This House to Let

“Forgery,” was the laconic answer. “He belongs to a pretty well-known gang, and we have had our suspicions of him for a long time now, but he was devilish clever and cunning. Several of his pals were caught, but it was always difficult to rope him in. We shouldn’t have got him now but for the fact of one of his pals peaching. And even now, although the evidence is strong enough for us, I doubt if it is strong enough to get him more than a comparatively light sentence. If he can lay hold of a clever counsel, and there will be some money at the back of him, if not a great deal, he won’t come off so badly.”

So Mr Burton was a criminal, and had been living in Blankfield on the proceeds of his nefarious calling. The rich uncle in Australia who had left him a comfortable fortune was a myth.

“I suppose he has been on the ‘crook’ all his life?” queried Hugh.

“Ever since he has come under our observation,” was the reply of the detective. “Before he joined the present gang, a few of whom we have collared from time to time, card-sharping was his lay. Once he rented an expensive flat in Paris, and I believe made a tidy bit out of it. That is where the young lady first appeared upon the scene.”

“But how long ago is that? She doesn’t look more than twenty.”

“I know,” said Mr Davidson. “She looks wonderfully young, that is one of her assets. As a matter of fact I should say she was twenty-four at the least. The Parisian episode occurred about five years ago, making her nineteen at the time. He was there about twelve months, at the end of which time he got an introduction to the forging gang, and chucked the cards in favour of a more remunerative game.”

“She acted, I suppose, as a decoy and confederate?”

“So I am given to understand. She very seldom played herself, but used to signal the opponents’ cards to him.”

“What a precious pair,” groaned Hugh. He had long been doubtful of them, but he had never anticipated this.

“Now, Captain Murchison, there is a little question I want to ask you,” said the detective briskly, after a brief pause. “My pal and I only arrived here yesterday, but we have not been idle, we have picked up a good deal. We have discovered that nobody in Blankfield visits them, except yourself and another officer, a Mr Pomfret. That is true, is it not?”

“Quite true,” assented Murchison.

“You frequently go to their house together. But perhaps I may be telling you something you don’t know when I say that Mr Pomfret more frequently has gone alone.”

“I have had my suspicions some time,” was Hugh’s answer.

“Now tell me, please; I suppose in the evenings you played cards, or roulette, or some game of chance. I thought so. Did you lose much? Had you any suspicions they were rooking you?”

“On my first visit, a suspicion that they might do so crossed my mind. But nothing of the sort was attempted. I should say that, up to the present, my friend and I stand a bit to the good. Evidently, that was not their object.”

“Clearly,” assented the shrewd detective, “they had a deeper game than that on. They wanted to catch this young friend of yours for a husband, and failing that, to entrap him, so that they could blackmail him on the threat of a breach of promise case.”

“It looks as if that was their object.”

“Now, Captain Murchison, may I ask you if your friend is a man likely to fall into the trap? I saw him in the High Street this afternoon with you: and if I may say so without offence, he doesn’t give me the impression of a very strong or self-reliant person.”

Hugh shook his head. “I fear he is very weak, very impulsive, very emotional, a ready prey for a designing woman.”

“Have you any idea how far the thing has gone?”

To this question Hugh could only reply in the negative. His one hope was that the foolish boy had seen her so often that there was no necessity to write incriminating letters.

“Well, Captain Murchison, my object in asking you to grant me an interview was two-fold. In the first place, I wanted to know if there had been any card-sharping. Then, as I am aware you go to the house, I wished to tell you that I and my friend are going to take him to-night. It might happen that you would be going there, and of course, you will not want to be on the stage when we play our little comedy.”

“We have promised to go to dinner to-night. She asked us both when we met her this afternoon.”

“And of course now, you will not go. I will take him before dinner-time, so you need not send round any excuses.”

Poor Hugh felt very miserable. What he especially shirked was having to tell this sordid narrative to Pomfret. He expressed to the detective his shrinking from the unwelcome task.

“I quite understand, sir, but it’s got to be done,” replied the detective, firmly. For a few seconds after he had spoken, he seemed to be thinking deeply. Then he came out with a startling proposition.

“Look here, Captain Murchison, something has just occurred to me. I am not sure whether you will think it a good plan. Just now I thought it would be better for you not to be there. But if this young gentleman is so gone on the girl, it might make a deeper impression on him, bring home to him more strongly the sense of her unworthiness, if he were actually present at the scene. And it would spare you any painful explanations, beforehand. Afterwards you can tell him or not, as you please, about our interview here.”

