The Mayor on Horseback E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The young handsome Mayor of Mechester, Daniel Poynton is the owner of a very successful shoe manufacturer, the major employer in the city and the mayor will soon be a Lord Mayor. Never before interested in women, or even in social affairs, he is stricken by the beauty of The Lady Ursula Manningham and falls in love. As the novel develops, Poynton’s factory is threatened by foreign manufacturers who want to establish a cooperative monopoly with him. At the same time, Poynton’s relationship with Violet Grey, who is a competent secretary, continues to develop and becomes more important to his business and social life. Meanwhile his infatuation with Lady Ursula progresses to the point of asking her to marry... The book shows interesting color on the interaction between socialist workers unions and managements enlightened response to worker unrest.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER I

BOREDOM came to the Mayor of Mechester, as it had done several times before, seated in his high-backed oak chair in the famous apartment well known to antiquarians entitled the Mayor’s Parlour. He was receiving a deputation who were seated around the long table at which he presided. They were a dull and uninspiring-looking lot of men. Most of them he remembered had been school fellows of his in the Grammar School of the old town and they seemed to have plodded their way through life with uncertain and cumbersome footsteps. Alderman Alfred Mason, a bespectacled, anaemic looking man on his right who was reading from a sheet of foolscap, had once been head boy of the school. Probably his scholarly gifts had driven from his brain every element of imagination and enterprise. There were others there of the same type–complacent, prosperous in their walks of life simply because they were too easily satisfied. It was without a doubt a dull affair.

Alderman Mason brought his reading to an end, resumed his seat and looked expectantly towards His Worship the Mayor. The smothered murmur of applause which had greeted his last sentence faded spasmodically away. The Mayor, whose name was Daniel Poynton, pushed back a mass of thickly-growing, unruly black hair from his forehead and showed himself in no hurry to frame his reply. He was a heavily-built but well- proportioned man with a power and significance in his features which distinguished him in that somewhat mediocre company. He clasped his hands together and leaned slightly forward. He spoke deliberately and firmly.

“My old friends,” he said, “and fellow townsmen, I am about to disappoint you. I have given this matter of open spaces my careful consideration. In my opinion, for a borough of our size, enough space is already given up for recreation grounds devoted to the pursuit of sport pure and simple. You are most of you, I see, town councillors and I shall be divulging no confidences if I tell you that before very long a housing scheme will come before you officially which will need all the spare land we can lay our hands upon even when we have demolished certain districts in the town which, in my opinion and the opinion of the Borough Surveyor, are unsanitary. My answer to you gentlemen, therefore, I regret to say is in the negative.”

There was a blank silence, a feeling of dissatisfaction which made itself felt more by frowning faces and the rustling of papers than in any other way. The Mayor rang the bell.

“Is it useless for us to hope, sir,” Mason asked, rising to his feet, “that you will give this matter your further consideration?”

“It would be a figure of speech, my dear Alderman,” the Mayor replied, “purely a figure of speech. My mind is made up. Your scheme is an excellent one, but it is largely intended to benefit a class of our townspeople who are very well able to look after themselves. I need the land for those who are not in that fortunate position. I wish you all good day, gentlemen, and a more successful visit the next time you come to see me.”

They filed out discomfited, a little annoyed and with plenty to say when they found themselves in the street outside. The Mayor rang for his secretary–a pallid young man with a brown smudge of a moustache and gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Anything else in the book for me to-day, Young?” he enquired.

“You are free for the rest of the day, sir,” the secretary replied. “To-morrow I am afraid is not quite so easy. You have a bazaar to open at De Montfort Hall, you have to take the chair at the Literary Society–Mr. Fulton, the lecturer, is, I believe, to be your guest. There is also a memorandum to make an appointment with the architects in London who are displaying the model houses and reports to look through concerning the various water schemes.”

“And nothing more to-day?”

“Nothing more to-day, your worship.”

Daniel Poynton rose to his feet, strolled out to the coat closet, put on a soft felt hat and overcoat and made his way to the street where his car was waiting–a large limousine driven by a chauffeur in undress uniform.

“The factory, Chambers,” he directed.

