Chapter III: A Dead Man’s Orders

Carsdale’s first action, on receiving this intimation from Mrs. Walsingham, was to step swiftly past her, and to close the door through which she had just come, and which communicated with a general office wherein the boy Griffkin and a young lady typist were wont to discharge their tasks and to receive callers. He turned round on the secretary with an astonished stare.

“What--here, almost within an hour of her father’s death!” he exclaimed.

“I told you she is as sharp as you are,” said Mrs. Walsingham. “She must have called for Winch and brought him straight here. And--why?”

Carsdale first shrugged his shoulders and then spread out his hands.

“Goodness knows--I don’t!” he answered. “It seems--unseemly. Perhaps she wants some papers--the will, it may be. Besides as you know, Leverton had his own private concerns here, just as I have mine. I can’t stop her from going into her father’s private room.”

“No, because she’s in,” said Mrs. Walsingham. “And what is more, the door’s locked. Griffkin heard it lock as soon as they entered.”

Carsdale started.

“The door--locked?” he exclaimed. “Good God, what does that mean? That sounds mysterious.”

“I should think it means that she and Winch are going through Leverton’s private desk and his private safe,” said Mrs. Walsingham, regarding him steadily. “What do you think?”

But Carsdale merely shrugged his shoulders again, and smiled enigmatically. He turned to the paper-littered desk behind him, and picking up Richard Shrewsbury’s letter, placed it carefully in his pocket-book.

“I’ve already said that I can’t help what she or Winch do in that room,” he answered. “What’s more to the point is--what do you think of the youngster?”

“That he’d better be caught young,” replied Mrs. Walsingham tersely. “He’s the sort that will soon grow out of the callow stage. He’s no fool, Jack--only young and green. Be careful. And don’t go too fast at it.”

“No, no!--I think I see the way,” said Carsdale. “Now, these people in Leverton’s room? You’d better go back to yours, and I’ll go on with my work--I want them to think that all’s going as usual. I’ll leave my door open, so that I shall know when they come out--I’d give something to know why on earth they came at all!”

Mrs. Walsingham made no reply to this; she picked up some documents and went away, and Carsdale having followed her out into the general office to give some orders to the girl typist, left his door open and kept an eye on that behind which his late partner’s daughter and her solicitor were busied with--what? And instead of sitting down at his desk, he moved restlessly about his room, wondering why Frances Leverton should have hurried away from her father’s death-bed, and come to the office in this mysterious fashion.

But Carsdale--and a few other people--knew that the business relations of Barclay Leverton and himself were peculiar. There was no legal partnership between them. It was true that their names appeared in conjunction on the list of tenants painted up in the marble-paved hall on the ground floor of the palatial building of which they occupied the top-story; that they were blazoned forth, again in conjunction, on the heavy brass plate of the swing doors which gave admission to their offices, but the real truth was that they were only partners when it suited them both to be partners. They joined in paying the rent and the rates and the office expenses; they mutually shared the services of Mrs. Walsingham, of Miss Rousby, the typist, and of Griffkin, the office-boy. They had had business affairs in common; sometimes they had business affairs in which other men joined. But each had his own affairs, his own business; each had his own secrets. And the people who knew Leverton well, and Carsdale well, knew that each could, if he pleased, be as close and secret as the grave.

To men who had only a superficial knowledge of this establishment, the precise nature of the business carried on by Leverton & Carsdale, in conjunction or separately, was more or less of a mystery. They did not describe themselves, and were not described anywhere, as anything. In plain truth, they were agents, speculators, and dabblers of a comprehensive, all-embracing sort. They turned their brains, hands, money to anything that seemed likely to be profitable. They were adepts at promoting companies, at advising people on the investment of capital, at introducing men of ideas to men of means, at showing a poor inventor how to profit by his invention. All manner of strange and curious folk went up and down the elevator to and from Leverton & Carsdale’s--some wore glad and gleeful countenances, even at the end of a year’s experience of them; some began to cultivate a gnashing of teeth and a muttering of curses before many weeks had passed. There were men who hinted that strange tales could be told of the establishment, who wagged the head at the name of Leverton, and winked the eye at that of Carsdale, but in spite of that there was always a steady stream of business, and each man always seemed to be advising somebody, or engineering some important schemes for somebody else. And there were still other men who hinted--more quietly and darkly--that if anybody knew the real and inner workings of the concern, whether in its joint or its single capacities, that person was the lady known as Mrs. Walsingham, who was held to be the confidante of both men, and represented them very readily in their absence.

But Carsdale knew that Leverton like himself, had secrets which he shared with no one, and he wondered as he waited for the door of Leverton’s room to open, if the dead man’s daughter had come so hurriedly from her father’s death-bed in connection with one of them. Of Frances Leverton, Carsdale, despite his reference to her as a youthful person, had a secret and a deep fear. He knew that she was something more than clever; he had an instinctive feeling that she had no great belief in him. On the rare occasions on which he had visited the Maida Vale flat in which Leverton and his daughter--an only child--resided, he had more than once caught the girl watching him in a curious fashion, and he had said to himself as he remembered her grave and steady eyes, and the firmness of the lips which could look very determined in conjunction with an equally firm and resolute chin, that Miss Frances Leverton had got all her father’s shrewdness, and a great deal more business capacity than Leverton himself had ever possessed. Other people saw the girl as a handsome young woman of nineteen who was naturally bright, vivacious, merry, and companionable: Carsdale only knew that she invariably froze to him, that her grey eyes grew hard, and her chin aggressive, and that she always seemed to be searching into and examining his inner self. In fine he was very well aware that Frances Leverton did not trust him any more than any sensible being would trust a wolf that has found entrance to a fold of young lambs.

