Eden Phillpotts

“ Plenderleath in his pleasing manner, but broke off upon seeing the effect of the telegram on me.
"My dear sir, you are ill. What is the matter now? You look as though you had seen a ghost."
"Man alive, I have!" I shrieked out. "What can be clearer? A vision of Joshua Beakbane has evidently been vouchsafed me, and—and—I wish devoutly that it were not so."
The hatefulness of this reflection blinded me for some time to my own good fortune. ”

“ I felt in one of those highly-strung, sensitive moods which men occasionally chance upon, and in which the reiteration of some trivial error or expression blinds them to proper reflection on the business in hand, no matter how momentous. Moreover, the suggestion that I should stop in the lonely house of death to guard my wealth that night, was abominable. Without my wife or some equally capable person I would not have undertaken such a vigil for the universe. ”

“ As we at last began to near the station Joshua Beakbane strapped his rug to his portmanteau, unlocked the carriage-door with a private key he now for the first time produced, and made other preparations for a speedy exit.
Upon my side of the train he would have to alight, and now, on looking eagerly from the carriage-window, though still some distance outside the station, I believed I could see a group of dark-coated men under the gas-lamps we were approaching. Leaning out of the train I waved my hand frantically to them. ”

“ When he was twenty-one years of age, Joshua Beakbane, in a fit of mad folly, that to me is scarcely conceivable, ran away from the Farm, taking with him about five hundred pounds of his father's money. He was pursued, arrested, and committed for trial at the next assizes. Old George Beakbane, a just, proud man, sprung from a race that had ever been just and proud, would listen to no plea of mercy. ”

“ At Preston I scarcely waited for the train to stop before leaping to the platform—as luck would have it on the foot of a sleepy porter. He swore in the Lancashire dialect, and I pressed my message into his hand. I was already back in the carriage again when the fool—I can call him nothing less strong—came up to the window, held my communication under Joshua Beakbane's eye, and inquired what he was to do with it.
"It is a telegram to Glasgow," I told him, with my knees knocking together. "It must go. There's a sovereign inside for the man who sends it." ”

“ I had foreseen this for some years, had given much consideration to the matter; but no satisfactory solution of the difficulties at any time presented itself, and now the long anticipated circumstance arrived, as it always does with men of my calibre, to find him most involved and concerned in the conduct of affairs, least qualified to cope with them. Why I walked to Oak Lodge, Petersham, then, was to gain a few minutes, to collect my wandering wits and acquire a mental balance capable of meeting the troubles that awaited me. ”

“ Any of the great advantages accruing to myself through the present arrangements I would have gladly foregone to see the old man happy; for him I loved sincerely, and clearly saw, as the time went by, that all joy had faded out of his life after his son went to prison. Long before the ten years were fulfilled, however, George Beakbane died and I succeeded to the estate. ”

“ A man by nature infirm of purpose, will sometimes show unexpected determination when the reverse might be feared from him; and now, finding Mr. Plenderleath utterly crushed by intelligence that must be more terrible to me than any other, I rose to the occasion in a manner very surprising and gratifying to myself. ”

“ All nature glowed in the lurid light, and, to a mind fraught with much trouble and anxiety, there was something sinister in the slowly dying illumination, in the lowering, savage sky, in the bars of blood that sank hurtling together into the west, and in the vast cloudlands of gloom that were now fast bringing back the rain and the night. ”

“ I inquired of the detective.
"This," he answered; "taking account of the open window and door, the overturned chair and the candle left burning, it's clear enough that when the gent did go out, he went in the devil of a hurry, made a bolt, in fact, as though some one was on his track at the very start. There's no one else in the house, you say?" ”

“ I exclaimed. "For God's sake stir yourself. We should be half way to Petersham by now. There has been foul play here. Mr. Sorrell's life may be in danger, if not already sacrificed. Rouse yourself, sir, I beg."
He looked at me wonderingly, shook his head, and murmured something about my being upon the wrong tack altogether. He then braced himself to face the situation, and prepared to accompany me to Petersham. Upon the way to Waterloo, we wired for a detective from Scotland Yard to follow us, and in less than another hour were driving from Richmond to Oak Lodge. ”

“ The ladies argued throughout breakfast as to the locality of our new home, and paid me such increased attentions as befit the head of a house who, from being but an unimportant atom in the machinery of a vast money-making establishment, suddenly himself blossoms into a man of wealth. ”

“ It was done in a moment, and his cry brought the police, who, at the moment of the accident, were wandering through the station in fruitless search. A doctor was now with Joshua Beakbane, but no human skill could even prolong life for the unfortunate man, and he lay dying as I staggered to my feet and entered the adjacent room where they had arranged a couch for him on the ground. He was unconscious as I took the big white hand that but a few minutes before had been choking the life out of me ”

“ I find upon looking into the estate that your aunt has been realizing considerable quantities of stock quite recently upon her own judgment without any reference to me. The wisdom of such negotiations we need not now discuss. Nothing but good of the blessed dead. However, the money is here; indeed, no less a sum than thirteen thousand pounds, in fifty-pound notes, lies upon yonder table. ”

“ Should you again naturally suggest that a four-wheeled cab might have effected with greater cleanliness and dispatch, than my short legs, the country journey between Richmond and Petersham, I would admit the fact, but, at the same time, advance sufficiently sound reasons why that muddy walk was best undertaken on foot. For, touching this death, but one other living man could have equal interest in it with myself ”

“ I was looking at a share certificate of the London and North-Western Railway, when Mr. Sorrell addressed me again.
"I am a great materialist myself, sir," he declared, "and no believer in spiritualistic manifestations of any sort; but everybody should be open to conviction. Will you kindly give me some description of the late Mr. Joshua Beakbane? ”

“ Never shall I forget the sorry sight my smug, sententious friend presented; never before have I seen any fellow-creature so nearly reduced to the level of a jelly-fish. He was sitting in his private room, his letters unopened, his overcoat and scarf still upon him. A telegram lay at his feet, after reading which he had evidently sank into his chair and not moved again. He pointed to the message as I entered, shutting the door behind me. It came from Petersham, and ran as follows—
"Window drawing-room open this morning. ”

“ Small man will wave hand from first-class compartment. Flying Scotsman."
For me this was not bad. I doubled it up, put a sovereign in it, wrote on the outside—"Send this at all hazards," and prepared to dispose of it as best I might at Preston.
Then fresh terrors held me on every side. Would the robber by any unlucky chance be getting out at the next station? I made bold to ask him. He answered that Carlisle was his destination, and much relieved, I trusted that it might be so for some time. ”

“ The door was wide open, so was the window, and the bag that stood on the table last night had gone. The gent wasn't there either, of course."
Long we talked after this statement, waiting for the detective from London to come. Continually some one or other of the men assembled let his voice rise with the interest of the conversation. Then Mrs. Prescott would murmur 'hush,' and point upwards to where the silent dead was lying.
A careful scrutiny of the drawing-room showed that Sorrell's vigil had been a short one. The fire had not been made up after Mrs. Prescott left the watcher ”

“ He saw the trial that any sojourn in Oak Lodge must be to me, and was, moreover, made fully alive to the fact that I had not the slightest intention of stopping there beyond another hour or so. I own I was in a terribly nervous condition; and a man can no more help the weakness of his nerves than the colour of his hair.
It then transpired that the third person of our party was Mr. Plenderleath's junior clerk, a taciturn, powerful young fellow, with a face I liked the honest look of. He offered, if we approved the suggestion, to keep watch and ward at Petersham during the coming night. Mr. ”