This House to Let

Chapter Twelve

Although unsuspicious by nature, Guy Spencer had mixed much in the world and seen a good deal of life. Attracted as he was by the charming Stella, there was a something about the atmosphere of that flat in Elsinore Gardens which created an unfavourable impression.

Of Mrs L’Estrange’s antecedents there was no question. She was a woman of good family, she could produce chapter and verse for her ancestors. And yet, why was she not in a better environment?

Clearly, she was on the downward slope. But was there anything remarkable in that? Heaps of members of aristocratic families were in the same sort of predicament, from various causes, through certain circumstances.

Had he not received a letter a few days ago from the daughter of a well-known earl, imploring him for a loan of ten pounds, for the sake of old friendship?

The writer was some twenty years his senior, and she had tipped him when he was at Eton. She now dated her letter from a suburb in the extreme west of Kensington. If she, with all her advantages of birth and connection, had fallen by the wayside, why not a comparatively obscure person like Mrs L’Estrange?

It was very easy to see it. Mrs L’Estrange was of a Bohemian temperament, and probably a great spendthrift. She had made considerable inroads into whatever fortune she originally possessed, and had developed into an adept card-player, with a view to supplementing the little income that was left to her.

And Stella Keane, that beautiful, sad girl, with the tragic history of worthless parents behind her, was the victim of fate. She was not happy in her cousin’s home, amidst this gambling, card-playing set. She, at least, was pure, whoever else might be defiled. On that he would stake his existence.

For a few days he thought a great deal about the subject, and during those few days he kept away from Elsinore Gardens and denied himself the pleasure of listening to a further instalment of Miss Keane’s reminiscences of her unhappy history.

If he were going to fall in love, he told himself sternly, he would fall in love with a woman of his own world, not with a girl, however beautiful and interesting she might be, who was only a hanger-on of a woman well-born, but evidently déclassée, a woman no longer moving in the sphere to which she had been accustomed. In these reflections, he showed sound sense.

But for a certain event that happened in the course of the next few days, he might have adhered to his good resolutions and have finally dismissed Miss Keane from his serious thoughts. And, in that case, this story would not have been written.

And then the event happened. Returning home to his rooms one night, about twelve o’clock, his man told him that Mr Esmond was waiting for him in the sitting-room.

He found the little rotund man sitting in an easy-chair, white-faced, the marks of agitation written all over his countenance.

Wondering at this unusual spectacle – Tommy was frequently fussy, but always self-contained – Spencer advanced, and held out his hand.

“What’s up, Tommy? You’re a late visitor, but always welcome.” He pointed to the decanters standing on the sideboard. “I hope you have helped yourself?”

To Spencer’s great surprise, the little man did not take the proffered hand. He spoke in a hoarse, choking voice, his lips twitching.

“I’ve helped myself once too often, Spencer. And I can’t take the hand of an honest man, for reasons. You’ve got it at once.”

Spencer had average brains, but he was not very quick to realise the meaning of unexpected situations. At first, he thought the little man had been drinking.

“Sit down, Tommy, and get it off your chest. What in the name of wonder is the matter?” he said kindly. He was rather fond of Tommy in a casual sort of way.

Esmond did not sit down at once, but went over to the sideboard, and mixed himself a stiff tumbler of whisky-and-soda. He gulped it down at a draught, and then took an armchair.

“You won’t begrudge me that, I know,” he said, speaking in the same strained, hoarse voice. “It’s the last drink I’ll have in your rooms, the last drink in any house in England, I should say. I’m done for, old man, to-morrow I clear out, eat my heart away in some beastly foreign hole.”

No, Spencer’s first surmise had been incorrect. The man was not drunk, not even elevated. His face was chalk-white, and he was trembling all over as if he had been stricken with palsy. But he was perfectly sober.

Spencer took a chair himself, and spoke a little sternly. “Pull yourself together, old man, and speak out. At first I thought you had had a drop too much. But I see that’s not the case. Out with it. You’ve been waiting some time, my man informs me. You want to tell me something. Tell it.”

Tommy Esmond moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and spoke.

“I don’t quite know what instinct prompted me to come to you. We haven’t known each other so very intimately, after all, but I always felt you were a bit more of a Christian than the other chaps I have known, less of a Pharisee – that you would be more likely to find excuses for a poor devil who had yielded to temptation.”

