Chapter VIII

Wilson looked up with interest as the lawyer was ushered in. He saw a tubby, fresh-faced little man, with a short grey moustache, and grey hair which bristled up on his head, a beaming smile, a brisk manner, a pugnacious chin, and a pair of very alert, deep-set grey eyes. His appearance agreed very well with his character as derived from a gossip with Sam Wason, who had said that Mr. Brandreth was a deep one, a holy terror when he liked, and as sharp as a needle.

“Is he only a gossiping little busybody, or has he a game of his own?” Wilson wondered. “Probably to let him talk is the best way of finding out.” Accordingly, he opened straight to the point.

“I understand from Dr. Prendergast that you wanted to see me, Mr. Brandreth,” he said. “I hope you quite realise that I have no _locus standi_ in this matter. I am simply here on a holiday, and the local people have not consulted me in any way. As far as I can judge, they do not think there is anything to consult about. Exactly what use I can be to you under the circumstances I don’t quite see; but I am at your service, if that is understood.”

“Oh, quite,” said Mr. Brandreth, with polite scepticism. “I am only seeking advice, unprofessionally, as I told Dr. Prendergast.”

“And the advice is----?”

“I want to know what you think happened to William Meston.”

“Dr. Prendergast mentioned Mrs. Meston. Are you acting for her?”

“Not definitely. I had a talk with her yesterday, and she is anxious to have the matter cleared up. But I’ve no definite instructions.”

“Why does she want it cleared up?”

“Well, it’s natural, isn’t it?” Brandreth said innocently. “Besides, I thought I explained to the doctor that, if his death was anything but an accident, there’s likely to be a good deal of unpleasant talk, and I’d rather that was dealt with quickly, for her sake.”

“So I gathered,” Wilson said somewhat dryly. “I haven’t been here twenty-four hours yet; but I’ve heard talk enough to fill an American Sunday paper. Perhaps, Mr. Brandreth, you would be good enough to sift it for me. What exactly is the truth about Mrs. Meston and her husband?”

“Well,” Mr. Brandreth settled himself in comfortable anticipation, and took out an old cherrywood pipe, “the first thing is, that they didn’t get on at all. That’s common knowledge--in fact, at the time when he died she’d actually run away from him, and was staying at the Grange.”

“Why at the Grange?”

“Oh, it was the natural place for her to go to. She’s a sort of cousin of the Lorings--Sylvia Liddell was her maiden name--and she’s been in and out of there ever since she could walk. Godfrey Loring--the Squire--regards himself almost as her guardian, I believe.”

“And so she’d left her husband. With any particular purpose?”

“Divorce, you mean? No; Meston wouldn’t divorce her. And she couldn’t divorce him.”

“But he could.”

“Oh, yes. I tell you, she wanted him to.”

“Any particular co-respondent?”

“None that I know of. But a suit would not have been defended.”

“Nevertheless, a co-respondent would be necessary.”

“Oh, I expect one could have been found.”

“Who?”

“Well, that’s a delicate question, Mr. Wilson. I should hardly like to say, seeing that the happy man has not had a chance of signifying his consent. And in any case, I couldn’t. The question, you see, had not arisen. But I have no doubt one would have been provided.”

“Not the cinema star, by any chance?”

“Oh--Burden.” There was respect in Brandreth’s glance. “I hardly think so. He has a wife already--if not two--and he’s an expensive sort of fellow. I should doubt he could afford another. Though, of course, he’s high in favour at present.”

“There were others, then?”

“Oh yes. Mackenzie, the explorer, was very smitten. And that fellow Shane--you’ll have heard of him, he’s in your line. And half a dozen more. Do you want a list?”

“I wonder,” Wilson mused, “why, with all that embarrassment of riches, Mrs. Meston hit upon her late husband. It doesn’t sound a natural choice for her.”

“That, of course,” said Brandreth, “was the most foolish thing that anybody ever did. And I’m afraid the reason’s as plain as a pikestaff. It was temper. I can tell you the whole story, if you don’t mind listening a few minutes.

