I found myself in a broad passage, panelled on each side, and ending in a solid-looking stone staircase which led up to the floor above. There was a partly open door on my right, and through the aperture I could see the head of an elderly gentleman peering forward over a desk. He looked up at the sound of my footsteps.
"Good morning," I said. "My name's John Dryden, and I want to see either Mr. Wilmot or Mr. Drayton."
He got up in a leisurely fashion and came round from his seat.
"If you will take a chair," he observed, "I will see whether Mr. Drayton is disengaged. Mr. Wilmot has been defunct for the past seven years."
I was about to offer my condolences, but, without waiting to hear what I had to say, he shuffled past me, and in a crab-like fashion began to ascend the staircase. I filled in the interval by strolling across to the fireplace and looking at the books which decorated the mantelpiece. They were a jolly lot, beginning with Webster's Dictionary, and working up through a rising grade of frivolity to Whitaker's Almanack, which last was carefully encased in a brown paper cover, as though to disguise its rather unseemly tendencies. I was just wondering which of them was the old gentleman's favourite reading when the sound of his returning steps became audible outside. A moment later he reappeared on the threshold.
"If you will accompany me," he observed, "Mr. Drayton will see you."
Placing my umbrella in the stand, I followed him up to the next landing, where he pushed open a door in front of us, and then stood back to allow me to enter.
It was a large, lofty room, lighted by three long windows facing into Bedford Row. Apart from several rather dilapidated easy chairs and a number of black tin boxes, its only furniture appeared to be an enormous table, plentifully strewn with papers and one or two musty packets of deeds.
Mr. Drayton, who was sitting at this table, rose on my entrance and stepped forward to meet me. He was a well-dressed man of about forty-five, with a strong, humorous face and a pair of very honest blue eyes. I took a fancy to him at once.
"How d'you do, Mr. Dryden?" he said, offering me his hand. "You received my cable all right then?"
"I did," I replied, exchanging grips with him, "and I've come along as soon as I could manage it. We only got in at eight o'clock this morning."
He pulled forward an easy chair. "Sit down," he said; "sit down and make yourself comfortable. By the way, have a cigar?" He came back to the table, and, picking up a box of excellent-looking Larenagas, held them out for my inspection.
"Well, I've only just this moment finished one," I said, "but still, that's no reason why I shouldn't have another."
"Certainly not," he remarked cheerfully. "Anybody who can smoke two cigars running ought to take full advantage of the gift."
He lighted one for himself, and then, pulling up a second chair, sat down opposite me.
"I am sorry we were not able to communicate with you sooner," he began, in a rather more serious tone, "but as a matter of fact we had some difficulty in finding out your address. Your uncle seems to have known nothing about you beyond the bare fact of your existence."
"I am not surprised," I said. "I was in much the same blissful position with regard to him."
The lawyer nodded. "Yes," he observed drily, "I gathered that. To be quite candid with you, Mr. Dryden, your uncle had no particular wish that you should benefit by his death. He omitted to make a will because he was utterly indifferent about the disposal of his property. He told me, to use his exact words, that he didn't 'care a curse what happened to it after he was dead.'"
"He seems to have been a genial sort of chap," I said. "How did you run across him?"
Mr. Drayton tilted his chair in the direction of the table, and picked up a bundle of miscellaneous papers fastened together by a clip.
"He came to us originally in rather a peculiar fashion. About two years ago we had been acting in a police court case on behalf of a man called Bascomb—a professional boxer. Bascomb had had a fight in the street with another fellow, whom he accused of cheating him, and, according to the doctor's evidence, he'd come within an inch or two of murder. Luckily for him there had been nothing against him before, and, as the other fellow was known to be a bad lot, we managed to get him off with a month's hard labour.
"The next day Mr. Jannaway called here at the office. He had seen an account of the case in one of the papers, and he wanted us to give him Bascomb's address. He told me quite frankly that as soon as the month was up he was ready to engage the man as a servant."
"He must have had a sporting taste in domestics," I observed with interest.
"Well, perhaps it wasn't quite so extraordinary as it sounds," continued Mr. Drayton, with a laugh. "Bascomb had been in the Marines before taking up with the ring, and he'd had some experience in that class of job. Indeed, one naval officer he had worked for came and gave evidence for him at the court."