He was driven rapidly away, pretending to read a newspaper to escape a multitude of greetings from passers-by but really seeing not a line. The automobile was brought to a standstill before a very imposing pile of buildings about a couple of miles out of the town. Here he alighted and made his way swiftly, although with no apparent haste, across the busy entrance hall past the rows of offices to his own private room. Arrived there he took off his coat and his hat, turned back his cuffs and rang for his manager. Whilst he waited he went hastily through a pile of selected correspondence which had been put on one side for his attention. There was throughout the whole of the businesslike routine in which he engaged a somewhat curious impassivity of action and expression. Papers were glanced through and laid methodically on one side, a few consigned in the wastepaper basket, one or two placed neatly in a basket. There was never any hesitation, not a moment’s doubt. His behaviour was that of a man who had the gift of making up his mind quickly.

“Well, Burden,” he remarked as the manager made his appearance, “anything fresh?”

Mark Burden, a young, capable-looking man, wearing a long overall, answered with a crispness of speech which was perhaps derived from long association with his chief.

“Nothing particular, sir. Two large orders telephoned down from Manchester for the ladies’ department. Several shipments of American glazed kids which will have to be returned and a thousand sides Mr. Purvis is doubtful about. They are left over until the day you select for looking through the imports.”

Poynton nodded.

“That will be Wednesday this week,” he decided. “Advise the shippers that the goods are in suspense, have costings of numbers six and seven looked through again. Those are the numbers which seem to be selling too readily. I didn’t see the daybook this morning. What was the output?”

“Something just under five thousand pounds, sir. Today’s will be heavier.”

“Returns?”

“Of no importance.”

“Do you require my advice upon any subject whatever?”

“No decisions are necessary to-day in any department, sir.”

“Send in Miss Gray, please.”

Burden took his leave. His place was taken almost immediately by a quietly-dressed young woman who entered the room and sank into her chair with scarcely a sound. She opened her book and sat expectantly. Poynton handed her a sheaf of letters.

“Refuse all these,” he enjoined. “Polite as possible– pressure of business and that sort of thing. Accept the luncheon with the Bishop and the dinner with the President of the Board of Trade.”

She glanced at the calendar.

“You promised to reply to-day, Mr. Poynton, about those three fields near The Grange.”

“Quite right,” he answered. “I won’t have them. Too damp. They’re on the wrong side.”

“The owners suggested that they might be open to an offer,” she reminded him.

“I won’t have them at any price,” he decided. “They are no use to me. They are on the wrong side of the estate. Telephone to The Grange. Tell them I shall be home in half-an-hour and to have Grey Prince saddled. Anything else?”

The girl rose to her feet. She hesitated for a moment, standing in the full blaze of light which streamed in from the huge window. Her eyes seemed a little lustreless and her complexion over-pallid. Her fingers touched her throat nervously.

“May I take a liberty before I go, sir?”

He looked up in quick surprise.

“At your own risk,” he replied. “I am not fond of that sort of thing, you know.”

“The last time I telephoned for Grey Prince the groom who answered said that the horse had not been out for a week and that he ought to be galloped round the fields before he was taken on the roads.”

“What business is that of yours?” Poynton asked coldly.

The girl showed an unexpected spirit. She wheeled round and looked her employer in the face.

“None at all, sir, except that I should hate going over to The Grange to take the letters whilst you were recovering from a broken leg or something of that sort.”

“I promise that shan’t happen,” he assured her. “The day I break my leg I will get another secretary. Many thanks for your consideration, Miss Gray, but don’t interfere with such matters in the future, please. The horse is quite all right, but a little high-spirited and short of exercise.”

“Very good, sir, I spoke as much on behalf of the staff as personally.”

She turned away, a silent, swiftly moving young woman with a probably inherited grace of carriage. At the door he stopped her.

“What do you mean on behalf of the staff, Miss Gray?” he asked.

She answered him with the slightest possible shrug of the shoulders–as though the matter indeed were of very small concern.

“The business doesn’t do quite so well when you are not here, sir,” she reminded him. “Your mayoral duties and public work take up a great deal of your time as it is. It seems a pity to risk anything.”

“Close the door, please,” he ordered curtly.

He leaned back in his chair for a moment listening to the muffled roar of the machinery. Three thousand men and women hard at work and all the best machinery human skill had been able to devise slaving away towards production. Fifty clerks, a hundred in the warehouses, perhaps, a great capital being built up and ministered to. He detached himself momentarily from this monster of commerce for which he was responsible. How much of it, he wondered, was due to his own individuality? How much of it was Poynton and how much of it was robot-generated progress forging its way through the crowded hours? His work in the town. His thoughts flashed back to that. His public work. His schemes for the betterment of the people. His political devotions. He was giving all a man could give but he could not flatter himself that this small corner of the world would even falter at his passing. Funny that a man should work so hard, bring such a variety of gifts into such a barren vineyard.

