RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
Ladbroke (Lionel Day) Black (1877-1940) was an English writer and journalist who also wrote under the pseudonym Paul Urquhart. His life and career are summarised in the following entry in Steve Holland's Bear Alley blog:
Black, born in Burley-in-Wharfdale, Yorkshire, on 21 June 1877, was educated in Ireland and at Cambridge where he earned a B.A. He became assistant editor of The Phoenix in 1897 before moving to London in 1899 where he joined The Morning Herald as assistant editor in 1900. He later became assistant editor of the Echo in 1901, joint editor of Today, 1904-05, and special writer on the Weekly Dispatch, 1905-11. After a forgettable first novel, "A Muddied Oaf" (1902), co-written with Francis Rutter, Black collaborated on the collection "The Mantle of the Emperor" (1906) with Robert Lynd, later literary editor of the News Chronicle. He then produced a series of novels in collaboration with [Thomas] Meech under the name Paul Urquhart, beginning with "The Eagles" (1906). Black also wrote for various magazines and newspapers, sometimes using the pen-name Lionel Day. His books ranged from romances to Sexton Blake detective yarns. His recreations included sports (boxing and rugby), reading and long walks. He lived in Wendover, Bucks, for many years and was Chairman of the Mid-Bucks Liberal Party in 1922-24. He died on 27 July 1940, aged 63, survived by his wife (Margaret, née Ambrose), two sons and two daughters."
AS she heard the sound of her father's latchkey in the door, Marion Vane took the broad flight of stairs in a few steps and rushed joyously into the hall. Before she could get to the door, however, Mr. Vane had opened it, and, coming in, closed it behind him.
"Dad," she exclaimed, flinging her arms round his neck, "heaps more wedding presents have come. I have been dying to show them to you all day."
She kissed her father's cheek, and then put her own fresh face near his for a paternal greeting. Ever since she could remember—and eighteen years was not very long to remember—she had met her father on his return from business in the hall of their old-fashioned house. Always he had taken her in his arms and kissed her—his motherless child—the fruit of that brief romance which had come into his life nineteen years ago. But, now, instead of any answering caress, Sir. Vane averted his eyes from her, and gently but firmly disengaged himself from her arms.
"Dad," she said in a voice almost of awe, "whatever is the matter?"
He turned his back upon her and made a great business of taking off his coat. It was curious how the sleeves refused to slip from his arms, and the extraordinary amount of polishing his silk hat required before he finally hung it on the peg. Even then he did not turn immediately to face his daughter, but opened and shut his bag and fiddled fussily with the papers it contained. His strong face, with its deep-set kindly eyes wore a troubled look.
"How can I tell her?" he muttered to himself, repeating for the thousandth time the question that had been on his lips ever since he had left the City.
"Dad!" There was a troubled note in her voice. He steeled himself with an effort, and turned to look at her. She was very good to look at——fresh as an April morning, the embodiment of a beautiful, healthy English girl, the replica of the woman to whom he had given his heart, and who lay at rest in the grave where he had buried his first and only love. He quailed before those frank, clear eyes that seemed to search the very depths of his heart. How was he to tell her.
"Something has happened to Arthur——what is it? Tell me, dad—tell me!"
She saw by the gravity of his face that she had guessed the truth—that something had happened to her lover, the man who in a week was to have been her husband—and the colour fled from her own cheeks.
"Marion," he answered gently, with a quaver in his voice, "you must try and be brave. Come into my study, and I will tell you what has happened."
He led the way into the familiar room on the ground floor, his daughter following. He tried to draw her to his knee as he sat down. For the first time in her life she refused his caresses, standing a few feet from him, with all the sunshine gone from her face.
"Marion, my dearest," he said, gazing fixedly at the pattern of the carpet, "you must try and reconcile yourself to what I have to tell you. Your marriage to Arthur Langton is an impossibility. You must try and forget him, or, if you remember him, remember him only as a man utterly unworthy of you."
She stretched out her hand to steady herself against the mantelpiece. Her lips trembled, and with difficulty she mastered her emotion. When she did speak it was in a severely restrained voice.
"Please tell me everything, dad."
Mr. Vane mustered up his courage, and, as clearly as he could, related the facts that had driven him to determine that Arthur Langton could never he his son-in-law.
Langton had been in his office since a hoy, and at the age of 30 had, by his industry and his devotion to his employer's interests, risen to be Mr Vane's right-hand man, his most trusted assistant. It was an enormous commercial house over which Mr. Vane ruled, and Langton, in spite of his youth, had drawn a salary of nearly a thousand a year. Mr. Vane had been very fond of the hoy, and warmly approved, of his marriage with his daughter. An engagement of six months had nearly elapsed. Every preparation for the marriage had been made, and now, that morning, his most cherished schemes had vanished in thin smoke.