“Sylvia Meston, as I said, was Sylvia Liddell before her marriage. Her parents both died when she was little; and, though nominally she lived with an old aunt, she in fact spent most of her time at the Grange. She was--and still is--an exceptionally pretty little devil, very frank and oncoming; and men were crazy about her from the time she was fifteen. Eighteen months ago, however, she suddenly married Meston, who had been hanging about her in common with dozens of others for the last year or so.

“Of course, everybody hereabouts knew why she’d married. It was partly poverty and mainly pique. Sooner or later, she would have had to marry. She had expensive tastes and no money of her own; and, though the Lorings are as rich as sin and would never have missed it, she’s proud enough in some ways to dislike being a pensioner. That, of course, doesn’t explain why she chose Meston; but it also happened at the same time that she had a violent quarrel with John Loring, the Squire’s younger brother, and sent him packing. At least, I never heard the rights of it; but John Loring certainly departed for China within the week, which was pretty drastic. I’ve an idea that that was the last thing Sylvia intended, and that she really cared for him all the time. I base this partly on the fact that she’s never discussed it with me, though her frankness on all other matters is occasionally disconcerting, and partly on the further fact that she took his departure very hard indeed, and all but sent all her other admirers off presently in John’s wake.

“Then she suddenly married Meston. It appears to me that she had decided, with one of the insane impulses which beset angry people, to cut herself off as far from the Loring ménage and way of life as possible; and that she chose Meston as the man least likely of all possibles to remind her of John. Besides, the fellow was one of the most curiously persistent creatures I’ve ever seen. Not only could he not take ‘no’ for an answer; he could not really believe that any one would meet him with a negative. If they appeared to be denying him, he assumed that it was some temporary blindness, and simply waited. I’ve seen that trait in philanthropists and reformers at times; and perhaps under happier circumstances poor Meston might have become a distinguished man. As it was, his patience brought him nothing but Dead Sea fruit.

“For, of course, it was a crazy thing to do, however you look at it. They hadn’t a thing in common. He disapproved of the Loring habits as much as your friend here would,” said Brandreth, with a side-glance at Michael, who sat upright in surprise, “and he was quite determined that once Sylvia was out she should stay out.”

“Excuse me,” Wilson interrupted, “but if he detested the atmosphere as much as you say, how did he ever come to meet the lady?”

“Oh, the firm did some business for the Lorings--it dated back to old Warden’s time. And Nick Hanborough, the present senior partner, is a fairly frequent visitor there, and took him along one day. Then he fell in love with Sylvia at first sight, and simply hung on till she married him. However, as I say, it was madness. They hadn’t been married a month before they began to quarrel; and the mischief of it was that, in one of their early rows, Sylvia let out the reason why she had married him. That absolutely put the lid on it, as far as she was concerned. Sylvia herself--and any of the Loring lot, for that matter--would have raged and stormed at a confession like that, and then forgotten all about it. But Meston was made of different stuff. Underneath his dull exterior he was one of the vainest men I ever knew, and this confession of his wife’s just got him on the raw. Once he had satisfied himself that she meant what she said, he became insane with rage. He was not the sort to say anything, but he just set himself out to make her pay for it. As I’ve already said, he wouldn’t hear of divorce, or even judicial separation. He simply tried to hold her by force. He kept her, for instance, as short of money as he possibly could. She couldn’t even dress decently without running into debt, and he made a violent scene whenever he was asked to pay a bill. He refused to ask her friends to the house; and if any of them came unasked, he treated them so rudely, men or women, that they generally didn’t come again--and this in the presence of the servants, quite often. If he’d dared, I think he would have locked her up; but even he stopped short of the consequences of that.

“Well, this went on for a considerable time. Sylvia complained to me, of course; and I did what I could to make him see reason. I knew him fairly well, one way and another, and he had his good points, though they didn’t come out in his marriage. But you might as well have talked to a stone wall. On this point he wasn’t a human creature at all; he was just a walking injury, a man deeply wounded in his self-esteem, and set on being properly revenged for it. Perhaps it’s a fairly common condition; but I hope there aren’t many who are so patiently vindictive about it as Meston was.