A word or two on the telephone, with Priestley, the Town Clerk, a few decisions easily arrived at, a few signatures, and on went his coat and hat again. He passed quickly out of the place and stepped into the car.

“Home,” he directed.

Odd, Daniel Poynton reflected, that in so short a space of time the world could change so completely. No real reason for it either. A quarter-of-an-hour’s determined battling with a high-spirited but not ill-tempered horse, a long gentle canter along the grassy drives of Beaumanor Chase through an air rain-soaked and aromatic with the odour of the naked earth seemed to have brought about a miracle. That distasteful half-an-hour in company with those schoolfellows of his youth, grown from gawky and unlovely boyhood into pudgy and narrow-minded manhood, seemed to lie far back in the past. The factory with its roar of life, its hordes of busy workers left its taint upon the memory too. A commercial machine, a hotbed of utilitarianism turning out goods for human needs, without beauty or permanent existence, yet with the lives and energies of three thousand living beings concentrated solely upon their production. What was there in it at the end of the day and the year, at the end of life even? Money–heaps of money. And the cemeteries fuller than ever of men and women who had lived and died upon the treadmill. His own position–the Mayor. There was humour in that strong unreadable face of Daniel Poynton’s but there were times, just such times as these, when that telltale line at the corner of his mouth deepened into grimness.

“Silence, ladies and gentlemen, for His Worshipful the Mayor.”

The thumping of hands upon the table. The rustle as napkins were unfolded and conversation commenced. The wine– the heaps of food–jokes instead of humour–over-profusion instead of selection. Plenty of wine for His Worshipful the Mayor. More to eat–more to drink. Smiles from the Town Clerk’s daughter who was accounted a beauty. Smiles from the Councillors’ wives and daughters, the everlasting jests as to a bachelor Mayor. The man’s whole being seemed suddenly to respond to an impulse of gratitude as he thought of the empty house behind him, the freedom of life, the dignity of solitude. He unhooked a gate with his riding crop, loosened his rein and began to mount the long twisting path which led through clumps of heather and gorse to the crest of Beacon Hill. They mounted, horse and man, by a circular path until they reached the summit. Around them the rhododendron shrubs were void of blossom but there were gaunt fragments of prehistoric lichen-covered rock and turf as soft as velvet. Poynton brought Grey Prince to a standstill and sat perfectly still with his eyes wandering downwards. The fields were becoming patchworky, the coppices and woods little more than smudges of black. In the distance were the lights of Lowtown, around the other side the reflected glare in the skies from his own town. He kept his back turned to it. It was the quiet places he had come to visit, the silence he loved. There was nothing dramatic about the landscape. There was no roaring of wind or sea to awaken tumultuous thoughts. Over the level fields there seemed to rest a Wordsworthian calm. There was something infinitely peaceful about the square patches of fields each with their limitation of closely cropped hedges. One by one lights crept out from the cottages and homesteads....

Poynton was after all a man of instincts and he swung his horse round, despite his deep fit of abstraction, at precisely the right moment. Standing within a few yards of him, clutching an ugly-looking stick in his hand, was the tall threatening figure of a man. His clothes were shabby– might well have been the clothes of an ex-gamekeeper fallen upon evil times. His complexion was dark, his gipsy descent was obvious. His eyes were fixed upon Poynton and the latter knew even as though he had seen it that that stick would have descended upon the back of his head in another moment if he had not felt that thrill of consciousness.

“Got a light, guv’nor?” the man demanded.

“I have not,” was the prompt reply. “What the devil are you doing up here and what do you mean by stealing up behind me with that club?”

The man hesitated. He came a step nearer.

“Got as much right here as you, ain’t I?” he demanded.

“I should doubt it. This is a private road.”

“What are you doing on it then?”

“That’s no affair of yours but I have permission to go where I choose on this Estate,” Poynton vouchsafed. “Be off! I’m not turning my back on you again.”

“Pretty sure of yourself sitting up there, ain’t you?” the gipsy sneered.

Poynton touched Grey Prince on the neck. The horse plunged forward and the man jumped hastily on one side.

“My horse is high-spirited,” Poynton warned him, “and my riding crop is as good as your club. I said be off and I meant it.”

“To hell with you,” was the surly retort.

