Chapter II: The Lamb

It was characteristic of Mr. John Carsdale, and of Mrs. Walsingham, that at the first sound of the opening door their faces assumed that curiously indifferent and expressionless look which has come to be associated with the term business. Carsdale glanced at the office-boy as if that youthful functionary had been some machine which had just executed its purely mechanical message: his companion remained apparently absorbed in the reading of the letter.

“Where is Mr. Shrewsbury, Griffkin?” asked Carsdale.

“In the waiting-room, sir,” answered the boy.

“Did you tell him that Mr. Leverton was not here?”

“No, sir--told him nothing. Your orders, sir.”

“Quite right. Bring him in, Griffkin. You needn’t go, Mrs. Walsingham,” said Carsdale, as the secretary made a professional movement towards the door. “I think I shall want you. At once, Griffkin--straight in!”

The boy vanished, leaving the door ajar; a moment later, he reappeared, to throw it wide open, and to admit a young gentleman who advanced into the room with an air of shy expectation. And as he crossed the threshold the man and woman who rose to greet him looked at him with a curiosity which was all the greater because it was so carefully concealed, and each, after one sharp glance at the caller, thought the same thought--that Mr. Richard Shrewsbury was not at all what they had expected him to be, and both looked at him again, with different motives.

It was very evident that Mr. Shrewsbury, ignorant of England though he might be, was English from head to foot. He was certainly bronzed and tanned to a degree quite unusual in Europe, but there was nothing in his whole six feet of height that did not bespeak the English blood, pure and unmixed for generations. Tall, slim, athletic, broad of shoulder, slender of flank, he was of the type that one sees nowhere in the world but in English hunting-fields and on English cricket-grounds--except when it is wanted for the sterner games of war and needful adventure. If he had lived in England all his life, said Mrs. Walsingham to herself, his hair would have been a light brown; the fierce suns of the West Indies had deepened it to a rich chestnut which was well in keeping with the dark tint of his cheeks. And being a judge of manly beauty, she decided that here was a youngster who was handsome as the youthful Greek gods are supposed to have been, and who was at the same time utterly unconscious that all women would admire the strength and grace of his figure, his square chin, his firm mouth, almost innocent of moustache, the direct gaze of his grey-blue eyes, and the untrammelled freedom of his gait. She felt a quick leaping of her pulses as she looked at him, and it was with difficulty that she kept admiration out of the eyes which she so vigorously schooled to instant obedience.

As for Carsdale, he looked at the visitor with a growing consciousness that this was not exactly what he had expected to meet. There was something in the young man’s appearance which showed that he was no fool; he might be inexperienced even to greenness, but he looked to have a will of his own. And Carsdale, stepping forward to meet him with outstretched hand, assumed his most serious air.

Young Richard Shrewsbury took the offered hand in a grip which made Carsdale think of giants and blacksmiths.

Mrs. Walsingham smiled as she saw Carsdale wince beneath the unconscious strength; she smiled again as she saw the youngster’s face flush under its tan.

“Mr. Leverton?” said Richard, eagerly. “This is kind, sir--you will think me a very early caller, but----”

Carsdale lifted a hand.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Shrewsbury,” he said, motioning Richard to a chair, “but I am not Mr. Leverton. I am Mr. John Carsdale, his partner. This lady is Mrs. Walsingham, our confidential secretary. The fact is Mr. Shrewsbury, Mr. Leverton has been ill for some time, and as I open all letters that come here, I opened yours this morning, so we were expecting you. In fact, we were just talking of you.”

Richard Shrewsbury heard all this with growing wonder and interest; he was already speculative and inquisitive about this obviously-man-of-the-world Carsdale, and boyishly conscious of Mrs. Walsingham’s charm and pretty face. He shyly offered her his hand, and gripped hers as mightily as he had grasped Carsdale’s. But Mrs. Walsingham was of the sort that would have picked up a white-hot iron if need be without uttering a sound or winking an eyelash, and she let her hand rest in the young giant’s as long as he, from sheer confusion and shyness, cared to hold it, and meanwhile favoured him with the full battery of her eyes, whereat he blushed up to his own--after which he somehow managed to get into the easy chair which Carsdale had motioned him to take.

“I--I’m awfully sorry to hear about Mr. Leverton,” he found himself saying, when he had taken another look at his companions and his surroundings. “I hope it is not a serious illness?”

Carsdale looked at Mrs. Walsingham; Mrs. Walsingham looked at the floor.

“Well--er, it’s very serious, Mr. Shrewsbury,” replied Carsdale. “Ver-y serious indeed. I--ah, well, I don’t know that there’s any need to beat about the bush. The fact is, Mr. Leverton is dead.”

“Dead!” exclaimed Richard, staring blankly at his informant. “Dead? Ah, I see!--I suppose he has been dead for some time? Of course, I didn’t know.”

“He has been dead just about half an hour,” answered Carsdale, coolly glancing at the clock. “I had just received the news of his death over the telephone when you were announced. We were not exactly surprised, for he has been very ill, but the end came quite suddenly at last.”

Richard looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression. He made as if to drag his long limbs out of the very low chair into which they had been consigned.

“I’m most awfully sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know Mr. Leverton, of course, but I’d like to have seen him for my father’s sake--he often spoke of him. I--perhaps I’d better go, Mr. Carsdale.”

But Carsdale waved him back into the chair.

