Chapter Ten. What Mr Sandys Knew

“I am very pleased indeed to meet your son, Mr Homfray,” said the grey-bearded man in his well-worn dinner-jacket as he grasped Roddy’s hand in the handsome hall of Farncombe Towers.

“It’s awfully kind of you to say that, Mr Sandys,” replied the young man, as they crossed to the great open fireplace with the blazing logs, a fireplace with carved stone over which was the time-worn escutcheon with the sea-horse rampant of the ancient Farncombe family. “It’s so very kind of you to invite me,” the young man went on. “Lord Farncombe asked me here the last time I was back in England.”

“You are a great traveller, I believe—are you not? Your father told me the other day about your adventures on the Amazon.”

“Well,” laughed the young man, easy in his well-cut dinner-jacket. “I’m a mining engineer, you know, and we have to rough it very often.”

“No doubt. Some of you are the pioneers of Great Britain. Once, years ago, I accompanied an expedition up the Yukon River, and I had a very rough time of it, but it was intensely interesting.”

“Just now my son is interested in a concession for emerald prospecting in the Atlas Mountains,” the old rector remarked. “I have been going into the matter. There are some ancient workings somewhere in the Wad Sus district, from which it is said that the Pharaoh Rameses V of the Twenty-First Dynasty, and who was called Amennesu-F, obtained the magnificent gems which were among the greatest treasures of his huge palace in ancient Thebes. They were the gems which five hundred years later Ptolemy IV gave to Arsinde, the wife of Philopator—a fact which is recorded in a papyrus in the British Museum. And that was about eleven hundred years before the Christian era. The exact locality has been lost, but my son believes that from the mention of two ancient documents—one of which is in the Egyptian department at the British Museum and the other in the National Library in Paris—it can be located.”

“Most interesting, intensely interesting,” exclaimed the honest-faced old gentleman whose name in connexion with his partner, Sir Charles Hornton, the international banker, who lived mostly in Paris, was one to conjure with in high finance. All over Europe the banking house of Sandys and Hornton was known. Next to that of the Rothschilds it was the most world famous. Old Purcell’s partner lived in the Avenue des Champs Elysées and had the ancient château of Livarot on the Loire, a beautiful winter villa at Cap Martin, and a house in Suffolk. Sir Charles seldom, if ever, came to London. Lady Hornton, however, frequently came, and spent a few weeks each season at Claridge’s or at Fawndene Court.

“I hope you will be successful, not only in obtaining the concession from the Moors, Homfray, but also in locating the exact position of the ancient workings,” Sandys said, turning to the young man. “It should bring you a fortune, for such a business proposition is worth money even to-day when there is a slump in precious gems.”

“I hope to be successful,” Roddy replied, when at the same moment Elma, in a pretty gown of soft pink crêpe marocain, entered the room.

Unaware of their previous friendship, Mr Sandys introduced his daughter. Roddy instantly realised the fact that her father was in ignorance of their acquaintance, therefore he greeted her with formality, a fact which secretly amused the old rector.

At dinner Roddy found himself seated on Elma’s left in the fine old seventeenth-century room, with its old panelling and its four oval portraits by Lely, pictures of the dead-and-gone Farncombe beauties in wigs and patches.

Roddy and his father were the only guests, and Elma, smiling and happy, acted as hostess.

The grey-bearded old financier evinced a great interest in the rector’s son, and listened to his descriptions of his wanderings up the mighty Amazon.

Presently Mr Sandys remarked:

“I hear you are interested in wireless. It must be a most fascinating science. Of course, I have seen the installations on board ship, but the modern wireless telephony seems to me little short of marvellous.”

“Yes, to the uninitiated,” remarked the young fellow with a smile. “I’ve been experimenting for some years, and the set I have at the Rectory is quite efficient. From it I can speak over five to six hundred miles of space.”

“Really?” exclaimed the old gentleman, greatly interested. “How very wonderful. I should like to see it.”

“So should I, dad,” said Elma, not allowing her father to know that she was already very well acquainted with the set, for Roddy had shown her how it worked, and had given her some slight instruction in its various complications. “We ought to have a set fixed here. Then we could listen to the wireless concerts, the broadcasting of news, and all that goes on in the ether—eh?”

“Would it be a very difficult affair to fit up a set here?” inquired her father of the young man.

“Not at all. You could easily stretch an aerial from a mast on one of the towers across to one of the big trees in the park, and so have a magnificent aerial. As regards cost, it all depends upon what you desire to receive. There are small sets for about five pounds, while on the large sets, which would receive everything up to nine thousand miles distant, one can spend a hundred pounds or more. Of course, you would not want to transmit—for transmission permits are only granted to those engaged in genuine research work.”

“No. I should only want to listen. Could you manage to instal one for me, do you think?”

“With the greatest of pleasure,” said Roddy, delighted, while in secret Elma was equally enthusiastic. She well knew how absorbed he was in his experiments, and what pleasure he would derive from fitting up the new station.