Discretion came suddenly to the gipsy. He saw something which was almost terrifying in his adversary’s face. Without a word he turned round and scrambled down the side of the hill towards the back approach. Poynton watched him disappear over the gate into the little plantation which led to the road, then he dismounted, lit a cigarette and took his final look around. The lights of Beaumanor, the great house in the valley, were glimmering now through the trees. Twilight was coming on in earnest. An owl made melancholy sounds from the coppice just below and in the distance a dog began to bark. Poynton, however, failed to gain from his favourite vantage ground its usual meed of inspiration. His brief encounter with that most unpleasant and dangerous wayfarer seemed to have left upon him a curious effect of uneasiness. He mounted Grey Prince, who knew very well the way homeward and had already swung to the left, when his master suddenly checked him. Poynton sat in the saddle for a moment listening intently. Then he jammed down his hat, flourished his riding crop and galloped along the bridle path in the opposite direction.

CHAPTER II

AS the probable rescuer of a young woman in very serious trouble there is no doubt but that Daniel Poynton, notwithstanding his well-balanced brain and large fund of commonsense, made a tactical error from the moment when he thundered in upon the tragedy around the corner of the lane and found his would-be assailant of a short time before holding in his arms a young woman whose shrieks he was endeavouring to stifle by dragging her hat down over her mouth. In a fit of ferocity Poynton threw away the advantage of his position, leaped from his horse and attacked the pedestrian on foot. The latter released his grip of the girl and turned around to receive a staggering blow upon the jaw and a moment later a second one from Poynton’s riding crop which unfortunately missed his head and descended upon his shoulder. The pain, however, made him relinquish his hold of the young woman. He turned and faced Poynton and the latter, though utterly unafraid, knew that he might have a difficult if not a dangerous task before him. Keeping his eyes fixed upon his unpleasant-looking opponent he spoke quickly to the girl:

“Get into the car and drive off,” he ordered. “Do you hear? I will keep this fellow busy.”

Even in that wild moment Poynton realised perfectly well the extraordinary gameness of the girl’s attitude.

“Thank you,” she replied, “I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall remain here and do what I can.”

She pressed her finger upon the electric horn of the car and its shrill warning rang out into the twilight. The man, with a brutal oath, knocked up her arm. The next moment he was lying on his back and Daniel Poynton, with a suddenly awakened savage desire to kill, was bending over him, riding crop in hand. He spoke to the girl once more without turning his head.

“Go on sounding the horn,” he directed, and to his surprise his voice was almost as well under control as hers. “It may bring someone along and we’ll get this fellow down to the police station.”

Probably if Daniel Poynton had had a little more experience in the sort of work upon which he was at this moment engaged he would not have allowed such a very dangerous opponent those few seconds to regain his breath. Coupled with this, perhaps the invincible objection of a brave man even in a moment of crisis to hitting an adversary upon the ground had its weight. The result was disastrous. With a most amazing spring the latter was upon his feet. He closed with Poynton who had for a moment believed that the affair was over. The gipsy laughed harshly as his fingers found their way to Poynton’s throat.

“Better ‘ave stuck to yer ‘oss, guv’nor,” he shouted. “You might ‘ave done me in from the top of ‘im but I’ve got you now and I’m going to twist the life out of yer. Interfering between a gent and his sport, eh? That’s you.”

There was a single moment when Poynton nearly lost consciousness. He had a faint vision of a woman’s face transfigured with passion, a pair of blazing eyes, a flash of white teeth; then he heard the dull scrunch of furiously wielded metal meeting flesh, saw the spanner red with blood once more uplifted and, most blessed thing of all, felt the grip on his throat relax. The man turned to face this unexpected attack but he seemed for a moment off his balance, uncertain which way to strike, pawing the air, and that in a sense was the fatal moment of his life. His opponent, who had been fighting all the time, moved a step nearer and drove his fist mercilessly into the other’s jaw. The gipsy tottered and reeled over upon the damp grass. Poynton stood over him for a moment, his fists clenched, breathless yet ready to strike again. There was no need. The man was unconscious.

“That was magnificent of you,” Poynton gasped, still without moving, still without turning his head.

The spanner dropped from her hands. She too had been waiting.

“I think that we need not worry any more,” she said breathlessly. “He is unconscious. I hope that he is dead!”

Her rescuer leaned down and shook the doubled-up figure. He convinced himself that the man was actually insensible. Then he drew himself upright once more.