It was quite a chance discovery, but there was no getting away from the fact that over £500 was missing. The books showed clearly that the money had been deliberately taken in various sums extending over a period of some months. As a matter of course, Mr. Vane had sent for Langton, pointed out to him the deficiency, and asked him if he could throw any light on the mystery of these defalcations; in short, the firm was being robbed, and it was necessary to find the robber.
To his surprise and consternation Langton had answered his questions at first evasively, and when questioned point blank as to whether he knew who the thief was had refused to make any reply. His confusion and obvious uneasiness had at last excited the suspicions of Mr. Vane.
The conversation between them became somewhat heated, and the incident had culminated in Langton drawing out his cheque-book and offering to write out a cheque there and then in settlement, of the deficiency. This suggestion. Coupled with his extraordinary manner, confirmed Mr. Vane in his conviction that Langton was the thief. He tried to draw a satisfactory statement front the young man, but Langton would give only the most evasive answers, and repeat his proposal to settle the matter out of his own pocket.
In the end there was nothing for it but summarily to dismiss Langton and appoint another man to his berth.
"I have given his place to John Smallwood, who is coming to see me to-night, and I must ask you, Marion, never to mention Langton's name again in this house. It will he best for both of us—it will save you a great deal of pain, and help me to forget one whom I trusted, and to whom I was devotedly attached."
He looked at his daughter, waiting for her to speak, but for some seconds she made no reply. Then she turned to him abruptly.
"You condemn him and ruin him just on the merest suspicion. Arthur never stole five hundred pounds in his life; I think it is cruel and hard of you, father, and unjust."
Sick and sore at heart, Mr. Vane, welcomed the opportunity of showing some temper; it helped to deaden the pain. For the first time in his life he spoke to his daughter in a voice angry and commanding.
"Your expression of opinion is not necessary, and it is not possible that you can understand the position. You must simply obey my orders. Arthur Langton is not to be received by you any more—understand that!"
He worked himself up into a heat of passion, deliberately heaping words of abuse on his late employee, and trying, in his violence, and intemperance of his language, to forget the anguish that he felt. Marion waited till the storm had abated.
"I love Arthur," she said, quietly, "and I have promised to be his wife, and nothing shall ever separate us."
Without another word, she turned and hurried from the room, leaving her father alone in the study to the contemplation of his own sad thoughts.
THE marriage was postponed—that was the statement given out as a preliminary to the final announcement that the match had been abandoned for good and all. Langton, it was hinted, was ill, and had had to go abroad, and other polite falsehoods were invented as a gloss to the real tragedy. But Marion's face told its own tale, and there were few people who accepted that version as fact. It was clear that something was amiss, and friends of the Vanes waited curiously until time should clear up the mystery.
The days went by. Father and daughter hardly spoke. Every night Mr. Vane immersed himself in business, and every night John Smallwood arrived after dinner with a small bag full of papers. Instinctively Marion disliked Smallwood; he had reaped the benefits of Arthur's dismissal; he was the one person who had profited by the tragedy of her life. One night he met her in the hall as she was searching the letter-box, in the hope of some news from Arthur, who had never written her a line.
"Miss Vane," he said, coming towards her with outstretched hand, "I have been wanting an opportunity to speak to you; to tell you how deeply sorry I am for what has occurred."
His woebegone face annoyed her. She deliberately ignored his hand.
"I can't see what you've got to be sorry for, Mr. Smallwood; filling better men's shoes is not generally accounted a misfortune by those who fill them."
He recoiled, a slight flush upon his pasty cheeks.
"Oh, Miss Vane, don't say that. I know his misfortune has given me a lift, but I'd much sooner have remained in my old berth than that these things should have happened."
"What things have happened?" she said, coldly. "Mr. Langton, I know, has been accused and punished, without any evidence, of a crime which he was the last person in the world to commit. Perhaps you will explain yourself."
Smallwood looked nervously round at the study door, as if to satisfy himself that Mr. Vane was still on the other side. Then he moved closer to Marion, sidling up to her in a confidential way.
"There is no question about it, I am sorry to say, Miss Vane. I thought your father would have told you. It's over five thousand pounds that's missing, and I am afraid there can be no doubt as to who the thief is-"
She had a burning desire to strike him in the face. Instead, she made him no answer, but simply turned and ran up the stairs. Arthur was condemned by everybody, but she would never condemn him. She would let him know that, though all the world turned from him, her love for him, her trust and confidence in him had not abated. She went to her writing-desk and hastily wrote a few lines.