“Do get on,” said Spencer a little impatiently. He did not at all like the turn the conversation was taking.

Tommy spoke brokenly, he could not put his words together very coherently, it appeared. But his halting utterance was simply due to emotion.

“I was at Elsinore Gardens to-night, playing cards. You know Elsinore Gardens, Mrs L’Estrange’s flat?”

He was quite sober, but his agitation made him wander a bit, or he would not have put the question.

“Of course I know Mrs L’Estrange’s flat. It was you who took me there,” said Spencer.

“Yes, we went there on the night of the raid, but I was not playing at your table. I remember you lost, and I won. Well, somebody has to lose, and somebody else has to win.”

Spencer made no comment on this obvious truism. Tommy Esmond again moistened his dry lips with his tongue. He was a long time in coming to the point, but he came to it at last.

“Well, old man, I was playing with an old pal of mine, with whom I have been in business for years. We had a nice code of signals arranged. I was as cautious as I could be, but my partner had been dining out, and he was a bit indiscreet. There were three or four men watching us, they caught us both, although, as I tell you, I was cautious. But I made one slip, and they were down on me like a knife. You don’t know my partner. It is the end of him. But it is the end of Tommy Esmond also.”

To say that Spencer was disgusted would be to convey a faint idea of his feelings. And yet, as he looked at the huddled, trembling form in the chair, his sentiment was rather one of compassion than loathing. What was there behind? What tragedy of circumstance had driven this apparently light-hearted, butterfly little creature to such crooked ways?

“You’re an old hand, then? It’s not the first time you’ve cheated?”

Tommy Esmond smiled wanly. He did not answer the question at once.

“What age do you guess me, Spencer?”

“At a casual glance, a little over fifty. You may be older. Looking at you closely, you do seem a bit made up, dye and all that sort of thing.”

“My dear sir, I am old enough to be your father. I shall never see sixty again.”

“And when did you take to this game?” Esmond thought a little before he replied, he was evidently counting the years.

“When I was twenty-two I got an entrée into society. I was then enjoying an income of two pounds a week, I was a clerk in an insurance office. At twenty-four I left the insurance business and started cheating for a living.”

Spencer uttered a horrified ejaculation. He had never come across anything quite like this, at any rate, in actual experience.

“Would you like to know something of my history, or would you like to kick me out at once, and have done with it?” asked Esmond quietly.

But there were still some remnants of compassion in Spencer. And he was also a little curious. He was dealing, after all, with a human document. Tommy’s revelations would add to his experience of life.

“Tell me all you would like to say,” he said.

“It will be a relief to unbosom myself, after the years I have led this life,” was Esmond’s answer. “When I left Elsinore Gardens with my life in ruins, I felt I could have shrieked it all out to the policeman standing at the corner. I came on here, because I thought you would listen to me, because I felt sure you were not a Pharisee.”

Spencer motioned him to the sideboard. “Mix yourself another stiff peg, and steady your nerves. Then tell me as much as you like.”

Esmond went over and helped himself. After a few seconds the ague-like trembling ceased, and he was able to speak in a fairly steady voice.

“My father was a solicitor in a small way of business in an obscure town in the west of England. There were three children – an elder brother, myself, and a sister. My elder brother succeeded to the practice and is still in the same place, making both ends meet on a microscopic income. My sister is dead.

“My father was a God-fearing, deeply religious man, and did more than his duty by his family. He scraped and pinched to give us a good education, that being the only capital he could leave us. I was placed in an insurance office, the head of which was a distant connection of my mother’s.

“If I had chosen to be content with my lot I daresay in time I might have done fairly well, as I had more than average abilities, and gave complete satisfaction in the performance of my duties.

“Unfortunately, I ran across, by the purest accident, a young man some couple of years my senior. His father, a man of very good family, had died a short time previously and left him a very decent income of about two thousand a year. He had been at a private school with me when we were boys.

“This young man took a violent fancy to me, I was slim and not bad looking in those days. He had the entrée to some of the best houses in London through his aristocratic connections. He took me with him everywhere, as his bosom friend. I had certain social instincts, derived from Heaven knows where, and I soon found my feet. In twelve months I was able to run alone, sometimes I was able to get into houses where even he could not gain a footing. He laughingly declared that I had beaten him in the social race, but he was a good-natured fellow, without a particle of envy or meanness in his nature, and he was rather proud than otherwise that the pupil had outstripped the master.”