“I don’t think the ruffian is dead,” he confided, “but he’s past giving us any more trouble.”

He straightened himself and looked across those few yards of wet turf to where the girl was standing. For the first time he had a clear view of her. The rain was pattering down upon the leaves of the elm tree under which they were standing. He felt it cool and refreshing upon his cheeks, mingling with the blood which was flowing from a wound upon the temple. The girl had thrown her hat from her and was standing–a slim motionless figure, her body still quivering, her pale blue eyes glowing with the passion of the fight. No trace of fear anywhere, only a still faintly contemptuous curve to her trembling lips.

“He should have been dead,” she cried. “I wish that you had killed him. He held me as though I had been some foul plaything.”

Dimly and notwithstanding his ignorance he understood the virginal torrent of repulsion which had transformed her almost into a mad creature. It was the first time in his life he had been brought into contact with a woman like this. The splendid fury of her held him spellbound. With it all she was beautiful. Dim joyous thoughts and shattering desires were suddenly born in the man which outlived that night and many others to follow.

There were footsteps climbing up the lane, the footsteps of hastening men. The atmosphere of so narrowly averted tragedy still held Poynton spellbound but second by second the woman relaxed into life. It was she who first recovered. She turned to face their tardy rescuers and there was a smile upon her lips.

“Eh, but what’s wrong here?” a man dressed like a farm labourer exclaimed.

She pointed to the ditch and to the prostrate figure lying on the bridle path.

“That man stopped my car,” she explained. “He jumped in and attempted to rob me. This gentleman got off his horse and rescued me.”

“I reckon that be the horse, Mister, that just went trotting through the village?” another of the newcomers put in.

Poynton nodded.

“He’ll find his way home.”

The last of the little group of rescuers came puffing up wearing a hastily donned policeman’s coat over ordinary civilian clothes. He saluted the young woman obsequiously and leaned over the gipsy’s motionless body.

“I’m thankful, milady, we were in time,” he said with rustic inconsequence. “He’s a nasty character that. One of them gipsies on Swithland Common. I know him well. This will put him out of mischief for a bit. I heared that horn just as I was doing a bit of gardening–my day off this is–”

“Yes, yes,” the young lady interrupted. “That will do, sergeant. You must get a cart or something to take him to the police station. I won’t have him near my car. I will see after this gentleman.”

“Would you give me your name, sir?” the sergeant demanded producing a pocketbook and a stump of pencil.

“Daniel Poynton.”

“Address?”

“Belgrave Grange, Mechester.”

“If so be as the young lady’s taking care of you, sir, we’ll look after he then,” the sergeant promised. “You be a powerful man to have dropped him like that,” he went on with an admiring glance. “He’s a fair wicked one when he gets in one of his tantrums.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Poynton asked shortly.

“To judge by his looks we had best drop him at the cottage hospital,” the sergeant decided. “Sam,” he went on to one of the lads who had followed, “fetch your father’s cart and we’ll get him down there. Make way for her ladyship, you fellows.”

The girl backed her car and motioned to her rescuer.

“Get in,” she invited. “You must come back with me to Beaumanor and then I’ll send you home.”

“Can’t I get a cart or something?” Poynton suggested. “I am scarcely fit–”

“Get in at once please,” she interrupted.

The sergeant stood to attention, looking in his queer attire and intense solemnity more like a scarecrow than a human being.

“I’ll be down at the House to-night when we’ve got him settled over along,” he promised. “I’m right glad I heard that horn, your ladyship.”

She smiled faintly.

“I’m glad you did, sergeant,” she admitted, “but I’m still more glad that my friend here chose to ride this way.”

She slipped in her clutch and soon they were whirling down the lane, the hedges flying by, the rain a soft stinging tonic on their cheeks. Poynton, who was feeling a little dizzy, made no attempt at speech. The sound of her last words echoed in his ears.

Three miles of drive through avenues at which Daniel Poynton had looked and marvelled since the days of his boyhood but had certainly never expected to approach in such a fashion. They drew up at the great front door. The Marquis of Bledbury, when in residence and in funds, kept up a certain amount of state at his various establishments and there were several servants in the hall behind the astonished butler when the doors were opened and the lights flashed out. The girl brought the car to a standstill and beckoned to one of the men from the background as they crossed the threshold.

“Grover,” she said, “I want you to take care of this gentleman. He has saved me from a very bad accident and I am afraid he is a little damaged. If you have any clothes to fit let him have them–and a bath. You would like a bath, I’m sure, Mr.–”

“Poynton,” the latter said.