“I’d give anything if I knew what they’ve come for!” repeated Carsdale, after he had kicked his heels for another ten minutes. And growing impatient and tired of inactivity, he went into the outer office, sent Miss Rousby to Mrs. Walsingham’s room with a message which would keep her there, despatched Griffkin to the post-office, and thus cleared the court for a meeting with Frances Leverton and her man of law. By that time Carsdale’s temper was ruffled; the locking of the door had touched his pride; something told him that in that mere act there was a tacit declaration of war on Frances’s part.

The door opened at last, and the girl came out, carrying a small despatch box. Carsdale’s quick eyes passed from her and her burden to the solicitor; he, too, carried another, a larger, despatch box. And Carsdale knew, then, that they had been examining Leverton’s papers, and were carrying at any rate some of them away.

Carsdale had sufficient knowledge of Frances Leverton’s character to know that she would like him none the better if he affected a personal grief for her father which he did not feel. And possessing a certain quality of straightforwardness, and not being in anywise deficient in courage, he went directly to the point which was in his mind.

“I don’t think it a very polite thing that you should come here and lock yourself and Mr. Winch in that room, Miss Leverton,” he said. “No one would have interrupted, whatever business you had to do.”

Frances Leverton regarded him calmly.

“I am not so sure of that, Mr. Carsdale,” she answered. “I have been subjected to interruptions more than once on coming here.”

Carsdale shrugged his shoulders in his characteristic fashion.

“Oh well!” he said. “When offices are used as these have been, people get into the habit of running in and out. But it gives a bad impression to the clerks, when principals or the representatives of principals, lock doors against other principals. And it seems to me strange that you should come here immediately after your father’s death and--I judge from what I see--examine and remove papers in which I may be concerned.”

The solicitor, a keen-eyed, but mild-faced elderly man, pushed himself forward.

“Miss Leverton has only done exactly what her father wished her to do, Mr. Carsdale,” he said quietly. “I think,” he continued, turning to Frances with an air of wise suggestion, “I think, my dear, that under the circumstances you should tell Mr. Carsdale why you came here this morning in what may seem rather a hurry.”

“Oh, no matter, no matter!” exclaimed Carsdale. “I don’t wish to trouble Miss Leverton.”

But Miss Leverton looked at him gravely and followed Mr. Winch’s advice.

“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps--perhaps I ought to have spoken to you first, Mr. Carsdale. But Griffkin said you were particularly engaged, and I have much to do. Well--last night, although the doctors had said nothing of it, my father seemed to develop some fear that he might die suddenly, and he gave me instructions that, if he did, I was to go at once to Mr. Winch, to ask him to accompany me here, and to open the private safe with a key which was in Mr. Winch’s possession, and to take away a certain bundle of papers and a package. I have only carried out his instructions--and if I locked the door it was because I did not want to be interrupted.”

Carsdale suddenly became all outward sympathy and agreeableness.

“Oh, all right, all right, Miss Leverton!” he said. “Sorry I said what I did, but I’m sure you’ll understand. You see, your father and I always ran in each other’s rooms quite freely--I don’t know that we ever locked anything up from each other. But these are doubtless quite private matters--of course, I had nothing to do with his private desk and his safe. Oh, that’s all right! Now, Miss Leverton, is there anything I can do--anything I can take off your shoulders? Pray tell me if there is.”

But Miss Leverton answered quietly that she was much obliged to Mr. Carsdale, but there was nothing: Mr. Winch and herself could undertake all that was necessary, especially as her father had desired that his funeral arrangements should be of the simplest nature. And then she and the solicitor went away, and Mr. Carsdale, after twisting his moustaches for a moment, during which he stood in an attitude of deep thought, went into Mrs. Walsingham’s room and dismissed Miss Rousby, and carefully shut the door upon her slim figure.

“It’s nothing,” he said, turning to Mrs. Walsingham reassuringly. “Nothing! She’s only been to fetch some papers and things--it turns out that Leverton got a notion into his head that he might die suddenly, and in that case he wished her to remove certain things. Oh, it’s nothing.”

Mrs. Walsingham gave him a queer look.

“That’s exactly like you,” she said. “How do you know what has been taken away. You ought to have insisted, in view of your relations with Leverton, that nothing should be touched except under your inspection.”

“Oh, you can’t interfere with a man’s private safe,” said Carsdale, shrugging his shoulders. “This is some private matters. I know very well what papers of mine Leverton had, and they amount to nothing. Now, look here, Sylvie--I’m going up town to see after the arrangements for this young Shrewsbury. I shall make a very good day’s work out of my introductions--and I’ll not be back until evening, so you must take charge. There’s nothing particular, and if there is, and you can’t do it yourself, tell them Leverton’s dead, and I’m out until to-morrow.”

Then Carsdale went off at his usual breakneck speed, and Mrs. Walsingham sat in her cozy little office and thought. She remained in thought until Miss Rousby had gone to lunch; then she took a letter from her desk and, going into the general office, sent Griffkin off to the City with it, and she subsequently took the trouble to look out of the window and to watch the young gentleman go leisurely down the street in the direction of the Temple station. And then, she herself being the only living soul in the suite of offices, Mrs. Walsingham passed rapidly into the dead man’s private room, and went straight to the safe which had just been visited by Frances Leverton. For Mrs. Walsingham was burning with curiosity and eagerness to make herself assured of a certain something, and without delay she drew a key from her corsage and opened the heavy door. A moment later she had closed it again. She knew then what she had wanted to know--she knew what the dead man’s daughter had carried away.