England -- Fiction; Impostors and imposture -- Fiction; Love stories; Mystery fiction
“Well—one thing is clear; I must find the rightful owners of this
money, and restore it——Great Heavens—I can’t do that! This plunder
belongs to Dandy Chater, and he belongs to the gang that stole it—and
I—I’m Dandy Chater! Upon my word, I begin to wish that the good ship
‘Camel’ had struck a rock, somewhere on its voyage home from Australia,
and had deposited me comfortably at the bottom of the ocean.”
Fully understanding the hopelessness of attempting to do anything, at
all events at that time, Philip Chater put the notes under his pillow,
and returned the slip of paper to his pocket. He had lain down in bed,
with the full intention of putting off all thought until the morrow,
when a remembrance of this same scrap of paper brought him suddenly
upright in bed, in the darkness.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, softly—“I shall be able to find my way to the
cottage easily enough, after all.”
He slept soundly through the night, and, quite early in the morning,
set off for Bamberton—sending a telegram to “Harry—care of Dandy
Chater, Esq., Bamberton,” to apprise that respectable young man-servant
of the hour at which he desired to be met at the station.
“That’s another of the defects of my position,” he thought, savagely;
“I don’t even know the name—the surname, at least—of my own servant.
However, if there should happen to be more than one Harry at Chater
Hall, I can blame it on the post office, and swear they left out the
name.”
To his satisfaction, however, the Harry he wanted was awaiting his
arrival at the little railway station, with the smart dog-cart in which
he had driven before. But, ever on the watch for some sign of suspicion
in those about him, Philip Chater noted, with a quick eye, that the
pleasant manner of this young servant was gone; that he answered his
master’s greeting, by merely touching his hat, and without a word in
reply. More than that, he seemed to avoid Philip’s eyes as much as
possible—glancing at him covertly, and, as it appeared, almost with
aversion.
As they drove in the direction of Bamberton—Philip having the reins,
and the young man sitting silently beside him—Philip broke an
uncomfortable pause, by asking abruptly—“Anything happened since I
went to town?”
For quite a long moment, Harry did not reply; Philip Chater, looking
round at him quickly, saw that he was staring straight in front of him,
down the long road before them, and that his face was rather white.
“No, sir,” he replied at last—“nothing has happened.”
His manner was so strange—so perturbed, in fact, for his voice shook a
little as he spoke—that Philip, scenting danger, guessed that
something was wrong, and determined to get out of him what it was,
while they were alone together. He turned quickly on the young man,
checking the horse’s speed as he did so, and spoke quietly, though with
a certain strong determination in his voice.
“Come, Harry—something _has_ happened; I am convinced of it. You are
hiding something from me; what is it?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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