“Mr. Poynton.”

“Really, I don’t see,” he protested, “why you don’t lend me a car, if you would be so kind, and let me get straight back to Mechester. It is only about fifteen miles.”

“My dear Knight Errant,” she said, “I have not yet attempted to express my gratitude and my father would never forgive me if I let you go without a word or two from him. I will see that someone telephones from here–Belgrave Grange I think you said–and explains that you are all right in case your riderless horse gets home first. Hurry off now. Your head hasn’t stopped bleeding, you know, and you must be nearly wet through. Annette,” she called out, summoning the maid who had just appeared, “I’m coming upstairs at once. A bath and fresh clothes. There has been a slight accident.”

A hiatus of insignificant but unfamiliar happenings. Poynton’s clothes were taken away from him and he understood for the first time in his life the services of an efficient valet. A woman who seemed to appear as though by magic dressed his wounds and bound up his head. In a strange dressing-gown he was led to a bathroom–a bachelor’s bathroom he judged from its many rough towels, its penetrating aromatic odours and the gymnastic appliances upon the wall. A strong whisky and soda had tasted like nectar but the pain of his head wound was beginning to make itself felt. Nevertheless, in a grey tweed suit, a little tight for him but not ill fitting, he was soon in a position to descend. At the top of the stairs he hesitated. Below in the great hall he could see men and women lounging and moving about. There was a tinkling of teacups, a pleasant murmur of conversation chiefly consisting of feminine voices. He stopped short.

“Grover,” he said turning to the butler. “Didn’t I hear that your name was Grover?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied.

“Look here,” Poynton continued. “I don’t feel like facing a crowd. The young lady was very kind but I should like to get home. Couldn’t you get me a car and let me slip down those back stairs?”

Grover was a very human person and he was on the last lap of saving up to buy a most desirable public house. The sound of rustling paper had a marvellous effect upon him.

“I could start you off, sir,” he agreed, “easily enough. There’s plenty of cars in the garage and a chauffeur always ready but I’m afraid Her Ladyship would not like it. She is rather a high-spirited young lady is Lady Ursula, as I daresay you know, sir. I’ll have a car round in half-an- hour, sir, If that would do.”

There was a sudden vision at the bottom of the broad staircase. A girl in a dull scarlet negligée, with her deep brown hair brushed simply away from her pale forehead, was standing there with one hand upon the banister. She called softly up.

“Mr. Poynton. Please come this way–please.”

Daniel Poynton, with a sigh, abandoned his project. He waved on one side the proffered arm of the servant who had assisted him and descended the stairs stiffly but without apparent difficulty. The girl who was waiting welcomed him with an entrancing smile.

“I believe,” she remonstrated, as she led him down the hall, “that you were planning to escape.”

“Very ungrateful of me if I was,” he confessed. “Of course you know that it was you who saved the whole situation so magnificently with that spanner, and I am scarcely fit–”

“Don’t be silly,” she interrupted. “This is my father, Lord Bledbury. Dad, this gentleman saved me from a very uncomfortable adventure this afternoon. He was a little damaged himself, I’m afraid. He has lost his horse and had to fight at a moment’s notice with a madman, so I think the least we can do is to give him some tea before we send him home.”

Bledbury, who had been one of the handsomest and best- mannered men of his day, smiled gravely and held out his hand.

“Immensely obliged to you I’m sure, Mr. Poynton,” he said. “My daughter has been telling me of her adventure. You see we have kept you an easy chair near the fire. We’ll take it for granted that you know everybody whether you do or not. Tea and hot toast, James,” he ordered from one of the footmen.

It was a wonderful custom this, Poynton thought afterwards, this casual way of taking everything for granted, this curiously tactful manner of making a stranger feel as though his arrival in a borrowed suit of clothes several sizes too small for him and a bandaged head was after all a thing that might happen any afternoon. Lady Ursula herself sank into the chair by the side of her rescuer and the Marquis stood opposite with his back to the fire.

“I hear that our local Sherlock Holmes turned up a little late,” the latter observed with a smile. “They will be rather glad to get hold of that fellow, I can assure you. He is one of a small gang of gipsies who have always given my keepers a lot of trouble.”

“A most unpleasant person,” Poynton replied, surprised that his voice should be so easily at his command. “I should think too that he had been drinking.”