Hugh made a gesture of disgust. “You propose that we should carry out our original intention of dining there and of sitting at the table of a criminal? I don’t think I could bring myself to it.”

If Mr Davidson did not quite agree with the young man’s scruples, he was open-minded enough to see the matter from Hugh’s point of view.

“I quite understand, sir. But I think I can manage it all right. You say they dine at eight. Get there with your friend a quarter of an hour before. I will be there with my friend at five minutes to, before the dinner is served. You then won’t have to sit at his table, you see.”

Hugh was still hesitating. Mr Davidson proceeded to clinch his argument.

“You see, sir, it will be so much better for Mr Pomfret to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears. When he has seen us clap the darbies on Burton, and listened to what I can tell him about the girl – you can just give me a lead there, if you don’t mind – I think he will be cured of his calf-love on the spot. As far as he is concerned, we want to make a swift and sudden cure, to kill his affection at once.”

Yes, on the whole, after a little further reflection Murchison was disposed to fall in with this new suggestion. Pomfret, however deep his infatuation, could not resist the evidence of his own senses. He would be much more strongly impressed than by a mere bald narration of the facts as conveyed to his friend by the detective.

So it was settled. Hugh would bring Pomfret to Rosemount at twenty minutes or a quarter to eight. At five minutes to, Davidson and his colleague would present themselves to execute their painful errand.

“Just a word before I go,” said the young man as he turned towards the door. “Is the man’s name really Burton, or only an alias?”

“That is his real name. Of course he has had aliases. His family, I understand, are respectable people of the lower middle-class. He was the black sheep, born with crooked and criminal instincts.”

“And the girl, is she really his sister?”

“On that point, I have no positive information,” replied Davidson. “She has passed as such ever since the Paris days. But I should very much doubt it. I am informed that they are very unlike in manners and appearance, that he is a rough sort of fellow, while she would pass anywhere for a lady.”

Hugh went back to the barracks, more than rejoiced at the fact that the detective seemed to have appeared on the scene in the very nick of time. If marriage was contemplated as the result of this clandestine wooing, what a terrible tragedy would be averted from the unlucky Pomfret!

Chapter Seven

It was twenty minutes to eight as the two young men rang at the door bell of Rosemount. Pomfret was always a slow dresser. It was only by extraordinary efforts that Hugh had got him off in time.

Brother and sister were awaiting them in the pretty drawing-room, lit with softly shaded lamps. Miss Burton rose to meet them, she extended a hand to each, in her pretty graceful way, as if she looked upon them both as her dearest friends, and would make no difference between them in her greeting.

But Hugh was very wide-awake, after his meeting with the detective, and he did notice that the left hand which she extended to Pomfret lingered a little longer in his responsive clasp than did the right which she had given to him.

Yes, it was obvious that their acquaintance had gone far. There was even, he fancied, an intelligent sympathy in their mutual glances. Pomfret was the lover, Hugh Murchison was simply the friend.

Mr Burton welcomed them heartily. “Just like old times,” he cried in his rough, breezy fashion. “I’ve been like a fish out of water during Norah’s absence. It was just like her to organise a little party, simply us four, to celebrate her return.”

It struck Hugh that his conviviality was just a trifle forced, that he seemed “jumpy” and nervous. Had he by chance spotted those two strangers in the High Street, and wondered what manner of men they were?

Pomfret settled himself on the chesterfield beside Norah, in spite of her rather obvious signals to preserve a more discreet attitude. Ignorant of what was going to happen a few minutes hence, her great object was to conceal the fact that Jack should take the position of an acknowledged lover.

In her secret heart, she was very apprehensive of Murchison. She knew he was suspicious of her, and he had a sort of elder brother affection for Pomfret. She was not by any means sure as to the lengths to which this fraternal feeling might lead him. It might even inspire him to evoke the assistance of the Pomfret family, and then the security of her present position might be menaced.

The secret marriage was, after all, in the nature of a gamble. If things turned out as she expected, if the old aunt died in reasonable time, the odds were in her favour. She could twist Jack round her little finger. But nobody knew better than this astute young woman of the world that there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip. Something that she had not calculated, not foreseen, might happen at any moment, and her house of cards might tumble to the ground. Her adventurous life had taught her never to be too sure of momentary prosperity.

She was a little bit nervous and “jumpy,” like her brother, to-night. Her smile was a little forced, her high spirits rather assumed. The wedding-ring, the marriage certificate hidden from sight, were great assets. And yet, was it all just a little too good to be quite true?