. It would have been so easy to get the money from Brian.
Pinlow’s face darkened again.
“Oh!” he growled.
“I shall be seeing him on Monday,” Horace went on; “but I shall have no chance then, and besides”
“Seeing him on Monday!” asked Pinlow quickly. “Where?”
“He has asked father down to his stables.”
“To Wickham?”
There was a bright light in Pinlow’s eyes as he eagerly put the question.
Horace nodded.
Pinlow was wondering how he could broach the subject.
“Look here, Callander,” he said, after a while, “you’re not a bad little chap, though somewhat of a mug—I think I might manage the two thousand for you.”
“No, could you really?” asked the delighted Horace. “My dear fellow, you are really too good—I could pay you back, and give you interest; I want to do things on a business footing.”
“I can’t do it myself,” Pinlow went on; “but I’ve got a friend in the City who can manage these things—and please don’t thank me, for I am going to ask you to do something for me.”
“If,” said Horace, speaking with pardonable emotion, “there is anything in the world I can do, command me.”
“When are you going to Wickham?”
“On Monday; why?”
“Do you know by what train?”
Horace shook his head.
“I can find out,” he said.
“Could you telephone to me here?”
“Certainly.”
“Good. You will go from London Bridge or Victoria—but stay, you’ve got a car.”
“We’re going by train,” said Horace, “the governor does not like cross-country journeys by car.”
“Excellent! You must let me know which station you are going from. Find an excuse for going into the refreshment-room—I will ‘phone you which one, and I will be there and I will give you something.”
“The money?” said Horace eagerly, nodding his head.
“Oh, hang! no, not the money! but something which is worth money to me.”
He pointed to the shelf where the little box reposed.
“That is the thing I shall give you—that small box, and I shall want you to put it into your pocket, and carry it till you come to Wickham. And when you are being shown Grey Timothy—that’s a horse by the way—I want you to slip that box out of your pocket, take off the lid, and shake the contents on the nearest heap of refuse. If you can, open it inside the stable.”
“But I don’t understand,” said Horace, and, indeed, his bewilderment was plain; “you are not asking me to do something that is wrong?”
Pinlow turned a shocked face to the young man.
“My young friend,” he said indignantly, “do you imagine that I should ask you to do anything wrong? Sit down and I will tell you all about it.”
Horace sat and Pinlow wandered about the room deep in thought; as well he might be, for he had less than sixty seconds to invent a lie which would be at once plausible and convincing.
“Inside that box,” he said, “are a number of green leaves. You are not superstitious, are you? That is because you are not a racing man, my dear Horace. Well, I am superstitious. My good luck has invariably been associated with green, my unlucky number is ten. Inside that box are ten green leaves. You probably know the legend that if a man leaves a token of his bad luck in the vicinity of a man who is having all the good luck, the luck will turn.”
“But surely, my dear Pinlow,” expostulated Horace with a tolerant smile, “you don’t believe in that sort of thing?”
Pinlow nodded sadly.
“I do, most emphatically,” he said; “so much so that I was thinking of paying a surreptitious visit to Wickham to leave my bad luck behind. Now, will you do this for me?”
“Why, of course; but let me take the box now.”
The other shook his head.
“That would not do,” he said quickly. “I—I must keep my bad luck by me as long as I can—till the very last moment, in fact.”
Horace rose to go.
“You may depend upon me,” he said good-humouredly, “though really I thought better of you.”
“We all have our little weaknesses,” said his benefactor, “and I shall depend upon you not to betray mine to a soul.”
“You may trust me,” said Horace, in his magnanimity, and a few minutes later was walking down Pall Mall, whistling a gay little tune, though the Sabbath bells cried shame upon his levity.
Pinlow, watching from his window, was whistling cheerfully too.