“Precisely,” the Marquis agreed. “Hedges told me that he was just recovering from a week’s drinking bout and at such times it is not safe to go near him. You must be a difficult fellow to tackle, Mr. Poynton. He is reputed to be a famous bruiser.”

“I know the fellow well by sight,” another of the little group, a tall sandy-haired man observed. “My people have been watching him all the season. We all owe you our heartfelt thanks, sir.”

“We must get you on the bench to-morrow or whenever they bring him up,” the Marquis continued. “I think this time we can put him out of danger for a time. Do you live in these parts, Mr. Poynton?”

“I live in Mechester,” the latter answered.

“You hunt, sir?” one of the younger men who were standing round enquired politely.

“Never,” Poynton replied. “I ride for exercise only. I’m afraid I don’t find very much time for amusement.”

Lady Ursula sighed gently.

“Tell me how do you occupy yourself?” she asked. “Nowadays when we are all trying to find work if we can get it the question has ceased to be an impertinence.”

“I am a manufacturer,” he told them. “A manufacturer of boots and shoes.”

Ursula lifted the hem of her flowing gown and displayed a very attractive foot with red high-heeled slippers.

“Do you make anything like that?” she queried.

“Nothing in the least like it. We don’t cater to that class of trade. We make for the millions.”

“I should like to see things made,” a very pretty girl with amazingly fair hair declared, moving over from the other side of the circle. “Couldn’t we see over your factory some day, Mr. Poynton?”

“If you promise not to copy my models,” he answered with a faint smile. “We all have our secrets, you know.”

“How intriguing,” Ursula murmured. “Is yours a big factory?”

“Oh, I suppose so in its way,” he acknowledged.

“How many people do you employ?” the girl with the strangely blond hair demanded.

“About three thousand in Mechester and about the same number in the villages around.”

There was a chorus of exclamations. An elderly lady of distinguished appearance, the only one not in hunting kit, leaned forward with interest.

“How wonderful!” she cried. “I suppose you have welfare departments and all that sort of thing, Mr. Poynton?”

“Each branch has its own staff manager who looks after such matters,” he replied, accepting a cigarette.

“It must take you all your time to look after a business like that,” Ursula remarked.

“Pretty well,” he admitted. “You see, I am also Mayor of the town. That takes up some of my time.”

There was a further commotion. The Marquis dropped his eyeglass.

“Mayor?” he repeated. “Most interesting.”

“How extraordinary!” Ursula exclaimed, looking at him with wondering eyes.

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “It seems quaint–that’s all I can tell you. Fancy a Mayor riding an animal as big as a dray horse and fighting like you did.”

“Mayors are very ordinary human beings,” he assured her.

“I can only fancy them,” the so-near platinum-haired young woman who had manoeuvred into a chair close at hand remarked, “sitting in gilded coaches and eating and drinking a great deal more than is good for them. You don’t look as though you did either of those things, Mr. Poynton.”

“I don’t,” he answered shortly. “But then you see I am only a Mayor–not a Lord Mayor. I don’t think our activities are particularly exciting but they certainly do not lead to overindulgence.”

A good-looking young man in pink, whom Ursula had Introduced as her brother Freddy, rose abruptly from the easy-chair in which he had been sprawling and approached his father on the hearthrug. He drew him on one side and spoke to him earnestly for a minute or two. Whatever it was that he said his father seemed to find it interesting. A moment later he turned round once more to Poynton. His manner was more amiable than ever.

“You will pardon my ignorance, Mr. Poynton,” he said. “I have been Lord Lieutenant of this County a great many years ago but I have had no experience as to how far civic authority extends. Tell me, what are your chief responsibilities as Mayor of a town like Mechester?”

“There would be no connection whatever between the picturesque duties of a Lord Lieutenant and the duties of a working Mayor of an industrial town,” Poynton explained a little drily. “I take the chair on the magistrates’ bench whenever the cases are important. I have an interest myself in all the charitable works of the borough. I am on the committee of all the schemes that work for the town’s development and together with the town clerk and the borough accountant superintend its finances.”

“It sounds–er–strenuous,” the Marquis observed. “I read the local paper occasionally and I have noticed reference to a proposed new water scheme.”

“There are two or three under consideration.”

The Marquis nodded thoughtfully.

“The one in which I am interested,” he confided, “is the Burton Valley, the Derbyshire scheme.”

“I have heard it well spoken of,” Poynton acknowledged.

The Marquis toyed with his gold cigarette case.

