ERNEST BRAMAH Ultimate Collection: 20+ Novels & Short Stories in One Volume. Bramah Ernest
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“Probably not for three months yet. All the same, Louis, we will go on to the agents and get a card to view, whether we use it to-day or not.”
A thick hedge, in its summer dress effectively screening the house beyond from public view, lay between the garden and the road. Above the hedge showed an occasional shrub; at the corner nearest to the car a chestnut flourished. The wooden gate, once white; which they had passed, was grimed and rickety. The road itself was still the unpretentious country lane that the advent of the electric car had found it. When Carrados had taken in these details there seemed little else to notice. He was on the point of giving Harris the order to go on when his ear caught a trivial sound.
“Someone is coming out of the house, Louis,” he warned his friend. “It may be Hollyer, but he ought to have gone by this time.”
“I don’t hear anyone,” replied the other, but as he spoke a door banged noisily and Mr Carlyle slipped into another seat and ensconced himself behind a copy of The Globe.
“Creake himself,” he whispered across the car, as a man appeared at the gate. “Hollyer was right; he is hardly changed. Waiting for a car, I suppose.”
But a car very soon swung past them from the direction in which Mr Creake was looking and it did not interest him. For a minute or two longer he continued to look expectantly along the road. Then he walked slowly up the drive back to the house.
“We will give him five or ten minutes,” decided Carrados. “Harris is behaving very naturally.”
Before even the shorter period had run out they were repaid. A telegraph-boy cycled leisurely along the road, and, leaving his machine at the gate, went up to the cottage. Evidently there was no reply, for in less than a minute he was trundling past them back again. Round the bend an approaching tram clanged its bell noisily, and, quickened by the warning sound, Mr Creake again appeared, this time with a small portmanteau in his hand. With a backward glance he hurried on towards the next stopping-place, and, boarding the car as it slackened down, he was carried out of their knowledge.
“Very convenient of Mr Creake,” remarked Carrados, with quiet satisfaction. “We will now get the order and go over the house in his absence. It might be useful to have a look at the wire as well.”
“It might, Max,” acquiesced Mr Carlyle a little dryly. “But if it is, as it probably is, in Creake’s pocket, how do you propose to get it?”
“By going to the post office, Louis.”
“Quite so. Have you ever tried to see a copy of a telegram addressed to someone else?”
“I don’t think I have ever had occasion yet,” admitted Carrados. “Have you?”
“In one or two cases I have perhaps been an accessory to the act. It is generally a matter either of extreme delicacy or considerable expenditure.”
“Then for Hollyer’s sake we will hope for the former here.” And Mr Carlyle smiled darkly and hinted that he was content to wait for a friendly revenge.
A little later, having left the car at the beginning of the straggling High Street, the two men called at the village post office. They had already visited the house agent and obtained an order to view Brookbend Cottage, declining, with some difficulty, the clerk’s persistent offer to accompany them. The reason was soon forthcoming. “As a matter of fact,” explained the young man, “the present tenant is under ournotice to leave.”
“Unsatisfactory, eh?” said Carrados encouragingly.
“He’s a corker,” admitted the clerk, responding to the friendly tone. “Fifteen months and not a doit of rent have we had. That’s why I should have liked——”
“We will make every allowance,” replied Carrados.
The post office occupied one side of a stationer’s shop. It was not without some inward trepidation that Mr Carlyle found himself committed to the adventure. Carrados, on the other hand, was the personification of bland unconcern.
“You have just sent a telegram to Brookbend Cottage,” he said to the young lady behind the brasswork lattice. “We think it may have come inaccurately and should like a repeat.” He took out his purse. “What is the fee?”
The request was evidently not a common one. “Oh,” said the girl uncertainly, “wait a minute, please.” She turned to a pile of telegram duplicates behind the desk and ran a doubtful finger along the upper sheets. “I think this is all right. You want it repeated?”
“Please.” Just a tinge of questioning surprise gave point to the courteous tone.
“It will be fourpence. If there is an error the amount will be refunded.”
Carrados put down a coin and received his change.
“Will it take long?” he inquired carelessly, as he pulled on his glove.
“You will most likely get it within a quarter of an hour,” she replied.
“Now you’ve done it,” commented Mr Carlyle, as they walked back to their car. “How do you propose to get that telegram, Max?”
“Ask for it,” was the laconic explanation.
And, stripping the artifice of any elaboration, he simply asked for it and got it. The car, posted at a convenient bend in the road, gave him a warning note as the telegraph-boy approached. Then Carrados took up a convincing attitude with his hand on the gate while Mr Carlyle lent himself to the semblance of a departing friend. That was the inevitable impression when the boy rode up.
“Creake, Brookbend Cottage?” inquired Carrados, holding out his hand, and without a second thought the boy gave him the envelope and rode away on the assurance that there would be no reply.
“Some day, my friend,” remarked Mr Carlyle, looking nervously towards the unseen house, “your ingenuity will get you into a tight corner.”
“Then my ingenuity must get me out again,” was the retort. “Let us have our ‘view’ now. The telegram can wait.”
An untidy workwoman took their order and left them standing at the door. Presently a lady whom they both knew to be Mrs Creake appeared.
“You wish to see over the house?” she said, in a voice that was utterly devoid of any interest. Then, without waiting for a reply, she turned to the nearest door and threw it open.
“This is the drawing-room,” she said, standing aside.
They walked into a sparsely furnished, damp-smelling room and made a pretence of looking round, while Mrs Creake remained silent and aloof.
“The dining-room,” she continued, crossing the narrow hall and opening another door.
Mr Carlyle ventured a genial commonplace in the hope of inducing conversation. The result was not encouraging. Doubtless they would have gone through the house under the same frigid guidance had not Carrados been at fault in a way that Mr Carlyle had never known him fail before. In crossing the hall he stumbled over a mat and almost fell.
“Pardon my clumsiness,” he said to the lady. “I am, unfortunately, quite blind. But,” he added, with a smile, to turn off the mishap, “even a blind man must have a house.”
The man who had eyes was surprised to see a flood of colour rush into Mrs Creake’s face.
“Blind!” she exclaimed, “oh, I beg your pardon. Why did you not tell me? You might have fallen.”
“I generally manage fairly well,” he replied. “But, of course, in a strange house——”
She put her hand on his arm very lightly.
“You must let me guide you, just a little,” she said.
The house, without being large, was full of passages