Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery

"I'll leave you to them. Would it be unfair to ask you to tell my father that I will call again at ten o'clock? He is sure to be disengaged at that hour."

"Very unfair, Mr. Reginald. I wouldn't venture to tell him that I'd seen you."

"In that case I'll not trouble you."

"And if you do call again, Mr. Reginald, I beg you, as a particular favour, not to mention your present visit."

"You have my promise." He turned to go, but paused to glance at the strange collection of goods in the room. "My father gets plenty of odd things about him. I see stories of wreckage in them."

"Not our wreckage, Mr. Reginald."

"No," said Mr. Reginald under his breath as he left the room, "other people's."

CHAPTER II

SAMUEL BOYD SETS A TRAP FOR HIS DRUDGE

Abel Death experienced a feeling of relief when he heard the street door slammed in token that Mr. Reginald was gone. Whatever his thoughts may have been with reference to that young gentleman he did not give audible utterance to them, but an occasional shake of his head as he worked at the books, and an occasional pause during which he rested his chin upon the palm of his hand in reflection, were an evidence that though Mr. Reginald was out of sight he was not out of mind. At first he worked rapidly to make up for lost time, but at the end of an hour or so his pen travelled more slowly over the paper, his task being nearly completed. He had lighted two candles stuck in common tin candlesticks, and had pulled down the blind, for night was coming on. The feeble glimmer of these candles, which were long and thin, threw light only upon the desk at which he was working; the distant spaces in the room were in deep shadow, and an occasional shifting of a candle seemingly imbued many of the objects by which he was surrounded with a weird and fitful life. This was especially the case with the wax figure, which was that of a Chinaman who might have come straight from the Chamber of Horrors, so ghastly was its face in this dim light. Being not quite firm on its legs any hurried movement in its direction caused it to quiver as though it were set on wires; and once, when Abel Death threw a heavy ledger from his desk on to the table, the oscillation of the figure was sufficiently fantastic to have engendered the fancy that it was preparing to leap upon the living man and do him violence. Neither Mr. Samuel Boyd nor Abel Death could have informed a curious inquirer who the figure was intended to represent. It came from the house of a modeller in wax, to whom Mr. Boyd had lent a small sum of money, and who, when he was pressed for payment, himself brought it to Catchpole Square as the only asset he could offer in discharge of the debt. "It is all I possess," said the man mournfully, who had hoped to soften the heart of his creditor by his tale of distress. "Then I'll take it," said Mr. Samuel Boyd. "You'd take my blood, I believe," cried the man savagely. "I would," retorted Mr. Boyd, "if there was a market for it." "Keep it, then," said the man, flinging himself from the room. "It's brought me nothing but bad luck all the time I have been at work on it. May it bring the same to you!" Mr. Boyd laughed; he did not believe in omens, nor in sentiment, nor in mercy to any person in his debt. He believed only in Money.

The day's work over, Abel Death sat awhile so deep in thought and so still and quiet that he might have been taken for one of the inanimate objects in this strangely furnished apartment. He had removed the candles from the desk to the table, where they flickered in the draught of a broken window, into which some rags had been thrust to keep out the wind. Within the radius of the flickering light the shadows on the walls and ceiling grew more weird and grotesque, each gust of air creating insubstantial forms and shapes as monstrous as the fancies of a madman's brain. Catchpole Square was a blind thoroughfare-being, as has been elsewhere described, like a bottle with a very narrow neck to it-and was therefore undisturbed by the tumult of the city's streets; and the prevailing silence, in which there was something deathly, was broken only by the sobbing and moaning of the rising wind which, having got into the Square, was making despairing efforts to get out. These sounds were in unison with the spectral life within the house, which seemed to find interpretation in the mystic voices of the air. It might have been so in very truth, for what know we of the forces of the invisible world through which we move and play our parts in the march from the cradle to the grave? Unfathomable mystery encompasses and mocks us, and no man can foretell at what moment he may be struck down and all his castles overturned, and all his plans for good or evil destroyed.

Abel Death started to his feet. A stealthy step was on the stairs. The man coming up paused three or four times either to get his breath or for some other purpose; and presently he entered the room.

Mr. Samuel Boyd was a tall man, and bore a close resemblance to his son in certain expressions of countenance and in certain little mannerisms of gesture which in the younger man were indications of an open-hearted nature, and in the elder of a nature dominated by craft and cunning.

"You're back in time, sir," said Abel Death, in a cringing tone.

Mr. Boyd made no immediate reply, being employed in looking distrustfully around to convince himself that nothing had been removed or disturbed. Even when he was assured of this the look of distrust did not die out of his eyes.

"Are the letters all written?" he inquired, seating himself at the table.

"They are, sir."

"Have you posted up the books?"

"Yes, sir. Everything is done."

"Has any one called?"

"No one, sir," promptly replied Abel Death.

"Any knocks at the street door?"

"No, sir."

"You lie! There was a letter in the box."

Abel Death's lips shaped themselves into the word, "Beast!"

"What did you say?" demanded Mr. Boyd, upon whom no movement on the part of his servant, however slight, was lost.

"I was going to say that the postman was no business of mine."

"You are getting too clever, Abel Death-too clever, too clever! The men I employ must do their work without spying, without blabbing, without lying."

"You have never found me unfaithful."

"I have only your word for it. When did you know me take a man's word?"

"Never, sir."

"And you never will. So-you did not go down to the postman when he knocked?"

"No, sir."

"And you have not been out of the house during my absence?"

"No, sir."

"Nor out of this room?"

"No, sir."

"Ah! Is that so-is that so? You have your office coat on, and your office slippers. Had you not better change them?"

"I was going to do so, sir," said Abel Death. Mr. Boyd's keen eyes were upon him while he made the change. "May I hope, sir, that you will grant the request you kindly promised to consider? It may be a matter of life or death, it may indeed. It means so much to me-so much! I humbly beg you, sir, to grant it."

"Let me see. You asked me for a loan."

"A small loan, sir, of ten pounds. I have trouble and sickness at home, I am sorry to say."

"It is inconceivable," said Mr. Boyd coldly, "that a man in regular employment should need a loan unless it is for the gratification of some unwarrantable extravagance. Your wages are paid regularly, I believe."

"Yes, sir. I don't complain, but it is not an easy task to keep a wife and family on twenty-two shillings a week. I don't know how it is," said Abel Death, rubbing his forehead as though he were endeavouring to rub some problem out of it, or some better understanding of a social difficulty into it, "but when Saturday comes round we have never a sixpence left."

"Very likely. It is the old story of improvidence. Thrift, Abel, thrift. That is the lesson the poor have to learn, and never will learn."

"Ten pounds, sir, only ten pounds," implored Abel Death.

"Only ten pounds!" exclaimed Mr. Boyd. "Listen to him. He calls ten pounds a small sum. Why, it is to millions of men a fortune!"

"It is truly that to me, sir."

"And if I lend it to you," said Mr. Boyd, with a sneering smile, "you will call down heaven's blessing upon me, you will remember me in your prayers?"

"Yes, sir, yes," replied Abel Death confusedly.

"There is the question of security, Abel."