"How did it turn out?" I asked curiously.
"As far as I know it was a complete success. Bascomb seemed very grateful for the unexpected chance, and as he has been in your uncle's employment ever since, I suppose he must have proved quite satisfactory. Anyhow, Mr. Jannaway appeared to be perfectly contented with him." He paused and turned over two or three of the papers which he was holding in his hand. "All this is a little beside the point, however. Our real dealings with Mr. Jannaway, so far as you are concerned, began last November. On the third of that month he came to see me again, and asked me if I would act for him in a matter of business. There was an island being advertised for sale off the Essex coast. It was a place called Greensea—a small property of about six and a half acres in the mouth of the Danewell River."
"Greensea!" I echoed. "Why, I know it quite well! I was in the Harwich Patrol the last part of the war, and we were always running in and out of the estuary."
"That's very interesting," said Mr. Drayton, "and, what's more, it saves me a good deal of trouble. If you are already acquainted with your new estate, there's no need for me to try and describe it for you."
I sat up pretty sharply in my chair. "Do you mean to say that Greensea Island belongs to me?" I exclaimed.
"It certainly does," he answered smilingly, "unless someone else turns up with a better claim to it. Your uncle bought the place through us on November the tenth, and, like all the rest of his effects, it goes to his next of kin."
For a moment I sat there, hardly able to believe my ears. If I had been asked to name any legacy more entirely to my taste I think I should have had some difficulty in doing so. All my life, ever since I was quite a small boy, I have had a curious longing to be the owner of an island. I think it was reading one of Anthony Hope's books which originally implanted this desire in my soul, but anyhow, it has always been a secretly cherished dream of mine which I hoped some day to be able to put into practice. To find a life-long wish like this suddenly and unexpectedly gratified was such a startling experience that it was only natural I should be momentarily "knocked out."
"What special attraction your uncle saw in the place," continued Mr. Drayton, "I haven't the remotest notion. There is nothing on the island except the house, and even at low water it's cut off completely from the shore. Personally, I can't imagine a more unpleasant spot to settle down in! Still, there it was; he had evidently made up his mind to buy it, and, as he raised no objection about the cost, we hadn't much difficulty in fixing things up for him. We gave two thousand three hundred and sixty pounds for it, and a very good price too—from the previous owner's point of view.”
I reached out for the matches and re-lit my cigar, which in the absorption of the moment I had allowed to go out.
"And what did he do with it when he'd got it?" I demanded. "Go and live there?"
Mr. Drayton nodded. "He went straight down the day after the agreement was signed. There were a few improvements and alterations which he wanted done, but they were all carried out after he was in the house. As far as I know he never left the place again."
I felt my interest in this remarkable uncle of mine increasing with each fresh discovery about him.
"Was he all alone?" I asked. "Hadn't he got anyone living with him?"
"Only Bascomb and a dog," replied Mr. Drayton, "a great savage brute as big as a small donkey. It used to run about loose most of the time, and from what I saw of it I should imagine that nobody would have dared to set foot on the island even if he had been invited. Not that it made much difference, because, as a matter of fact, your uncle never invited anyone. He shut himself up entirely, and, except for Bascomb and the local doctor who attended him in his last illness, I don't believe he ever saw or spoke to another living soul."
"What was the matter with him?" I enquired. "Was he off his chump?"
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "More or less, I should think. At least, it's difficult to account for his conduct any other way. Up till then he had been living the life of an ordinary middle-aged man about town. One doesn't throw up all that sort of thing suddenly and go and bury oneself in a God-forsaken place like Greensea unless one's got a screw loose somewhere." He paused. "Besides," he added, "there's no doubt that his mind gave way during his last illness. He was quite incapable of recognising me when I went down to see him, and, according to Dr. Manning, he remained in exactly the same state until he died."
"When was that?" I enquired. "You didn't tell me in your cable."
Once again Mr. Drayton referred to his papers.