He paused for a moment. It was evident, that having kept silence for so many years, it was an enormous relief to unbosom himself.

In spite of his disgust, Spencer could not but feel interested in this bit of life-history. He had often felt curious as to Tommy Esmond’s past, and now that curiosity was going to be satisfied. He understood now why the little man had never made any but the most distant allusions to his home or his relatives.

“The life suited me down to the ground, but there was always the terrible problem of ways and means, good clothes, travelling, expensive flowers, etc, etc. I had got to three pounds a week, but that doesn’t go far in the circles to which I had been transplanted. It began to dawn upon me that, delightful as the life was, I was playing the fool, and neglecting the substance for the shadow. People asked me to their big parties, often to their dinners and to week-ends, but there was no money in it. In fact, I was getting out of my depth. I had already been obliged to borrow small sums from money-lenders to cover my expenses.

“Bitterly I made up my mind that sooner or later I must cut it, and take life seriously, like the poor man I was. I belonged to a good club where I had all my letters addressed. I lodged in a little street in Bloomsbury, in cheap apartments. My friend alone knew this address.

“He would have helped me to a considerable extent, but, strange to say, considering what I did afterwards, I shrank from accepting actual cash from him.”

Spencer interrupted him for a second. “You would not sponge upon your friend, instead you took to cheating your acquaintance. I take it that is what you are going to tell me.”

Esmond nodded. “Quite right. I had made up my mind to cut it, and disappear from a world in which I had no right to intrude. I had even made up my mind as to the exact date at the close of the season when I would disappear, and return to the humdrum life from which my friend roused me.

“A few days before that date, something very strange happened; my life has always been full of surprises. A few weeks before the fixed date, I had made the acquaintance of a young nobleman, a member of one of the best-known families in England. He was then about thirty, very handsome, very popular with both men and women. He is dead now, but, of course, I shall not mention his name, which would startle you if you heard it.

“As I have said, his family was a very distinguished one, but poor for its position. My friend, whom for the sake of convenience I will call Lord Frederick, lived in good style, never seemed short of cash, and paid his debts promptly. Those who knew were sure that he got little or no help from his family, yet he betted at race-meetings, played cards nearly every night, and lived generally the life of a man with a fair income.

“His own explanation was, that he had some intimate friends on the Stock Exchange who put him on to any good thing going. In the course of the year, according to his own account, he made a considerable sum out of racing.

“Lord Frederick, like my first friend, took considerable notice of me after we had become acquainted. Several times he invited me to his club. Afterwards he told me that he had a premonition I should be useful to him.

“I shall never forget that night when the deadly temptation came to me, when I learned what manner of rascal he was. It was the close of the season. In a very few days more I should have looked my last on this gay and alluring existence, should have ceased to lead this double life of a poor clerk by day, a young man of fashion by night.”

Spencer suddenly interrupted. “But was there not a great risk of detection? Were you never recognised in the City by some chance West End acquaintance.”

“Up to then, no. Of course, I must have been found out in time, if only from the suspicious circumstance that I could never accept any day invitations. This was one of the reasons that weighed most strongly with me in the resolve to give it up. I could not bear the thought that the Tommy Esmond who bore himself so bravely in his new world, who had managed to outlive all curiosity as to his antecedents, should be discovered in his true colours, a poor City drudge in an insurance office.

“To return to my story. I had dined with Lord Frederick at the – . No, I will not give the name of the club, one of the most exclusive in London: it might put you on his track. He had ordered a choice dinner, and he plied me liberally with wine. My heart was very full at the prospect of having to say good-bye to this luxurious life, in a very few days’ time.

“After dinner we went into the smoking-room, which was nearly empty, as most of the members had left London. There were only two other occupants, and they were at the far end of the apartment. Practically, we had the place to ourselves.

“He urged me strongly to take a trip over to Paris as his guest. I should have loved to go, but the wrench had to be made some time, it might as well be made now. Besides, I was heavily in debt, for a poor man, and I had not the cash to purchase the necessary outfit for such a trip.

“He would not accept my first refusal, but tried to persuade me into reconsidering. When I still persisted, he bluntly asked me my reasons.

“As I have said, I was very depressed that night at the prospect of all I was saying good-bye to. This mood was responsible for my blurting out a great portion of the absolute truth.

“I explained to him that I had already accepted too much of his hospitality, which my circumstances did not enable me to return, that I could no longer take advantage of his generosity.

