A Modern Tragedy (47 page)

TASKER again!” thought Walter furiously, summoned from the Valley Mill dye-pans to a telephone call. He snatched up the receiver and shouted “What is it?” with a brutal inflexion of ennui.

But it was not Tasker who answered him. It was Elaine, who in a queer dry little tone told him that her grandfather was dead.

“Oh,
no!”
exclaimed Walter in horrified grief. “Not
dead!
Surely it can't be, Elaine! How can he be dead? How did it happen? Was he run over? He didn't hear the horn?”

There was a pause.

“Tell me about it, darling,” urged Walter uneasily.

There was a further pause. At length Elaine said in the same strange little voice: “He shot himself.”

“What!” exclaimed Walter. His blood froze, his scalp seemed to prickle; the nerves of his thumbs leaped in a sudden searing agony. It's come, he thought, and somebody has told Mr. Crosland. It's come! We're done for!

“Walter, you must come home now, at once,” cried Elaine, suddenly weeping bitterly. “It's all so terrible. It seems so strange. Poor grandfather! Poor, poor old thing! And there have been some men here—I don't know who they are. Oh, it's all horrible! Walter, do come quickly. Walter, do come.”

“I'll come instantly, lovey,” Walter soothed her, in a hoarse strained tone. “Don't cry. I'll come at once.”

When he had rung off, however, he made no attempt to carry out this promise, but stood, his eyes dilated, panting a little, while thoughts flew across his mind like shuttles in
the loom. He's shot himself to escape the shame; I'd forgotten he would be in it too; we're all done for; we're ruined; I must ring up and warn Tasker; the old man's well out of it; I loved him; Elaine won't have a penny—“Harry!” he shouted in a loud hoarse tone, suddenly rushing into the mill: “Harry!” As Harry did not immediately appear, he shouted again in a wild screaming tone: “Harry! Harry Schofield!”

Harry came up with a look of surprise at this violent summons.

“Have you got those strips of iron and nails and things I gave you the other day, handy?” demanded Walter rapidly.

“Aye,” began Harry. “They're in t'cupboard.”

“Then get them and come downstairs,” commanded Walter, striding away. “Bring a hammer.”

He went downstairs into the cropping-room, and walked impatiently up and down, gazing at the bases of the row of machines and the wooden floor on which they rested, till Harry joined him with a discontented expression on his face and a box full of ironware in his hands. Walter seized one of the bent metal strips which he had had prepared, put it in position over the round foot of the nearest machine, and kneeling down on the dirty floor, thick with indigo flocks, hammered nails in each side furiously. When he had driven the nails home, that foot of the machine was firmly secured to the floor. Harry stood by gaping at him in wonder, and the man at the cropping machine obviously thought he had gone mad.

“Well, come along!” urged Walter impatiently, rising from his knees. “Get to work—get another hammer, and start. Get some of the younger lads to help you.”

“Are we to do all these i' this room like yon?” demanded Harry, with the resigned air of a subordinate accepting orders he does not understand.

“Of course,” said Walter, taking another strip from the pile. “Look sharp now—start.”

Harry sighed and moved away.

Walter threw off his coat and set to work on another machine in a frenzy. The fabric belongs to Elaine, he thought; if I fasten the machinery down she'll have first claim on it when I go bankrupt; with a little management she can get hold of the whole thing; we'll borrow the money from somewhere and I'll start again here, on my own. So they think they've got me down, do they, he raged, gritting his teeth and hammering furiously; well, they haven't! No, by God they haven't! It takes more than that to down Walter Haigh! He hammered till the sweat poured down his forehead and into his eyes; Harry had now returned with more hammers and helpers, and the room resounded with the clang of iron on iron.

“I must go now,” panted Walter at last, putting on his coat. “Mr. Crosland's dead, so I must get home. But you go on and finish the job. Do every machine in the mill as sharp as you can. And use the bolts and nuts for those on concrete floors.”

