Ernest Bramah

“ An expression of suave mischief came into Carrados’s usually imperturbable face.
“Many imaginable motives surely, Louis. You are a man of the world. Why not to meet a charming little woman——”
“No, by gad!” exclaimed the scandalized uncle warmly; “I decline to consider the remotest possibility of that explanation. Elsie——”
“Certainly not,” interposed Carrados, smothering his quiet laughter. “The maid-servant, of course.”
Mr Carlyle reined in his indignation and recovered himself with his usual adroitness.
“But, you know, that is an atrocious libel, Max,” he added. “I never said such a thing. ”

“ At all events, when Mr Carrados presented himself at the toy villa on the following afternoon he found Elsie Bellmark suspiciously disposed to accept him and his rather gratuitous intervention among her suburban troubles as a matter of course.
When the car drew up at the bright green wooden gate of Fountain Cottage another visitor, apparently a good-class working man, was standing on the path of the trim front garden, lingering over a reluctant departure. Carrados took sufficient time in alighting to allow the man to pass through the gate before he himself entered. ”

“ It is the merest fiction bringing me into it at all.”
“Perhaps in the circumstances,” suggested Bellmark nervously—“you remember the circumstances, Elsie?—Mr Carrados would be willing to regard it as a loan——”
“No, no!” cried Elsie impulsively. “There must be no half measures. We know that a thousand pounds would be nothing to Mr Carrados, and he knows that a thousand pounds are everything to us.” Her voice reminded the blind man of the candle-snuffing recital. ”

“ But a bottle of champagne, and a compass, and a sardine tin opener! What possible connexion is there between them?”
“A very resourceful man might uncork a bottle of champagne with a sardine tin opener,” he suggested.
“And find his way home afterwards by means of a mariner’s compass?” she retorted. “No, Roy dear, you are not a sleuth-hound. We had better have our lunch.”
They lunched, but if the subject of Carrados had been tabooed the meal would have been a silent one.
“I have a compass on an old watch-chain somewhere,” volunteered Bellmark. ”

“ You cannot understand, Mrs Bellmark, because it is fundamentally incomprehensible. We can only accept the fact by the light of cases which occasionally obtain prominence. Metrobe did not expect to survive, but he was firmly convinced that the currency of this world would be equally useful in the spirit-land into which he expected to pass. ”

“ At any rate, he lived at Fountain Court, an old red-brick house in a large neglected garden there, until his death a couple of years ago. Then, as Groat’s Heath had suddenly become a popular suburb with a tube railway, a land company acquired the estate, the house was razed to the ground and in a twinkling a colony of Noah’s ark villas took its place. There is Metrobe Road here, and Court Crescent there, and Mansion Drive and what not, and Elsie’s little place perpetuates another landmark. ”

“ He is with a firm of architects. It was a little venturesome taking this house—we had been in apartments for two years—but Roy was doing so well with his people and I was so enthusiastic for a garden that we did—scarcely two months ago. Everything seemed quite assured. Then came this thunderbolt. The partners—it is only a small firm, Mr Carrados—required a little more capital in the business. Someone whom they know is willing to put in two thousand pounds, but he stipulates for a post with them as well. He, like my husband, is a draughtsman. ”

“ Carrados made himself known and was taken into the daintily pretty drawing-room that opened on to the lawn behind the house.
“I do not need to ask if you are Mrs Bellmark,” he had declared.
“I have Uncle Louis’s voice?” she divined readily.
“The niece of his voice, so to speak,” he admitted. “Voices mean a great deal to me, Mrs Bellmark.”
“In recognizing and identifying people?” she suggested. ”

“ I shall be alone.”
“Oh, besides, there is a special reason for going, which for the moment I forgot,” explained Mr Carlyle, after accepting the invitation. “Elsie wishes for my advice with regard to her next-door neighbour. He is an elderly man of retiring disposition and he makes a practice of throwing kidneys over into her garden.”
“Kittens! Throwing kittens?”
“No, no, Max. Kidneys. Stewed k-i-d-n-e-y-s. It is a little difficult to explain plausibly over a badly vibrating telephone, I admit, but that is what Elsie’s letter assured me, and she adds that she is in despair.” ”

“ He has so demoralized Scamp with his confounded kidneys that Elsie’s neatly arranged flower-beds—and she took Fountain Cottage principally on account of an unusually large garden—are hopelessly devastated. If she keeps the dog up, the garden is invaded night and day by an army of peregrinating feline marauders that scent the booty from afar. He has gained the everlasting annoyance of an otherwise charming neighbour, Max. ”

“ But Metrobe, in spite of his foreign name, was a thorough Englishman. The world might come to an end, but he was satisfied that somehow the Bank of England would ride through it all right. I only suggest that. There is much that we can only guess.”
“That is all there is to know, Mr Carrados?”
“Yes. Everything comes to an end, Mrs Bellmark. I sent my car away to call for me at eight. Eight has struck. ”

“ In the summer of 1910 Metrobe published a curious work entitled ‘The Flame beyond the Dome.’ In the main it is an eschatological treatise, but at the end he tacked on an epilogue, which he called ‘The Fable of the Chameleon.’ It is even more curious than the rest and with reason, for under the guise of a speculative essay he gives a cryptic account of the circumstances of the five thousand pounds and, what is more important, details the exact particulars of its disposal. His reason for so doing is characteristic of the man. ”

“ That is the great thing. A depth of six inches is sufficient merely for the roots.”
There was only one remark passed during the operation.
“I think I should plant the tree just over where the tin was,” Carrados suggested. “You might like to mark the exact spot.” And there the hawthorn was placed.
Bellmark, usually the most careful and methodical of men, left the tools where they were, in spite of a threatening shower. Strangely silent, Elsie led the way back to the house and taking the men into the drawing-room switched on the light.
“I think you have a tin opener, Mrs Bellmark?” ”

“ He declares that the man used to be the butler at a large house that stood here formerly, Fountain Court, and that his name is neither Johns nor Jones. But very likely it is all a mistake.”
“If not, he is certainly attached to the soil,” was her visitor’s rejoinder. “And, apropos of that, will you show me over your garden before I go, Mrs Bellmark?” ”

“ They are as nice as can be about it but that does not alter the facts. They declare that they would rather have Roy than the new man and they have definitely offered to retain him if he can bring in even one thousand pounds. I suppose they have some sort of compunction about turning him adrift, for they have asked him to think it over and let them know on Monday. ”

“ It has nothing to do with us.”
“You have an unassailable moral right to a fair proportion, because without you the real owners would never have seen a penny of it. As regards your legal right”—he took out the thin pocket-book and extracting a business-looking paper spread it open on the table before them—“here is a document that concedes it. ”