"He was taken ill suddenly on March the twenty-third. I think he got a chill, or something of the sort; anyhow, Bascomb wired to me the next day that he was very seedy, and I ran down there in the afternoon. I found him delirious, and altogether about as bad as anyone could possibly be. Bascomb had got hold of a doctor—a fellow called Manning, who spends most of his time on a barge in the river, which he has fitted up as a kind of shooting-box. He doesn't practise as a rule, but when he saw how urgent the matter was he had very kindly come over and taken up his quarters in the house. He seemed to be doing everything that was possible, and as he declared that he was quite ready to stay there as long as he was wanted I decided to leave the case in his hands.
"I heard nothing more for two days; then, on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth, I got a telegram to say that your uncle had died rather unexpectedly in the morning. I sent back a wire to say I would come down at once. In a strictly legal sense I had no real authority to act, but, since there appeared to be nobody else, I thought I had better take the responsibility.
"Dr. Manning was still in the house when I arrived, which of course simplified matters to a very great extent. He had been in charge of the case since the beginning, so there was no need for an inquest or anything of that sort. He was able to certify that the cause of death was heart failure on the top of double pneumonia, and between us we fixed up all the necessary arrangements for the funeral.
"The next thing I did was to go through your uncle's papers. I knew very little about him, and I hoped that I might come across something which would put me in touch with his family. He had never given me the faintest hint about his private affairs—except for once mentioning that he had a nephew called John Dryden, whom he believed to be his next of kin.
"Well, to cut a long story short, I was very little wiser at the end of my search than I was at the beginning. I found practically nothing, except a few receipted bills and one or two business letters which dealt entirely with money matters. If he had any private papers he had evidently put them away somewhere or other in safe custody before leaving London.
"Under the circumstances I acted as best I could. I stayed there until the funeral was over, and then I locked up everything and left Bascomb in charge, with instructions that he wasn't to allow anyone in the house without a written permission from me. He's a queer, sullen sort of fellow, but he seemed to have plenty of sense in his way, and, as far as I could make out, to be thoroughly loyal and trustworthy.
"When I got back to London my first step was to go and see your uncle's bankers. I explained the position to them, and I found them quite ready to give me all the assistance in their power. This didn't amount to much, however. They had no private documents or anything of that sort; in fact, all they could really do was to let me have a complete statement of the actual cash and securities in their possession.
"I saw then that the only practical course was to get into communication with you as soon as possible. It was a bit of a proposition, considering that I knew nothing whatever about you except your name, but luckily I was able to secure the services of a retired Scotland Yard Inspector called Martin Campbell, who is quite the smartest man in London at that sort of thing. (He is coming here this morning, by the way, so you will probably meet him.) Well, he set to work, and in something less than three weeks he had managed to run you to earth—or perhaps I should say to sea! Anyhow, he found out that you were second officer on the Neptune, and as the Planet people told us that your ship was expected in Oporto on the third of May, I decided to wait and cable you there.
"Meanwhile I went ahead with the business of establishing your claim to the estate. It was plain enough sailing now I had once got on to your track, and by the time you reached Oporto all the preliminary steps were more or less completed. Of course, there are still a number of legal formalities to be gone through. You won't be able to touch the money in the bank for some little while, but that is a difficulty we can probably come to some arrangement over. If you are short of cash I have no objection to making you a personal advance. As far as the actual title to the property is concerned, you can take it from me that your position is a perfectly sound one."
He tossed the bundle of papers he had been holding on to the table, and leaned back in his chair with an air of reassuring friendliness.
"It seems to me," I said gratefully, "that I'm pretty deeply in your debt already. I don't know why you should have taken all this trouble on my account, but I'm sure I'm devilish obliged to you."
"There's nothing to thank me for," he returned whimsically. "You can put it down to professional enterprise. Mr. Jannaway was a client of mine, and it seemed to me I might as well make sure of you before anyone else butted in! We're an unscrupulous lot in Bedford Row as far as business is concerned."
"It's lucky for me you are," I retorted, "otherwise I might have gone on chasing about the world without any idea that I had suddenly become a bloated capitalist." I paused. "By the way," I added curiously, "how much money is there in the bank?"
Once again his eyes twinkled. "I was waiting for that question," he said. "It's a great tribute to your self-control that you haven't asked it before."