Dearest,
Don't think that I believe these wicked stories about you. I love and trust you utterly. Won't you write to me and tell me how you are, and what you are doing, and that you love me still?
Always your Marion.
She posted tho letter that same night, and the following evening there came
his reply. He thanked her for her trust and confidence in him, and assured
her that there was not a word of truth in the charges against him.
I could, if I wished, [he went on to say] "clear my self absolutely, but there are circumstances which prevent it. I think your father might have believed me; but perhaps he was right in acting as he did. To-morrow was to have been our wedding-day. I can come no longer to your house, but will you meet me at the old place? I must see you and speak to you.
IT was half-past eight on the day that was to have been her wedding-day that
Marion crept down the stairs, past her father's study on her way to her
lover. She watched with such nervous attention the door that she did not
notice Smallwood standing in the hall she started as he touched her arm.
"I waited to give you this before you went out. I knew you wouldn't like it to be lying about the house."
It was her lover's letter! It must have fallen out of the bosom of her dress. Of course, Smallwood must have recognised the handwriting; in all probability he had read its contents.
"Thank you," she said with an air of unconcern, "it wasn't anything of importance."
"I recognised the writing, Miss Vane. I should not go to meet him if I were you."
There was just the suspicion of a sneer behind his words. Marion fired up indignantly, forgetting that she was completely at Smallwood's mercy; if he cared to tell her father, all hope of seeing Arthur must be abandoned.
"I shall he obliged if you will mind your own business, Mr. Smallwood," she said, looking at him scornfully as she passed him on her way to the door.
As soon as she was out of the house, she ran rapidly across the piece of open heathland that fronted her home. In a few minutes she was at the trysting-place, and in her lover's arms.
"It was sweet of you to come," said Arthur, when the first raptures of their meeting were over, "but you must not stay long; it would ruin all chance of my seeing you again if your father discovered your absence. I must tell you this: don't believe I am a thief, however strange my conduct may seem. I can't explain, dearest, but I was bound to act as I have done."
"Yes, my darling," she whispered. "I never doubted."
"It was simply in case of ordinary humanity," Arthur went on. "Tho money had been taken, but it was just about to be returned. I was told about it the very morning your father discovered the loss. Unless I held my tongue, it meant, the ruin not only of a man who was my friend, but of two innocent people—his mother and sister, for whose sakes he had borrowed the money. The doctors had said that it they were to live they must go abroad. It was an urgent matter. The man waited to realise some securities. He was wrong to have taken the money, but as he paid it back through me that very morning, you would not have had me disclose his name, would you, Marion?"
She was about to answer when the sound Of approaching footsteps made them both jump hurriedly to their feet.
"So, Arthur Langton," said the stern voice of Mr. Vane, "not content with stealing my money, would rob me of my daughter."
Before Langton could say a word Mr. Vane had taken his daughter's arm, and with a brief "Come home at once, Marion," almost dragged her from his side.
Langton turned passionately to the other figure.
"Smallwood," he exclaimed, "you can't 'ask me to bear this."
Smallwood, keeping his eyes on the ground, said nothing. It was Mr. Vane I who replied for him.
"All sentimental appeals are useless. I trusted you, and I have discovered, through the man who now holds the position you betrayed, the extant of your dishonour. If I have refrained from handing you over to the law for the thousands you have stolen, I have done it for my daughter's sake, but if ever you try to see her again I shall not show mercy any longer."
A half-uttered exclamation escaped Langton. He made a step forward, as if to appeal to Mr. Vane; then he checked himself, and, silently standing there, watched the little party vanish in the shadow of the heath.
THE days went by—for Marion days of utter misery and wretchedness. No letter from her lover was allowed to reach her; she was kept almost a prisoner in the house. Only at night there came to her some sense of peace and comfort. From her window she could see in the shadow of the heath a figure that stood watching the house—now and again waving to her—and keeping guard and ward over her through the long hours of darkness.
Every night Langton stood at his post. He watched the lights go out one by one. From his hiding-place he could see Mr. Vane bid good-bye to Mr. Smallwood. Once Langton, unknown to Smallwood, followed him home, and the following day, and for some days after, he could have been seen in the neighbourhood. He had certain inquiries to make, and those inquiries made, he gave up his undivided time to standing sentinel outside Mr. Vane's house.
