“ ‘Soon.’
“ ‘I don’t want you.’
“ ‘Then I won’t come.’
“ ‘Yes, do. Goodbye—’ She was away.
“It was on that same night, five days before his wedding day, that Aubrey found awaiting him at home yet another letter from the lawyers, this one stating that, as his legacy was, by the terms of the will, to be paid on his birthday, the firm would be glad if he would send them a certificate of birth.
“Having read it, Aubrey sat down, and with his brow on his hand stared there at the floor without a motion for an hour; and though no moan broke from him, his head hung low, like a man who has received a grievous blow, upon whom gloom and ruin have suddenly swooped.
“It would have been far better, he thought, then, if he had never met that motor-car that night of his birthday, and many times he asked himself with torture why he had ever mentioned to Sir Phipps that that was his birthday: for it was clear that the baronet’s idea in thus drawing the will was to remind him through life of the rescue he had effected that night: and Aubrey buried his head, shaking it from side to side, asking himself how he was to tell Hylda that they could not, after all, marry, how he was to make her understand that it was no mere delay that had arisen, but a permanent matter — unless he was to reveal to her now a thing, an old tale of sin and sorrow, a strange and ominous date, which he had so far very artfully contrived to hide from her ken. How tell her this now? How overthrow now all her hopes — for years perhaps? How pay for the ordered articles of furniture that were waiting for payment?
“But on a sudden he started, he was up, with the cry, ‘ Smith’!
“There was more than one Aubrey Smith in the world!
“However, he hesitated a little, scratched his forehead, with a puckered nose, asking himself ‘Would it be quite pretty?’ But the relief, the gaiety, revealed in his grimace, proved that his mind had really decided, whatever scruples might come between; and suddenly he had snatched his hat, and was away with a rush.
“In a cab he drove to a dreary by-street near Russell Square, to a boarding house in it, where in answer to his query if Mr. Aubrey Smith was in, a girl answered him: ‘I think he is — right at the top, the door facing the stairs’; and with careful footsteps Aubrey climbed through a darkness that had a fusty odor, high up, till he saw light through a keyhole, tapped at the door, and now a man in a rather ragged dressinggown appeared, peering, demanding, ‘Who is it?’
“ ‘Your namesake, Smith.’
“ ‘O-ho-o-o!’ cried the other Smith. ‘My dear fellow, come in* — he bent cordially over Aubrey’s hand; however, he suddenly added, ‘Wait a moment,’ turned back inwards, was heard whispering to someone, and it was two minutes before he returned to let Aubrey in.
“This Aubrey Smith the Second was a man of fifty, handsome, with the rather exaggerated manner which some judges call ‘fascinating’ (he had been schooled, and had lived, mainly abroad); a military mustache, a ducal carriage; and here was a man of contrasts — cousin of a nobleman, had hobnobbed with princes, living now in a den with holes in the carpet and a broken teapot on the hob. What that head of his did not know of this world was not worth knowing; and who could converse of it more charmingly? Yet there he was, aging and a failure. He had had a career! Had been frozen out of the British-Indian army, had sung in Italian Opera at La Scala, had been forbidden evermore to show his nose in Monte Carlo.
“ ‘My dear fellow!’ Smith cried, ‘you are the very man, for I have now a scheme at hand that should bring us in the coolest five thousand each without fail.’
“Aubrey laughed, for many were Smith’s schemes, and now he was about to do something astounding in wines, now to sell a mine, to buy a public house, or build flats: but nothing ever happened: so Aubrey said ‘I, too, have a scheme.’
“Instantly Smith was gravity itself; a look of eagerness and business rushed to those old eyes that had seen so much: but at that moment, before Aubrey could say more, a girl of seven, running in from an inner room, was before them.
“At this Smith looked very put out, and was about to bundle her back out of sight, when Aubrey said, ‘This your little girl, Smith? I’m sure I didn’t know that you had a child,’
“ ‘A neighbor’s child’ — from Smith shyly.
“ ‘Isn’t she a little beauty.’
“ ‘Come, come, young lady, into the next room!’ Smith now said in French.
“ ‘Alors, tu es française, mademoiselle?’ Aubrey asked.
“ ‘Oui, monsieur,’ the black-haired child replied, with quite a nice bow of the head, and, catching up a doll out of the fender, she ran away back in.
“ ‘Look here, it’s like this, Smith,’ Aubrey now said, sitting on a shaky chair before Smith on the bed, ‘I have just been left a legacy—’
“ ‘O ho-o-o!’ Smith cried with pantomime eyes and a round mouth, ‘that’s talking! My dear fellow.’
“ ‘Smith, when is your birthday? Aubrey asked suddenly.
“ ‘Birthday? Three days’ time — the twenty-fifth—’
“ ‘Good!’ Aubrey breathed: ‘I thought I remembered hearing you say that it is in November. Well, as this legacy of mine — it isn’t much, one hundred and seventy-five pounds a year — is to be paid on my birthdays, you have to get your birth certificate, and go and take the money for me, as if you were I.’
“ ‘But stay — I don’t quite see what’s what,’ Smith said. ‘Why am I to assume your personality in this way? Is it because you are urgently hard up, and my birthday comes first?’
“ ‘No, of course,’ Aubrey shyly replied: ‘It isn’t that: I wish it was merely that; it is something much deeper.’
“ ‘O-ho-o-o!’ Smith cried aloud with a round mouth in his theatrical way: ‘ha! ha! that’s how the land lies — I see!’
“ ‘So, then, you will, Smith.’
“ ‘My dear chap, I’m your man.’
“ ‘Good! And, I say, Smith, I offer you ten per cent.—’
“ ‘Not one little soul’ Smith cried; ‘it would be odd if I couldn’t do you a service of that sort without asking to be tipped. You need merely hand me say thirty shillings now for necessary expenses...’
“So it was settled. Aubrey gave Smith all the facts of the case, also his address, where they were to meet and dine together at seven on the third night thence, Smith undertaking to bring the hundred and seventy-five pounds with him; and Aubrey went away light of heart.
“But at seven on the third night thence no Smith turned up; and after waiting till eight, till nine, a terrible fright sprang up in Aubrey’s heart; and he flew to Bloomsbury to see Smith.
“He was told at Smith’s boarding house that Smith had gone away; and no one was aware where Smith had gone to.
“The next morning — the morning before his wedding day — Aubrey gathered from a clerk in the outer office at Ife and Siemens, the attorneys, that Mr. Aubrey Smith had duly presented himself and got the hundred and seventy-five pounds of Sir Phipps O’Dowdy O’Donague’s legacy; and feeling too unwell to face Hylda just then, longing only for a hole to hide himself in, Aubrey went home to his new flat.
“It was about two hours afterwards that a curious incident occurred to him there: on the landing outside his flat door was a man crouching with his ear at the keyhole, listening patiently, with a grimace of eagerness on his face, till suddenly he ran soft-footed down the three flights of stairs to the street door, where he whistled, and now another man ran to him from round a corner.
“ ‘He has the child at this moment in his flat!’ the first man, whose name was Barker, whispered to the second.