"To be quite honest," I confessed, "it's only just come into my head. I was so interested in what you were telling me about my uncle that I haven't been able to think of anything else."
He got up from his chair, and, retrieving his discarded papers, took a seat on the corner of the table.
"Well, as a matter of fact," he began, "the position is rather odd. If the estate only consists of what the bank holds, it amounts, roughly speaking, to about ten thousand pounds. That, of course, is not counting in the value of Greensea Island."
There was a pause.
"What do you mean 'if'?" I asked. "Is there a chance of some more turning up?"
"There doesn't seem to be," he admitted; "all the same, it's very difficult to fit in the present sum with the way in which your uncle was living. Ever since he opened the account he has kept about the same balance, while on the lowest estimate he must have been spending at least two thousand a year."
"But surely the bank must have some idea where he got it from!" I objected.
"That's just what they haven't. In the whole of that period—practically four years—there were only three credit entries. One is for twelve thousand, one for three thousand, and the other for four thousand eight hundred. On each occasion these sums were paid in over the counter—in cash!"
"In cash!" I repeated half incredulously. "Why he must have been blackmailing Rothschild!"
My companion threw back his head and laughed boisterously. "Well, if that's the case," he replied, "it's a pity he hasn't left you the family secret. It's worth learning evidently."
I knocked off the ash of my cigar and sat back comfortably in my chair.
"Oh, I don't know," I remarked. "I'm not greedy. Five hundred a year will do very nicely for my simple needs."
"It will come to more than that," said Mr. Drayton. "There is one rather satisfactory piece of news I have been keeping in reserve." He paused. "I have been lucky enough to get you a tenant for Greensea Island. He is willing to pay a rent of two hundred and fifty, and take it over just as it stands."
He brought out this offer with an air of satisfaction which showed me plainly enough that he expected me to jump at it. For a moment I refrained from disillusioning him.
"Who is it?" I enquired with some curiosity.
"Well, as it happens, it's the very man we have been talking about—Dr. Manning. He wants to start a new yachting club, and he thinks the island would make an ideal headquarters. He seems to be as keen as mustard on the idea, but of course I couldn't give him any definite answer until I had seen you. I told him that you would very probably be here this morning, and he is going to ring me up at half-past two and find out if you will accept his proposal. I must say I don't think you are likely to get a better one."
"I don't want a better one," I said. "If Greensea Island really belongs to me, I haven't the smallest intention of letting it. I mean to go and live there myself."
There was a brief silence.
"Are you serious?" demanded Mr. Drayton.
"Rather," I replied cheerfully. "I've always wanted to have a private island of my own, and now I've got one you don't suppose I'm going to hand it over to anyone else?"
Something in my manner evidently convinced him that I was in earnest.
"Well, chacun à son goüt?" he observed, with a humorous shrug of his shoulders. "I can't see the attraction myself, but I suppose a taste for that sort of thing runs in the family."
"Oh, I've no intention of becoming a hermit like my uncle," I explained. "There must be plenty of decent fellows in the neighbourhood, and I've no doubt that I shall get all the society I want. It's the shooting and sailing and fishing that will be the chief attraction to me."
"What about your engagement with the Planet people?" he asked.
"I am under a contract of sorts with them," I said, "but they'll probably let me off if I ask them nicely. There's no shortage of second officers in the world."
"In that case," he remarked, "you can please yourself. The property will be yours in a few weeks, and if you want to go down there straight away no one's likely to raise any objection." He paused. "At least, no one except Dr. Manning," he added. "I am afraid he'll be rather disappointed. He seems to have set his heart on the idea."
"I am sorry to spoil his plans," I said, "but, after all, I suppose he can start his club somewhere else. Anyhow, it's no use his thinking about Greensea; you might make that quite plain to him when he rings up."
Mr. Drayton nodded. "I will," he said, "and another thing I had better do is to drop a line to Bascomb. I presume you will be going down there to have a look at the place as soon as possible, and it would be just as well to let him know that you're the new owner. By the way, do you intend to take Bascomb over with the other fixtures?"
