Part 28 (1/2)
Among the men who had always been attracted by the stories afloat were Charlie Rolfe, because of his close a.s.sociation with the old man, and Max Barclay, because of his intimate friends.h.i.+p with Rolfe. The latter had always been full of suspicion. Sam and Levi, master and man, were the only two who knew the truth of what lay behind that locked door.
And the servant guarded his master's secret well. He was janitor there, and no one pa.s.sed the threshold into old Sam's library without a very good cause, and without the permission of the master himself.
A thousand times, as Rolfe had gone in and out of the place, he had glanced up the broad, well-carpeted stairs, at the foot of which stood the fine marble Aphrodite, holding the great electrolier, and at the head, to the corner out of sight, was the locked door upon which half London had commented.
Had Samuel Statham thrown open his house only once, and given a reception, all gossip would be allayed. Indeed, as Rolfe sat with his master in the library the morning following Adam's meeting with Marion, he, without telling Sam the reason, suggested an entertainment in November. He said that Society were wondering he did not seek to make their acquaintance. There were hundreds of people dying to know him.
”Yes,” snapped the old man, glancing around the darkened room, for the morning sun was full upon the house. ”I know them. They'd come here, crush and guzzle, eat my dinners, drink my wine, and go away without even remembering my name. Oh! I know what the so-called aristocracy we like, never fear. Most of them live upon people like myself who are vain-glorious enough to be pleased to number the Earl of So-and-So and the Countess of Slush among their personal friends.
”Men with wives can't help being drawn into it. The womenfolk like to speak of `dear Lady Longneck,' s...o...b..r over some old t.i.tled hag at parting, or find their names in the `Court and Society' column of the _Daily Snivel_. It's their nature to be ambitious; but when a man's single, like myself, Rolfe, he can please himself. That's why I shut my door in their faces.”
”Of course, you can afford to,” the secretary replied, leaning both his elbows on the table and looking straight into his master's face. ”Few men could do as you do. It would be against their interests.”
”It may be even against my interests,” the old man said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair, ”for I might get a good deal of fun out of watching them trying to squeeze a little money out of me, or worm from me what men call `tips' regarding investments. Why, my dear Rolfe, once my door is opened to them, my life would no longer be worth living.
Instead of one secretary I'd want a dozen, and Levi would be at the door all day long answering callers. Other men who live in this street on either side of me have done it to their cost.”
”I've heard it said in the clubs that you, with your vast means and huge interests, owe a duty to Society,” Rolfe remarked.
”I owe no duty to Society,” the old fellow declared angrily. ”Society owes nothing to me, and I owe nothing to it. You know, Rolfe, how-- well--how I hate women--and I won't have a pack of chatterboxes about my place. If I was a man with five hundred a year they wouldn't want to know me.”
”That's very true,” Rolfe remarked with a slight sigh. ”Nowadays, when a man has money he is at once called a gentleman. A lady is the wife of a man with money, whatever may have been her past--or her present.”
The old man laughed.
”And there is the `perfect lady,'” he said. ”A genus usually a.s.sociated with the police-court. But you are quite right, Rolfe, nowadays, according to our modern code, a poor man cannot be a gentleman. No, as long as I live, the needy aristocracy which calls itself Society shall never my threshold. I will remain independent of them, for I have no womankind, and no fish to fry. I don't want a baronetcy, or a peerage.
I don't want shooting, or deer-stalking, or yachting, or hunting, or any of those pastimes. I merely want to be left alone here in peace--if it is possible.” And he drew a long breath as the ugly recollection of the shabby stranger crossed his mind.
Rolfe knew well that the old man's objections were because he dare not throw open the mansion. Some secret was hidden there which he could not reveal. What was it? Why were those brilliant lights sometimes at night in the upper windows? He had seen them himself sometimes as he pa.s.sed along near midnight on his way to his chambers in Jermyn Street, and had been sorely puzzled. More than once he had been convinced that somebody lived in the upper floors--somebody who was never seen. Yet if that were so, why should there be such secrecy regarding it. The occupant, whoever it was, could easily vacate the place while a reception was held.
As he sat there listening to the old man's tirade against the West-End and its ways he felt that there must be some far greater mystery than an unseen tenant.
That old Sam knew quite well the rumour concerning the house, was evident. Keeping secret agents in every capital as he was forced to do--agents, male and female, who knew everything and reported exactly what he wished to know--it was certain that public opinion concerning him was well-known to him. Yet, as in a scandal, the man most concerned is always the last to get wind of it. Perhaps after all he might be in ignorance of what people were saying, although it was hardly credible that Ben, his brother, would not tell him.
For craft and cunning few men in London could compare with Sam Statham, yet at the same time he was just in his judgment and honest in his transactions. The weak and needy he befriended, but woe betide any who endeavoured to mislead him or impose upon his generosity.
More than one man had, by receiving a word of good advice from Sam Statham and the temporary loan of a few thousand as capital, awakened in a week's time to find himself wealthy. One man in particular, now a well-known baronet, had risen in ten years from being a small draper in Launceston to his present position with an estate in Suffolk and a town house in Green Street, merely by taking Sam Statham's advice as to certain investments.
It was owing to this fact, and others, that old Sam, as he rose from the table and crossed the room to the window, where he pulled aside the blind to look out upon the sunny roadway, said--
”I myself, Rolfe, have made one or two so-called gentlemen. But,” he added, drawing a deep breath, ”let's put all that aside and get on with the letters. I'm expecting that Scotch friend of yours, the locomotive designer of Glasgow.”
”Oh, Macgregor!” remarked the secretary. ”He was most pertinacious the other day.”
”All Scots are,” replied the old man simply. ”Let's get on.” And returning to the table he took up letter after letter and dictated replies in his sharp, snappy way which, to those who did not know him, would have appeared priggish and uncouth.
The reason of Macgregor's visit to Old Broad Street had caused Rolfe a good deal of curiosity. He recollected how, on the instant his master had read the old engineer's scribbled lines, his face fell. The visitor was at all events not a welcome one. Yet, on the other hand, he had seen him without delay, and they had been closeted together for quite a long time.
When the bearded Scot left, and he had re-entered the millionaire's room, two facts struck him as peculiar. One was that a strong smell of burnt paper and a quant.i.ty of black tinder in the empty grate showed that some papers had been burned there, while the other was that old Sam was in the act of lighting a cigar, in itself showing a buoyancy of mind.
He never smoked when down at the bank, and very seldom when at home.