“Right,” said Harry. But he felt that it was very far from right; he did not like Walter's feverish looks, and was uneasy about this sudden hurry to fasten everything down. There seemed to him no sense in it. The machinery had done very well without being fastened, all through his father's time, and as far as he could see, it would do very well a bit longer. He suddenly wished very much that he had Milner at hand to consult, and made up his mind to drag the job out and do little at it till he had been home at midday.

Walter had gone the length of the room when he suddenly turned back, and came to Harry's side again. “Listen, Harry,” he said hoarsely, fixing his foreman with glittering eyes. “If
anything ever—happens—to me, be sure you break it gently to my mother.”

Harry, utterly taken aback, gaped at him without a word, and as Walter hurried away down the room, slowly and dubiously began to scratch the back of his head, in complete perplexity.

Conscious that he had let a long time elapse between Elaine's summons and his departure for Clay Hall, Walter looked at his watch anxiously—without, however, seeing what time it recorded—as he climbed into his car, and swung round the awkward turning from the Valley Mill yard into the steep side-street much faster than he usually considered prudent. A few yards up the hill, at the corner of the Valley Mill wall, he suddenly pulled up, however, with screaming brakes—a police inspector in the middle of the road was holding up his hand to stop the car.

“What's the matter, officer?” demanded Walter testily, leaning out of the side-window. “I'm in the deuce of a hurry.”

A man in a brown suit and a bowler hat stepped out from behind the corner of the mill wall, to Walter's side.

“Mr. Walter Haigh? Excuse me, sir,” he said politely: “I daresay you know me—could I have a word with you in private?”

“No, I don't know you. What do you want?” snapped Walter, exasperated by the delay.

“I'm a member of the Hudley C.I. department—this is my official card, sir,” said the man. He proffered a small leather folder, on the outside of which was printed, in gilt, the words:
Warrant Card of Detective Officer..

“Something about my wife's grandfather?” said Walter, nervously. The Valley Mill lorry, returning from its daily journey to Ashworth, just then thudded slowly by, and the driver and his mate gazed down at the scene with more curiosity than seemed desirable.

“If I might get in, sir?” suggested the man in the brown suit, smoothly.

“Oh, get in, get in!” urged Walter with growing irritation, throwing open the door.

The detective stepped in and seated himself beside Walter. He then put his hand into his breast pocket, and drew out an official-looking document which he proffered to the young man. “I have a warrant here, sir,” he said, “for your arrest. Would you care to read it?”

“Good God!” cried Walter. He stared at the man for a long moment of horror, while the blood drained slowly from his face, leaving it ghastly. “A—warrant?” he stammered. “For my—arrest?” The man continued to hold out the document; mechanically Walter took it, and undid its crisp folds with shaking fingers. At first he could see nothing but the Royal Coat of Arms and
County Borough of Hudley in the West Riding of Yorkshire;
but suddenly his own name leaped out at him, and lower on the page he read:
aiding and abetting Leonard Tasker… prospectus… annual reports of the directors of the company… false in material particulars … intent to deceive the shareholders … conspiracy …

“Well—I suppose——” he began to stammer pitifully: “I suppose—it's—all right?”

“I think you'll find it quite in order, sir,” said the detective in a courteous tone. “If you would just drive to the Hudley Police headquarters, sir, in Prince's Road, now, we should get it all over without any fuss. We always try to do these things as quietly as possible.” He lifted a finger to another man of similar appearance to himself, who had been standing in the background; this second detective climbed into the dickey seat, and Walter obediently drove away as directed, no longer a free man.

IS THAT you, Mester Arnold?” shouted Harry at the top of his voice—he was not used to telephones, and the process of getting a trunk call through to Bradford had quite shaken his nerve.

“Yes—who's that?” said Arnold's voice faintly.

“This is Harry Schofield,” shouted Harry, shouting each word separately with heavy emphasis. “I've telephoned to say as how Mester Walter has been tekken by the police.”

“To say what?” demanded Arnold.

“Mester Walter,” shouted Harry again.

“Who?” said Arnold, beginning to shout himself from the force of example.

“Walter Haigh,” bellowed Harry.

“Well, what about him?” said Arnold in a contemptuous tone.

“He's been tekken by the police,” shouted Harry.