"I am quite ready to," I replied, "if he likes to come, and I can afford to pay his wages. I shall want someone to look after me, and he sounds the right sort of chap."
Mr. Drayton tossed the stump of his cigar into the fireplace.
"How are you actually situated with regard to money?" he enquired.
"I have got seventy or eighty pounds of my own," I said "It's not exactly a fortune, but it ought to be enough to carry on with for the present."
He relinquished his place on the edge of the table and sat down again in the chair which he had been occupying when I first entered the room.
"Well, it's just as you like," he remarked, "but if you are really serious about this idea of yours, I think you had better let me make you a small advance. You needn't have any scruples, you know, because I shall charge you interest on it. There are bound to be a certain number of things you will want to buy, and there's no particular point in running yourself short of cash." He looked round at me enquiringly. "What would you say to a couple of hundred pounds at six per cent.?"
"I should say thank you," I replied promptly. "It's rather a lukewarm sort of a phrase, but I can't think of anything better for the moment."
He pressed a small electric bell in the wall beside him.
"No need for thanks," he repeated. "I shouldn't suggest it if it wasn't a perfectly sound investment from my point of view. I hope to make a lot of money out of you before we've finished."
The door opened, and a solemn-faced young man with a large pair of spectacles on his nose insinuated himself into the room.
"Are you busy, Sandford?" enquired Mr. Drayton, looking up from the cheque that he was writing.
"Not particularly, sir," replied the solemn-faced young man.
"Well, this is Mr. John Dryden, whom I was speaking to you about. We are advancing him the sum of two hundred pounds at six per cent. interest on the Jannaway estate. You might make out a receipt for him to sign and bring it in here as soon as it's done."
"Very good, sir," responded Mr. Sandford meekly; then he paused. "Inspector Campbell is downstairs, sir," he added. "He says he will wait until you are disengaged."
The lawyer nodded. "I shan't be very long," he replied.
Mr. Sandford withdrew as noiselessly as he had entered, and, tearing off the cheque that he had written, my companion turned back to me.
"Now let me see," he observed thoughtfully; "what's the next thing we've got to do?"
"The next thing," I said firmly, "is to go out together and have some lunch. I always make a point of giving a lunch party when I come into a fortune."
"It's not a bad habit," he admitted, smiling. "Unfortunately, I have got this man Campbell waiting to see me."
"Bring him along too," I suggested. "You can talk to him while we're eating."
Mr. Drayton got up from his chair. "We'll put it to him anyway," he said. "I don't suppose he'll say no. One can generally trust a Scotchman not to miss anything that's worth having."
He folded the cheque across in the middle and handed it to me.
"How about the receipt?" I asked.
"You can come back this afternoon and sign that. There are one or two other papers I shall have ready for you by then."
"That will just suit me nicely," I said. "I can go round to Cockspur Street first and interview the Planet people, then I shall know exactly where I am."
Taking his hat from a peg behind the door, Mr. Drayton led the way downstairs. In the small room on the ground floor a large, burly man with a close-cropped moustache and a chin like the toe of a boot was standing with his back to the fireplace.
"Morning, Campbell," said Mr. Drayton. "Let me introduce you to Mr. John Dryden, whom you were clever enough to find for me."
The Inspector stepped forward.
"Pleased to meet you, sir," he observed, extending an enormous hand.
"Mr. Dryden has invited us both out to lunch," continued the lawyer. "He wants us to assist him in celebrating his sudden accession to wealth."
The Inspector moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.
"Always glad to oblige a friend of yours, Mr. Drayton," he replied affably.
"Well, come along then," returned the other, picking up his umbrella from the stand. "I've got to be back by half-past two, and I hate to hurry over a meal when somebody else is paying for it." He turned to me. "The Holborn's the nearest place," he added, "and the head waiter is one of my clients."
"Providence is with us," I answered hopefully.
We stepped out into the misty drizzle of Bedford Row, and, making our way down a couple of side alleys, emerged into the crowded main thoroughfare almost opposite our destination. A few minutes later we were comfortably seated at a corner table in the big restaurant, while the head waiter—an impressive gentleman with side whiskers—hovered benignly in the foreground.