“After this avowal, he did not speak for some little time, all the while regarding me with an intense gaze that embarrassed me very much.

”‘Thanks for telling me the truth,’ he said at length. ‘Your confidence is quite safe with me.’ He added after a pause, ‘So you are a poor man, in spite of the fact that your appearance does not suggest the fact. Well, I may tell you that from the first moment I made your acquaintance I was pretty certain you were.’

“I told him a little more. ‘I am so poor,’ I said frankly, ‘that I cannot afford to keep up appearances any longer. In a few days I shall leave a world I ought never to have entered. Anyway, it is the last time I shall dine with you, and I don’t suppose we shall ever meet again, unless we run across each other by chance in a very different sphere.’

”‘You have absolutely made up your mind to do this, for the reasons you have given?’ he asked presently.

”‘Absolutely,’ I replied. ‘I may say it is Hobson’s choice. I am heavily in debt. If I cut my wants down to next to nothing, it will take me a year to pay off what I owe.’ I laughed bitterly – ‘Unless I turned thief, I could not possibly go on.’

”‘I don’t want to force your confidence,’ was Lord Frederick’s next remark. ‘But having had a taste of this rather glittering world, I presume you will leave it with considerable regret.’

”‘I dare not say what I feel,’ I said with conviction. ‘It seems to me that in the old life to which I am returning I shall suffer the tortures of lost souls.’

“Then he shot at me an extraordinary question. ‘I wonder whether you would care to become a partner in my business?’

“My heart suddenly grew light. Was there a chance that I could still keep on, that through his assistance I could find a decently paid occupation? After all, I only wanted a few hundreds a year more. A bachelor can live in the best society on comparatively little, but he must have that little, and the insurance office did not furnish it.

”‘If I were competent enough,’ I faltered.

“He smiled; I thought there was a little touch of a sneer in that smile. ‘Oh, I think you would be competent enough. But I am not at all sure that you would like the business sufficiently.’

”‘I can’t say positively, of course, till I know the nature of it. But I don’t think I should be very difficult to please, nor do I want any extravagant remuneration, just enough to keep up a decent appearance.’

”‘The share would be half, neither more nor less,’ he said curtly; then he relapsed into a long silence, as if he were thinking very hard.

“When he spoke it was in a low, strained voice. ‘Look here, Esmond, I don’t know very much of you. But I believe you to be a gentleman. The business I am engaged in is a very peculiar one, and it is more than probable it will not appeal to you. If you refuse, you are to give me your word of honour that this conversation between us shall be forgotten.’

“I gave him more than my word, I added my solemn oath that I would never divulge a syllable.

“I had for some little time felt that there was a mystery about him. I hazarded to myself that he was perhaps engaged in some spying work repugnant to any man of fine susceptibilities but quite remunerative.

“I was startled, and to an extent horrified, by what he told me. He was a professional card-sharper, made his living by robbing his rich acquaintances. He had been at the game since he was twenty-five.

”‘I do pretty well, as you can guess, by the way in which I live,’ he remarked at the conclusion of his strange confession. ‘But with a smart confederate, and I am sure you would prove one, I could quadruple my gains. One is hampered by working alone. It’s a scoundrel’s business, of course. But I can always persuade myself I am not really doing very much harm, certainly not as much as the swindling sort of company-promoter. I win money from rich fools, rob them, if you like; it does at least as much good in my pockets as theirs.’

“I suppose there was already some moral kink in me waiting to blossom forth under proper encouragement. For though I was very much startled, I cannot say that I was profoundly shocked, as I might have been by a less subtle form of robbery.

“I did not accept or refuse that night, I wanted to think. I knew it was the turning of the ways. On the one hand well-paid roguery, with the accompanying delights of the fashionable world, on the other the deadly, drab life of the poor City drudge. In the morning my mind was made up. I went into partnership with my new friend.”

“And you made a fortune, I suppose?” asked Spencer, in a very cold voice.

Esmond shook his head, and Spencer was not at all sure that the next words were truthful ones.

“No, a comfortable living, nothing more. We made a good deal, but we had to lose a good deal, too, in order to avert suspicion.”

“Your friend is dead, you say. So you went on with it after his death?”

“Yes, for a little time alone. Then I, too, got in a partner, the man who was with me to-night.”

There was a long silence between the two men. Spencer broke it first.