So it was decided that Roddy should purchase a really fine seven-valve receiving-set and fix it up as soon as possible.

“You are not going away just yet, I hope,” said the financier laughing, “at least, not until you’ve fixed up our wireless.”

“I don’t expect so,” was the young man’s reply. “As soon as my friend gets the concession through at Fez I shall go to Morocco and start to work. I’ve been reading up the Wad Sus region, and it seems that the only way to reach it in safety is to join one of the camel caravans which go regularly to and fro from Mogador across the Sahara.”

“How interesting!” declared Elma, looking very sweet and dainty. “What an adventure to travel with the Arabs! I’d love it. We were in Algiers for a few weeks the winter before last, and I longed to make an excursion into the desert, but father objected!”

“Ah! The Sahara is no place for a woman, Elma,” replied the old man. “And especially that district south of the Atlas where Mr Homfray is going. By the way,” added Mr Sandys, turning to the young man, “I hear that you haven’t been very well lately. Somebody said you were missing for several days. Is that so?”

A slight colour rose to the young man’s face, for he was at a loss for an evasive explanation.

“Oh! I went away—up to London—and father grew alarmed because I hadn’t told him where I’d gone—that’s all!” he laughed, and his eyes met Elma’s with a meaning look.

There the matter dropped, and all four leaving the table passed into the big drawing-room, warmed by huge wood fires blazing at each end, where coffee was served by Hughes, the stately old butler who had been in Lord Farncombe’s service. Indeed, when Mr Sandys purchased the Towers he took over nearly the entire staff, by which he had greatly ingratiated himself with the whole countryside.

It was a magnificent old room, oblong, with four long windows which in daytime gave beautiful vistas over the lake, the park, and dark woods beyond—a room which contained a number of valuable pieces of antique furniture, some genuine Elizabethan chairs and a Carolean day-bed, while on the walls were three pieces of almost priceless tapestry which had originally been in the historic Château of Amboise. Across the long windows heavy plush curtains were now drawn, and instead of a hundred candles in the great crystal candelabra, the beautiful old apartment with its sweet odour of pot pourri was filled with the soft glow of electricity, the lamps being hidden behind the high-up cornice.

After coffee, Elma, at her father’s request, went to the piano and King delightfully some charming French chansonettes. She had received part of her education at Versailles and spoke French fluently.

“When shall you start putting up the wireless, Mr Homfray?” she asked presently, turning to Roddy, while her father and the rector were discussing something concerning the parish.

“As soon as I can get the apparatus,” was his reply. “You will, I hope, help me—eh?”

And he looked straight into her fine eyes.

“If you wish,” she replied. “But—but,” she added in a low voice, “you are going away to Morocco?” and her lips pouted prettily.

“Not yet,” he assured her beneath his breath. “I have no wish to go while you are here, Elma.” They had contrived to be at the other end of the big room, so that they could not be overheard. But next second he spoke aloud, suggesting that she should sing another song.

“No, Mr Homfray. Come, let us sit by the fire,” she urged. “Tell me more about your adventures in South America. It’s so exciting.” And they seated themselves at the further end of the room.

Elma was nothing else than a modern girl—a “latchkey girl,” if one liked to apply to her such an epithet. The removal of the conventions which tradition had built up around women—removed by the ardours and endurances of the war—has reorganised society. The correct behaviour of the days of Elma’s mother had vanished, and instead of the chaperon—to-day as extinct as the dodo—Elma frequently took around with her her dancing partner, a good-looking young barrister named Mostyn Wynn, with whom she often danced the entire evening, he taking her home to Park Lane in the small hours of the morning. Mostyn was only a “pal.” He was a divine dancer, but she regarded him in much the same light as she regarded her little sharp-nosed, alert Pomeranian, Tweedles, the fiery yapper who had been the means of introducing her to Roddy Homfray.

There are a good many pessimists to-day, both men and women, in London Society who declare that its “decline and fall” has come because a girl has a latchkey, because she sometimes pays for a man’s dinner at a restaurant, and because she takes her dancing partner about with her like a dog. They say that the delicate lights and shades of the romance of Society of the Edwardian days are no longer to be found in Mayfair or Belgravia, but those who see through modern spectacles know that the removal of those tiresome and outworn conventions was inevitable, and that dancing partners and latchkeys for women mark the renaissance of London life, rather than the decline which our pessimists who have lived in the last generation declare it to be.

“Last Wednesday you were not in London, were you?” remarked Roddy, as he smoked the cigarette which Elma had offered him.

“No,” she replied. “I motored father up to Liverpool. He had some business friends coming from New York, so we didn’t give our usual party.”

“But on the previous Wednesday you did, and you had among your guests a Mrs Crisp.”

“Yes, Freda Crisp. Do you know her? Isn’t she awfully jolly?”

“I only know her by sight, Elma. What do you know of her? Tell me,” he asked, lowering his voice again.