“Eventually, as I’ve told you, Sylvia ran away. She had nowhere to run but the Grange, otherwise I think she’d have gone before. But she was very unwilling to return with her tail between her legs, and she didn’t go until she had tried everything else. Godfrey Loring took her in, of course, and was ill-advised enough to write to Meston telling him that he’d done so, and why. Of course, that was like a red rag. Meston immediately packed his bag, came down to the Old Malting House here, and sat down to wait for his wife to return. Meanwhile, he wrote the most insane letters to her, to the Squire, and to any one else who he heard was on the premises, and ended by going up to the Grange with a whip and demanding her return. On this occasion, he was thrown out of the house by the footmen. Then, as you know, or, at least, as the doctor knows, he disappeared from the Old Malting House either late on Friday night or early Saturday morning, without giving up his room or taking away his bags, though he left them ready packed, Wason tells me, with a label, ‘To Be Called For.’ And that’s the last of him--until he turned up in the river yesterday morning. Wason thought he’d gone back to Colchester, and Colchester thought he was here. Otherwise there might have been inquiries before now. Well, Mr. Wilson, is that clear, or is there anything else you want to know?”

“What I chiefly want to know,” said Wilson thoughtfully, “is why you have come to me with this story. If the man committed suicide, or if there’s any possibility that he did, I can’t help you, nor could any man, to keep these facts concealed. But I gather from Dr. Prendergast that you don’t think he _did_ commit suicide. Why not?”

“I knew him, you see,” said Brandreth. “He was, so emphatically, the last man in the world to kill himself. He would have felt baulked, for one thing, of his revenge on Sylvia; and he was quite certain, when he came down here, that he was going to get her back again, if not this time, then the next--or the next. He simply couldn’t believe that the universe would let him down after all. Sylvia agrees with me on that point, I may say.”

“I see,” said Wilson thoughtfully. “How does Mr. Hanborough come in, then?”

“Hanborough?” Brandreth looked up sharply. “He doesn’t, that I know of. Except that he was Meston’s partner.”

“Connected with him financially,” Wilson said, with a slight stress on the adverb.

“Oh, I see what you mean. I don’t think there’s anything in that. Of course, no doubt it would have worried him.”

“H’m,” Wilson said. “Had Meston any money, and who gets it?”

“A few thousands. Sylvia gets it, I believe--on condition she doesn’t marry again. I don’t think he could have been put out of the way for his possessions, if that’s what you mean.”

“We don’t know that he was put out of the way, yet,” Wilson said, with something of a sigh. “How old is Mrs. Meston, by the way?”

“Twenty-six; but she looks twenty.”

“Old enough to know her own mind,” Michael commented crossly. He disliked what he called “promiscuous” women.

“She _does_ know it,” the lawyer replied. “That’s the trouble. She’s capable of wild impulses; but the Loring life is the life for her, and she’s known it now for a year and a half.”

“Or Mr. Burden?”

“Or any one else you like. She must have them.”

“You don’t give her a very reliable character,” Wilson said.

“Well, their pace is a bit hot for me,” Brandreth replied. “I like women, and I like wine--in moderation. But no Loring was ever known to be moderate in either.”

“But you didn’t attempt to dissuade your client from going there?”

“Oh, I’m a tolerant person,” the lawyer said. “When in Rome, I do as the Romans do. Besides, I know when the ice won’t bear me--unlike poor Meston. I shouldn’t dream of walking into one of the Grange parties, and asking Sylvia to come home.”

“I’ve heard about those parties,” Michael said. “There was one the night Meston vanished, wasn’t there?”

“There was. But that wasn’t the one he attended. Anyway, Sylvia wasn’t there, she tells me. She said she had a headache, which I find it hard to believe. I’ve seldom met any one with Sylvia’s physical energy. But this is a bit beside the mark, it seems to me. What do you say, Mr. Wilson?”

Before Wilson could answer, there was the sound of a slight disturbance outside the door, which was then opened by a flustered and giggling chambermaid. Just behind the chambermaid appeared a slight figure in a short tennis frock and white cap.

“Hullo, Ned!” said the apparition. “You haven’t wasted much time, have you? And will Mr. Wilson do anything?”