like Brown or Smith. If uncle asks what he was, say he was an engineer and that he's now retired and living in Peru. This old lady over the sideboard," went on Edward, crossing the room, "can be a friend of my mother's; say she's been dead some years now and that you forget her name but think it was Jane something. Any other portraits he asks about say we picked them up at a sale. By the bye, I must congratulate you on your excuse for the absence of the servant—the dying sister in the North of Scotland was an inspiration. I'd trot off to bed now, Charlotte my dear, if I were you. I'll be up presently. I've got a bit of hard thinking to get through here before I think of sleep."
Left to himself Edward ruminated deeply on the situation in which he had placed himself. Things had not turned out at all as he had expected and dilemmas had crowded thickly and fast upon him. The advent of Aunt Eliza had entirely unnerved him, and the amount of luggage which he had helped to take up to the bedroom seemed to him to be quite unnecessary for a short visit such as he had anticipated. Hitherto the visits of Uncle Jasper had been always the same, a night or two at the most and the days spent in business in London. His luggage had been invariably one suit case and a hatbox. But the present visit pointed more to a prolonged holiday than to a business trip. Edward tried to tell himself that there was nothing to fear, that Kyser would not return for a month, and that the secluded position of Adderbury Cottage was all in favour of the scheme; detection from the outside was a very remote chance.
Edward Povey, however, had not reckoned upon keeping the deception up for more than a few days at the most, neither had he reckoned upon the nerve strain. Tradesmen would be calling for orders—visitors, too, might reasonably be expected. A host of new possibilities arose before the perplexed vision of Edward Povey.
He could, of course, tell all comers that Mr. Kyser had lent him the house furnished. It was merely a small place used at intervals only by its wealthy owner. What more reasonable than that he should place it at the disposal of a friend? If he were alone, the guarding of the secret would be a simple matter, but there was Charlotte to complicate matters—Charlotte, who would innocently enough, by a chance word, upset his most carefully constructed fabrications.
From the hall came, the rich muffled chimes of a steel-faced Sheraton clock. It was midnight, and Edward rose, and crossing to the massive sideboard poured himself out a liberal allowance of brandy, splashing into the glass a little soda-water from a wired seltzogene. Then he proceeded to lock up.
Before barring the front door, he passed out on to the verandah-like porch and running his fingers through his thinning hair let the cool winds of the autumn night play upon the furnace of his forehead. It was very dark and the scene was desolate in the extreme. A solitary light twinkled out here and there from some window in the little village that lay beneath him in the valley, and farther off the pale radiance in the sky denoted the position of the town of Watford. There was a thick shrubbery encircling the house, and the masses of foliage took weird shapes in the darkness, and from a clump of gaunt fir-trees came the dismal note of an owl.
Edward Povey shivered a little, and, quietly closing the door, crept to his bed.
CHAPTER IV
A LETTER FROM NEW YORK
Jasper Jarman was a self-made man, and, like many another self-made man, had a very exalted opinion of his own handiwork.
During his early career Jasper had fought a bitter battle with the world; by thirty-five he had conquered it, and now in the evening of his days he was very averse to relinquishing any of the moral spoils of his victory. To thwart Jasper Jarman was to rouse to their uttermost those fighting instincts that had given him the name of "Stone-wall Jarman" in his younger days.
Another trait common to self-made men was possessed by Jasper, he was an early riser. On the morning following his arrival at Adderbury Cottage he was abroad by seven, pacing up and down the trim box-bordered walk that ran round two sides of the house. He walked with an assertive tread, his large square-toed boots crunching the gravel rhythmically. His hands were lightly clasped behind his back, and with chest thrown well out he was inhaling the scented airs that rose from the dew-drenched garden. A blackbird strutted about the little lawn, and a close observer would have noticed a certain resemblance in the manners of man and bird.
From a little diamond-paned window a blind was drawn aside a few inches and an eye peeped cautiously forth upon the world. As the pompous figure of Mr. Jasper Jarman rounded the corner of the house and came into view, the blind was quickly dropped back into its place.
Five minutes later Edward Povey emerged from the front door, his unbuttoned waistcoat and his vaguely tied cravat giving the lie direct to the studied indifference of his walk.
His surprise at coming face to face with Mr. Jasper Jarman was quite an admirable piece of acting.
"Good-morning, Uncle Jasper; up with the lark, eh! the early bird, you know. Slept well, I hope?"
"Ah, Edward, my boy, good-morning—slept like a top, thanks; capital room Charlotte's given us. I'm afraid we've turned you out."
"Oh not at all, uncle, pray don't mention it."
"Faces east, though; your aunt finds the morning sun rather trying. She's going to turn the room out to-day and shift the bed to the other wall."
"Turn out the room, uncle?"
"Yes, my boy; capital woman your aunt, never idle a moment, always up and doing. You won't know this house after she's been here a month."
Edward thought it far more probable that it was the house that wouldn't know him by then, but, too taken aback to reply, he merely passed his handkerchief over his dry lips and waited for Jasper to continue.
The old man paused in his walk and ran his eye critically over some standard rose trees, that, each in its little island of mould, studded the lawn.
"Yes, my boy, you'll find we're not drones. We're busy bees, your aunt and me; what she does to the house I do to the garden. I'm never happy unless I'm pottering about with a trowel. I'll have this place," he waved his arm comprehensively, "shipshape in no time. I'll have those roses up and put 'em in a row under the window, they're wasted where they are, and we'll re-turf the lawn and make it big enough for croquet."
Jasper looked at Edward Povey for approbation. "Or even tennis," said the latter, who felt he must say something. Then he sat down on a rustic garden seat and nervously rolled himself a cigarette. Jasper, leaning a fat elbow upon the stone sundial, went on.
"A nice little place all the same, yes, a nice little place. Better than Clapham, eh, Edward?"
"Much better, uncle Jasper."
"The firm seems to have found out your worth at last. Well, I'm glad of it. Your aunt is always telling me that Charlotte married a fool—no, don't get angry, that's only her way of putting it. Been here long?"
"Not very long, uncle. You see, I've only got on lately. I discovered a scheme whereby my firm could save a small fortune in postage, and they rewarded me liberally. Then they found out I could correspond and speak in French and Spanish, so they rewarded me again. Oh! They've done me very well, I—— There's the gong for breakfast; we'll go in."
The meal was hardly a pleasant one. Aunt Eliza, whose temper the battle with