“Oh! not really very much. Her friend, Mr Bertram Harrison, is a business friend of father’s. They are, I believe, carrying on some negotiations concerning a company in Marseilles.”

“But Mrs Crisp. How did you come to know her?”

“Why?”

“Because I am very interested,” Roddy said, deeply in earnest.

“Lady Hornton, the wife of father’s partner, introduced us when I was staying at Fawndene Court, their place in Suffolk, about six months ago. Mr Harrison came there to dine and sleep. But Freda never fails nowadays to come to our party, and she has hosts of friends in town.”

“Where does she live?” he asked eagerly.

“At a big old house called Willowden, beyond Welwyn, on the Great North Road.”

The young man made a mental note of the address. Could it have been to that house he had been taken? If he saw it again possibly he would remember it.

“Why are you so inquisitive about her?” asked the girl.

“For several reasons,” he replied. “I was once warned against her, Elma. And I would repeat the warning to you,” he said, looking straight into the beautiful eyes of the girl he loved so deeply.

“But why?” she asked, staring at him. “Freda is an awfully good friend of mine?”

“Has she ever been down here?”

“No. We’ve always met in town.”

“Has she ever asked about this place—about Little Farncombe—or about myself?”

“No, never. Why?”

Roddy hesitated. Then he answered:

“Oh! well, I thought she might be a little inquisitive—that’s all?” He did not tell her that it was his father, the rector, who had declared her to be a woman of a very undesirable type. It was that woman’s handsome, evil face that ever and anon arose in his dreams. She was the woman under whose influence he had acted against his will, utterly helpless while beneath her dominating influence and only half-conscious in his drugged state.

And such a woman was Elma’s friend!

“Do you know anything of Mr Harrison?” Roddy asked, whereupon she replied that she did not know much about him, but that her father would know. Then she called across to him:

“I say, dad, what do you know about Bertram Harrison—Freda Crisp’s friend?”

At mention of the latter name the rector’s face changed.

“Bertram Harrison?” echoed the great financier. “Oh! He is partner in a French financial house. Hornton is having some business with him. Mrs Crisp is a relative of his—his sister, I believe. Why do you ask?”

The rector sat silent and wondering.

“Mr Homfray knows Mrs Crisp, and has just asked me about Mr Harrison.”

“Oh! you know Freda, do you?” exclaimed Mr Sandys, addressing the young man. “A very intelligent and delightful woman, isn’t she? She has been a wonderful traveller.”

“Yes,” replied Roddy faintly. “I—well, I was surprised when I knew that she was a frequent visitor at Park Lane.”

“Why?”

“For certain reasons, Mr Sandys,” was the young man’s hard reply, “certain private reasons.”

“You don’t like her, that’s evident,” laughed the grey-bearded man.

“No, I don’t,” was Roddy’s blunt answer, as his eyes met those of his father.

“Well, she’s always most charming to me?” declared Elma.

“And she has never mentioned me?” he asked. “Are you quite sure?”

“Never?”

“Of course, I only know her through Harrison,” Mr Sandys said. “He introduced her to my partner, Sir Charles Hornton, whose wife, in turn, introduced her to Elma. She comes to our parties and seems to be very well known, for I’ve seen her in the Park once or twice with people who move in the best circles.”

“I know you’ll pardon me, Mr Sandys,” Roddy said, “but I merely asked your daughter what she knew of her. Please do not think that I wish to criticise your friends.”

“Of course not,” laughed the financier. “All of us at times make social mistakes, especially men in my own walk of life. I am frequently compelled to entertain people whose friendship I do not desire, but whom I have to tolerate for purely business purposes. But, by the way,” he added, “I should much like to hear more concerning this concession in Morocco in which you are interested. Shall you be in London to-morrow? If so, will you look in and see me about noon in Lombard Street?”

“Certainly,” replied Roddy with delight, and half an hour later father and son walked back through the frosty night to the Rectory.

On the way Roddy referred to the conversation concerning the woman Crisp, but his father remained pensive and silent.

He merely remarked:

“I had no idea that that woman was friendly with Miss Sandys.”

Next day at the hour appointed Roddy passed through the huge swing doors in Lombard Street which bore a great brass plate with the inscription: “Sandys and Hornton,” and a commissionaire at once conducted him up in the lift to Mr Purcell Sandys’ private room.

The elderly man was seated smoking a cigar by the fire of the big apartment which, with its red Turkey carpet and large mahogany table, was more like a comfortable dining-room than a business office. He welcomed his visitor to an arm-chair and at once pushed over a box of cigars.

Then, when Roddy had lit one, he rose, and standing astride upon the hearthrug, he looked at him very seriously and said:

“I really asked you here, Homfray, to put a question to you—one which I trust you will answer with truth.”

“Certainly I will,” the young man replied frankly.

The old man fixed him with his deep-set eyes, and in a strange voice put to him a question which caused him to gasp.

“A young girl named Edna Manners has mysteriously disappeared. You know something concerning the affair! Tell me, what do you know?”