“Taken by the police?” said Arnold, bewildered.

“Aye—arrested for deceiving shareholders,” said Harry. Shocked by the dreadfulness of the words, he spoke in a low awestruck tone, and Arnold heard distinctly.

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “What an awful thing!”

“Aye—the lorry driver saw them tek 'im—they say Henry Clay Crosland's shot himself and Leonard Tasker's bolted,” continued Harry with lugubrious gusto. “Of course I can't say how much of it's true, but they're all talking about it here. Work's stopped—we're all at sixes and sevens. But, Mester Arnold,” he went on, shouting again as he remembered the importance of his errand: “Don't you think as
you ought to go and break the news to old Mrs. Haigh? It'll kill her if she hears it first from the police, like.”

“It'll kill her right enough, however she hears it,” said Arnold grimly.

“Somebody ought to go tell her,” pursued Harry in a pleading tone: “So I rang up you.”

“Well—I'll see,” said Arnold shortly.

He rang off, and stood considering for a moment. Then he left Mr. Stein's premises with a quick steady step, made his way to the bus station, and less than an hour later was entering the Hudley Girls' High School. There he asked urgently for Miss Haigh.

He had arrived just at the close of the morning session, and found himself being ushered to a waiting-room through a medley of gym tunics, short hair, rosy cheeks, rulers and brightly coloured exercise books, to the sound of briskly clanging bells. He looked about him with amusement and pleasure as he passed along; this, then, was the mysterious feminine world into which Reetha vanished for so many hours each day. Interior windows revealed class rooms with neat rows of desks and long wall blackboards; good heavens, he had forgotten such things as blackboards existed; he hadn't seen one for years. Odd to think of Reetha gazing obediently at a blackboard. He gazed curiously at the white distempered walls of the small cool waiting-room into which he had been led, and supposed that the pictures which decorated them were good ones. Odd to think that Reetha knew so much more about them than her father. Arnold's interests were so concentrated upon Reetha nowadays, and anything revealing her attracted him so much, that he had to make an effort to recall himself to the matter in hand; he did so by asking himself how he would feel if Reetha had become guilty of something disgraceful, as Walter had—the answering pang made him at once very sorry for Mrs. Haigh.

Rosamond now entered the austere little room, and came towards him with some anxiety in her face. Arnold received a shock of surprise as he looked at his former love. It was, after all, nearly four years since he had seen her last, and it was perhaps natural that the details of her appearance should have become blurred in his mind: the deep crisp waves of her hair—which, he noted with amusement, she had partially “grown” as she once threatened—her rich lips, her large and speaking eyes beneath strong dark eyebrows, the clear healthy pallor of her cheek, the broad nobility of her brow. But how could he have forgotten the life, the energy, the zest, which seemed to radiate from her whole person, so that as soon as she came near you everything in life seemed richer, more exciting, more worth while? How, in a word, could he have forgotten Rosamond herself? What a shame, thought Arnold, to have to dim that glowing vigour with his news. On her side, Rosamond felt a movement of sympathy for the man before her, who looked, with his spectacles and his settled figure and his greying hair, so much older than she remembered him; he had been battered by life, she thought—poor Arnold!—but with all his limitations he was undefeated, and she felt for him a respectful, even an admiring, affection.

“Is there bad news for Reetha?” she asked, in the warm contralto Arnold now remembered he knew so well.

“No, I'm afraid it's for you,” said Arnold in his kindest tone. “It's about Walter—I'm afraid he's in financial trouble. I came to you so that you could break the news to Mrs. Haigh.”

“Ah!” gasped Rosamond. It was not, however, a cry of surprise, but a lament for the falling of an expected blow; she knew now that she had always feared this very thing. She listened, pale, with parted lips, while he told her what he knew of Walter's arrest.

“There are rumours of fraudulent balance sheets,” said Arnold, looking away from her anguished face, which he could not bear to see: “And it's said that Leonard Tasker's missing. I'm afraid that's true. And I'm afraid it's quite true, too, that Mr. Crosland has shot himself.” He gave a little cough, and added deprecatingly: “It's on all the posters.”