"I have come into a fortune," I explained to him, "and I want a lunch which will be worthy of the occasion."
With the air of a man who is fully accustomed to deal with such emergencies he picked up the menu card and began to offer suggestions, commencing with cocktails and oysters, and wandering on in a mellow way through saddle of mutton, roast duckling, and Stilton cheese. I accepted them en bloc, and crowned the order by demanding a bottle of his best champagne—a finishing touch which brought a wonderfully human expression into the naturally stern face of the Inspector.
"I was doing a better day's work than I bargained for when I ran across this gentleman's track," he announced contentedly.
"The Jannaway estate," observed Mr. Drayton, "has certainly passed into the right hands."
"By the way," I said, turning to the Inspector, "when you were hunting around after me did you happen to make any discoveries in connection with my uncle? He seems to have been a queer sort of customer."
The Inspector passed his hand across his scrubby moustache. "Aye, sir," he said drily, "he was all of that and a bit over. I can't say I ever remember a gentleman who managed to keep his affairs more to himself."
"But surely you picked up some information about him?" I persisted.
"Only what I passed on to Mr. Drayton," he replied. "It didn't amount to much, as he's probably told you."
"It certainly left one or two things to be explained," assented the lawyer. "Greensea Island, for instance. I was just saying that Mr. Jannaway's sudden resolve to imitate Robinson Crusoe was one of the most extraordinary puzzles I've ever come across."
The Inspector pulled his chair closer to the table.
"I may be wrong," he said quietly, "but it's my belief that he was frightened—frightened stiff, if you ask me."
I felt a sudden tingle of excitement in my heart, but I don't think I showed any outward sign of it.
"Why do you think that?" I asked as coolly as possible. "What on earth could he have to be frightened of?"
The Inspector made a slight gesture with his hands. "That I can't tell you, sir. I only know that when a man suddenly shuts himself up on an island, and won't allow a living soul to land there without his permission, he generally has some pretty good reason at the back of it."
"Perhaps, after all, it was only a family weakness for solitude," struck in Mr. Drayton. "Dryden here intends to do the same thing as soon as he can arrange it."
"Well, hardly that," I said, forcing a laugh. "I mean to go and live there certainly, but there won't be any man-traps on my territory."
As I spoke the waiter came up with the cocktails, and in the short but agreeable pause that followed I rapidly made up my mind that it would be better for the moment not to press my enquiries about my uncle any farther. It would be difficult to do so without relating the story of my meeting with Miss de Roda, and that was a step which I had no intention of taking. If she were really mixed up with some sinister mystery concerning the dead man, I would at least take care that her name should not be dragged into the matter as long as I was able to prevent it.
Accordingly, with the arrival of the oysters, I took the chance of steering the conversation into a rather less delicate channel by asking the Inspector how he had managed to track me down with such remarkable promptitude. He was ready enough to describe his methods, and from this point we drifted into a general conversation on detective work and other exciting topics, which lasted us all through the remainder of lunch.
Both my companions proved to be excellent talkers, as well as thoroughly good fellows, and I felt quite sorry when at last Mr. Drayton suddenly glanced at his watch and announced that it was time for him to be getting back to the office.
"It's on your account," he explained, buttoning his coat. "Our friend the doctor will be ringing me up in a minute to find out whether you are prepared to do a deal with him."
"Tell him I'm sorry," I said, "and say that if he can manage to forgive me I shall look forward to making his acquaintance. I don't want to start by quarrelling with my nearest neighbour, especially after the decent way he has behaved."
"I shouldn't think there was much fear of that," returned the lawyer reassuringly. "He seems to be a most amiable person, judging from what I saw of him." He held out his hand. "Thanks for an A1 lunch," he added, "and I shall expect you back at the office some time between four and five."
I paid my bill, and we parted from each other on the pavement outside, but not before I had extracted from the Inspector (who had confessed to being "partial to a day's shooting") a promise that he would come down and spend a week-end with me at Greensea as soon as I was comfortably settled in. There was something about his stolid but shrewd personality which distinctly appealed to me, and, in addition to that I felt that, in view of the curious atmosphere which appeared to brood over my new inheritance