He accounted himself happy if he caught a glimpse for a moment of Marion at the window of her room, and forgot all his bitterness and disillusionment in contemplation of her beautiful face even at such a distance. Marion wondered to herself why, night after night, he waited and watched, and Langton himself as he tramped wearily home at dawn, some times wondered, too. A sense of impending evil—a feeling that nothing could stifle-kept him to his post. He had been fooled and tricked—so much he knew now—and he waited as if for Providence to make all clear.
ON the fifth night of his vigil something happened which amply justified his
fears. All the windows in the house were darkened, except those in the study.
Suddenly the lamp within was moved, and, as if in a galanty show, the shadows
of the occupants of the room were thrown upon the blind. He saw Mr. Vane in
his big armchair resting over the fire with his hack to Smallwood, who was
sitting at a table writing. For some moments they sat thus. Then Langton saw
Smallwood turn his head, and then very slowly and very gently rise from his
chair. For a second he stood irresolute, looking in the direction of Mr.
Vane. A moment later a thrill of horror shot through Langton's veins. The
blurred, indistinct figure on the blind seemed to have something in its
hand—a long thickness of dark shadow that rippled with the movement of
the blind. The figure crouched, became a huddled lump of blackness, and then,
slowly—very slowly—moved across the blinds towards the other
figure in the chair.
Langton rushed from his hiding place, and without a moment's hesitation picked up a stone from the road, and hurled it through the window. As he ran he saw the figure of Mr. Vane leap to its feet, and then the two shadows were wrapped in one another's embrace.
"Marion! Marion!" Langton shouted, as he leaped up the steps of the house. From the study he could hear the sounds of a struggle, half-muttered exclamations, hard, stertorous breathing, and the restless shifting of feet.
Langton pulled himself on to the ledge of the study window, and with his arms across his face forced his way through the shattered glass.
A wild scene presented itself. On the floor lay Mr. Vane; above, with one hand at his throat was Smallwood, a long glittering knife in his hand, raised for the last murderous blow. At the sight of Langton he sprang to his feet.
"Back, back, you meddling fool." he shouted, rushing to the other end of the room, and waving his weapon threateningly. His menacing words fell unheeded. Langton dashed across the floor and sprang at him. He saw the knife strike swiftly towards his heart; With the instinct of self-preservation, he dashed it upwards, and the steel grazed his shoulder. In another moment he had Smallwood helpless on the floor.
The study door opened, and Marion, white-faced and terror-stricken, appeared at the entrance. For a moment, she hesitated, and then, seeing her father, she ran to him, dropping on her knees by his side.
"Dad! dad!" she exclaimed.
Mr. Vane opened his eyes, looked at her in a half-dazed fashion, and then, with a groan, struggled into a sitting position.
"What has happened, dad?" she asked, slipping an arm behind his shoulder.
"Smallwood there—I trusted him—he tried to kill me," answered her father, with difficulty. "Forgive me, Marion."
She helped him to his feet just as Langton, having wrested the murderous knife from Smallwood's grasp, allowed him to rise. Mr. Vane looked inquiringly at Langton.
"What does it all mean?" he asked.
"It means, Mr Vane, that this man has deceived both of us. He made me a party to his dishonesty by telling me that he had a sick mother and sister, and that he had only taken five hundred pounds to save them from a lingering death; he gave me back that sum, knowing that you had already discovered its loss, pledged me to secrecy, and then took advantage of your natural suspicions to sup plant me in your favour."
Langton turned to Smallwood: "If you have a spark of manhood left in you, tell Mr. Vane what I have said is true. You have nothing to gain by silence now."
"Yes, it's all true," answered Smallwood, in a subdued voice. "I haven't a mother or sister, living—they died years ago. I had lost heavily on the turf, and I took the money. When I knew that you had discovered the loss of a small part of it, I planned to involve Langton by getting him to return it and then charging him with the theft of the whole. But I hadn't had enough—and to-night you showed me the money in the safe there—and—and—"
He stopped abruptly. A circle of light from a policeman's lantern had spread itself on the blind. Mr. Vane staggered across to the window and called the constable.
TWO hours later, in the same room, a very different scene was being enacted.
Langton, with Marion's hand in his, stood | before Sir. Vane.
"I hope you have forgiven me, sir, for not telling you what you asked me?"
"Arthur, my boy," replied Mr. Vane, in a voice that shook with emotion, "it is you who have to forgive me. I should have known you better. I should have followed Marion's example and trusted you in spite of everything."
Langton bent down and kissed the girl at his side. Then he turned to Mr. Vane.
"It was worth it all," he said, "to learn what her love and trust in me really meant."