King of the Castle. Fenn George Manville
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what I owe you!”
“No, no, don’t do that. Pay it.”
“You know I cannot.”
“Till you’ve made a good marriage; and you cannot live in style and make a good marriage without my help, my dear Glyddyr.”
“You and your cursed fraternity hold plenty of security, so leave me in peace.”
“I will, dear boy; but I want my trifle of money, and you are not getting on as fast as I could wish, so I’ve come to help you.”
“Come to ruin me, you mean.”
“Wrong. I have my cheque book in my pocket, and if you want a few hundreds to carry on the war, here they are.”
“At the old rate,” sneered Glyddyr.
“No, my dear fellow. I must have a little more. The risk is big.”
“Yes. Might fail, and blow out my brains.”
“Ex-actly! How I do like this country cream.”
Glyddyr threw himself into his seat with a crash.
“That was all a metaphor,” he said bitterly.
“What was, dear boy?”
“About the Devil and Dr Faustus.”
“Of course it was. Why?”
“Faustus was some poor devil hard up, and the other was not a devil at all, but a confounded money-lender. It was a bill Faustus accepted, not a contract.”
“I daresay you are right, Glyddyr. Have a drop of brandy? Eh? No? Well, there’s nothing like a chasse with a good breakfast, and this is really prime.”
“Well, I’ll grin and bear it till I’m free,” said Glyddyr. “You want to know how I am getting on. You need not stay.”
“But I want a change, and I can help you, perhaps.”
“You’ll queer the whole affair if you stay here. Once it is so much as suspected that I am not as well off as I was – ”
“That you are an utter beggar – I mean a rum beggar.”
“Do you want me to wring your neck?”
“The neck of the goose that lays the golden eggs? No. They don’t kill geese that way.”
” – The whole affair will be off.”
“Old man’s a rum one, isn’t he?”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know?” said Gellow, with a quiet chuckle. “That’s my business. I know everything about you, my dear boy. I have a great personal interest in your proceedings, and every move is reported to me.”
“And, to make matters worse, you have yourself come down to play the spy.”
“Not a bit of it, my dear Glyddyr; but you have cursed and bullied me at such a tremendous rate, that, as I have you on the hook, I can’t help playing you a little.”
“Oh!” snarled Glyddyr furiously.
“But, all the same, I am the best friend you have in the world.”
“It’s a lie!”
“Is it? Well, we shall see. I want you to marry King Gartram’s daughter, and I’ll let you have all you want to carry it out. And by the way, here are three letters for you.”
He took the letters out of his pocket-book, and handed them.
“There you are: Parry Glyddyr, Esq, care of Reuben Gellow, Esq, 209 Cecil Street, Strand.”
“Why, they’ve been opened!”
“Yes, all three – and read.”
“You scoundrel!” roared Glyddyr. “Do you dare to sit there and tell me that you have had the effrontery to open my letters and read them?”
“I didn’t tell you so.”
“But you have read them?”
“Every line.”
“Look here, sir,” cried Glyddyr, rising fiercely, “I found it necessary to have my letters sent to an agent.”
“Reuben Gellow.”
“To be forwarded to me where I might be yachting.”
“So as to throw your creditors off the scent.”
“And you, acting as my agent, have read them.”
“In your interest, dear boy.”
“Curse you! I don’t care what happens now. All is at an end between us, you miserable – ”
“Go it, old fellow, if it does you good; but I didn’t open the letters.”
“Then who did?”
“Denise.”
Glyddyr’s jaw dropped.
“Now, then, you volcanic eruption of a man; who’s your friend, eh? I went down to the office yesterday morning. ‘Lady waiting in your room, sir,’ says my clerk. ‘Who is it?’ says I. ‘Wouldn’t give her name,’ says my clerk. ‘Wants money then,’ says I to myself; and goes up, and there was Madame Denise just finishing reading number three.”
“Good heavens!” muttered Glyddyr, blankly.
“‘I came, sare,’ she says, with one of her pretty, mocking laughs, ‘to ask you for ze address of my hosband, but you are absent, it ees no mattair. I find tree of my hosband’s lettaires, and one say he sup-poz my hosband go to Danmout. Dat is all.’”
“Then she’ll find me out, and come down here and spoil all.”
“Divil a doubt of it, me boy, as Paddy says.”
“But you – you left the letters lying about.”
“Not I. They came by the morning’s post. How the deuce could I tell that she would hunt me up, and then open her ‘hosband’s’ letters.”
“I am not her husband;” cried Glyddyr furiously. “That confounded French marriage does not count.”
“That’s what you’ve got to make her believe, my dear boy.”
“And if it did, I’d sooner smother myself than live with the wretched harpy.”
“Yes; I should say she had a temper Glyddyr. So under the circumstances, dear boy, I thought the best thing I could do was to come down fast as I could and put you on your guard.”
“My dear Gellow.”
“Come, that’s better. Then we are brothers once again,” cried Gellow, with mock melodramatic fervour.
“Curse the woman!”
“Better still; much better than cursing me.”
“Don’t fool, man. Can’t you see that this will be perfect destruction?”
“Quite so, dear boy; and now that this inner man is refreshed with food, so kindly and courteously supplied by you, he is quite ready for action. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Think she will come down?”
“Think? No, I don’t. Ah, Parry Glyddyr, what a pity it is you have been such a wicked young man!”
“Do you want to drive me mad with your foolery?”
“No; only to act. There, don’t make a fuss about it. The first thing is to throw her off the scent. She knows you may be here.”
“Yes.”
“Well, she’ll come down and inquire for you. She is not obliged to know about the people at the Fort; your yacht put in here for victualling or repairs.”
“Well?”
“When she comes, she finds