“Not at all, not at all!” he said “As I told you, I am--was, rather--Leverton’s partner, and I know that nothing would please him better than that I should do for you what he would have done. So please command me in any way, Mr. Shrewsbury--I dare say I can give you the same services and advice that he would have given.”

The lad’s face flushed with pleasure at the warmth and kindliness of Carsdale’s tone.

“That’s very kind of you, sir,” he said. “I’m awfully obliged. Of course, I’ll come to you, as soon as I get settled down.”

Carsdale laughed--an indulgent and fatherly laugh.

“You’d much better come to me before you get settled down,” he said, smiling benignantly. “Otherwise, you may be settling down in the wrong place. I learnt from your letter to poor Leverton that you are quite a stranger in London.”

“I am a stranger to England--I never saw English soil before yesterday morning. Oh, yes, it’s all strange--very!” replied Richard.

“Well, then, remember the old adage,” said Carsdale, who had a vague and much mixed notion that he had some Scriptural warrant for what he was saying, “and bear in mind that strangers are often taken in. If Leverton had been here, the first thing he would have done would have been to see that you were comfortably established in this howling wilderness. He, no doubt, would have carried you off to his own house--I can’t, for I’m a bachelor, and live in rooms in which I can only just turn around. But I can help you to find a proper corner for yourself--no man better for, as Mrs. Walsingham there will assure you, I know London as well as I know this room.”

Mrs. Walsingham turned her eyes once more on Mr. Shrewsbury, and again smiled on him.

“Mr. Carsdale has an extensive and peculiar knowledge of London,” she said. “You would find him a wonderful guide, Mr. Shrewsbury.”

“It’s awfully kind of you,” said the caller. “I--yes, I do find it rather--immense.”

“And you have been in it--an hour or two, eh?” laughed Carsdale. “Wait until you see it. Now, seriously, to what hotel have you gone?”

Richard blushed once more, boyishly.

“I’m afraid it’s not up to much,” he said, apologetically. “It’s one I heard my father mention, but perhaps things are changed since his day.” He gave the name of an old-fashioned hotel that had been famous in certain circles thirty years before, and Carsdale threw up his hands.

“Oh, that’ll never do!” he said. “The glory has vanished from that establishment long since. Now, let me advise you. What you ought to have is a suite of rooms of your own in the West End, and a good man-servant of your own, and I can put my finger on the very place, and on the very man, to-day. That’s much better than living in a hotel, and you can dine out whenever you like. I can show you the rooms I’m speaking of this afternoon.”

“It’s very good to take so much trouble,” said Richard. “I should like that--I hate hotels. But your time?”

Carsdale waved his hand.

“Oh, we manufacture time here in London!” he said airily. “Besides, I want to do for you just what Leverton would have done. Yes, we’ll see those rooms this afternoon. Then I suppose you’ll want a good tailor, and a good bootmaker, and all the rest of it--leave all that to me, and I’ll see that you are properly attended to. This man-servant that I can get for you is an excellent creature--thoroughly experienced, and so on--but it is never wise to ask a valet as to what tradesmen you should patronize--never!”

“Isn’t it?” asked Richard innocently. “Why?”

“Because they care to feather their own nests,” replied Carsdale, solemnly, shaking his head. “When you want any advice about buying anything in London, trust to a disinterested friend, or to your business man, or you’ll be cheated. That is of course until you gain some experience of the town, as you soon will do.”

Richard ventured to smile at Mrs. Walsingham--he scarcely knew why.

“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you at first, Mr. Carsdale,” he said, “for I have no friends in London. When I got here this morning and saw how big it was I--well, I began to feel a bit lonely and frightened.”

Carsdale’s face became sympathetic. He shook his head and glanced at Mrs. Walsingham.

“Yes,” he said, gravely. “A man may be as lonely as a hermit in London. But you won’t be lonely--you’re young, and you’ll soon make friends. We must see to it that they’re the right sort. Well, now,” he continued, rising from his chair and glancing at the clock, “I’m afraid I must turn to business. But I can give you this afternoon, Mr. Shrewsbury, with pleasure. I’ll call for you at your hotel at three o’clock. Until then--don’t lose yourself in our wilderness!”

Richard felt himself dismissed, and made his bow to Mrs. Walsingham. Carsdale let him out by a side door, and took him to the elevator.

“Don’t be afraid to command my services in any way,” he said, as he shook his visitor’s hand. “I want you to feel that you can get from me what you’d have got from my late partner.”

“It’s very kind of you,” said Richard. He hesitated a moment at the door of the elevator. “I should like to send my sympathy to Mr. Leverton’s family,” he said shyly. “Perhaps you’ll tell me what to do?”

“Oh, to be sure, to be sure!” replied Carsdale. “This afternoon, then.”

He waved his hand, and gave Richard another of his friendly and brilliant smiles as the elevator dropped, but the smile had vanished, and his face was perplexed, when he re-entered his room to rejoin Mrs. Walsingham. And Mrs. Walsingham, also re-entering at the same moment, but from another door, showed him an equally perplexed countenance. Carsdale stopped, staring at her. She came straight towards him, biting her upper lip, and she inclined her head in the direction of the room from which she had just come.

“Jack!” she whispered. “There’s Frances Leverton in her father’s private room; she came some time ago, Griffkin says. And, I say, Jack--Winch, the solicitor, is with her!”