“Would it be an indiscretion, Mr. Poynton, to ask which claim is finding most favour with your council?”

“I don’t know about its being an indiscretion, sir,” Poynton replied, “but it is a question I couldn’t very well answer. That reminds me,” he went on, rising to his feet, “I have a committee meeting to attend to-night. I must ask to be excused.”

“You are not going away already,” the young lady with the shining hair, whose name was Joyce Bellamy, protested. “You see I have changed my place so as to come and talk to you. I wanted to hear all about making boots and shoes.”

“I will send you a handbook from the Technical College,” Poynton replied without any particular enthusiasm.

“That wouldn’t be the same thing at all,” the young lady complained with a most attractive pout.

“Then I’m afraid I must tell you all about it some other time,” he regretted. “I hope you will be none the worse, Lady Ursula, for your adventure.”

She laid her fingers lightly upon his arm and looked up at him. He towered amongst the little circle in which he was standing.

“Don’t bother about saying good-bye to everyone,” she begged as she noticed his momentary embarrassment. “You must shake hands with Father because he has not thanked you properly for saving ray life.”

The Marquis held out his hand urbanely.

“This adventure grows in importance,” he remarked. “You must persuade Mr. Poynton to dine with us one night, Ursula, and then we’ll hear the whole story.”

Poynton took leave of the little gathering stiffly perhaps, but without any particular awkwardness. Ursula herself walked with him to the outer hall. The servants fell respectfully back.

“Of course, Mr. Mayor,” she confided, taking his arm, “I have not thanked you half enough.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” he answered. “I was there–the thing happened–I just did my best, as any other man would have done. It was your courage with the motor horn and your adroitness with the spanner,” he added, “which saved the situation. We have a lot of bad characters brought up before us in Mechester but I don’t think I ever saw a more blackguardly-looking fellow than that. He ought to get hard labour.”

“He’ll get all they can give him.” Ursula assured him smiling. “The Duke of Exminster, our Lord Lieutenant, you know, the tall man with the yellow hair and the kind eyes who spoke so nicely to you, has already made Grover telephone to say that he will be in the chair the day the man is brought up.”

“A great friend of yours?”

She looked up at him with a curious smile. How strange it seemed, she thought, to be talking to someone who did not know that Exminster had been in love with her for the last three years.

“Yes, that’s just what he is,” she agreed. “A great friend of mine. Tell me, will you really show us over your factory some time, Mr. Poynton, when we are in Mechester?”

“I should be delighted if you choose a day on which I am free,” he answered.

“What do you mean choose a day on which you are free?” she repeated with a show of indignation. “You saved my life and you saved me from the horrible indignity of that wretched man’s hands about me and you say you will show me over your factory if you are free. Don’t be absurd. It will take me years of devotion to repay you. And you–well, I hate owing people things and you have made me owe you an awful lot, and I don’t hate you at all, Mr. Poynton. Please be a tittle nicer.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologised, “but you see I am not quite used even in my sacred position as Mayor of Mechester–”

She held up her finger.

“Not another word,” she insisted. “You are going to be sarcastic and it won’t suit you. I shall telephone or write and tell you when we are coming. And Mr. Mayor–by-the-by, what is your Christian name?”

“Daniel.”

She forced him to look down at her. He had known already exactly what would happen if he did. He realised that he was looking at the most beautiful woman he had ever approached, beautiful too of a type of which he knew nothing. He realised, too, the changed world of emotions into which he was passing.

“I want to say thank you very much, Mr. Daniel Poynton,” she whispered with a faint trembling of her lips. “I have my peculiar prejudices and my great horrors, however well I conceal them. You have done me an immense service and although I know you would do it at any time–you are that sort–you did tackle that fellow splendidly. You made me feel something I have never felt before in my life.”

There was an unexpected revelation to her in the twinkle of his eyes as he accepted her hand. Instead of becoming a little awkward he seemed suddenly to have gained confidence and to have taken the situation into his own keeping.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “even a Mayor, you know–”

“Don’t,” she interrupted.

“Well, even a manufacturer then,” he recommenced, “remains a man, I hope, and I hadn’t a decent chance to run away, had I? Come and see the factory one day with pleasure.”

The door was thrown open. He accepted his hat, responded to her wave of the hand and stepped into the waiting limousine.

“Main road to Mechester,” he told the chauffeur, “and turn off when I tell you.”

The Marquis welcomed his daughter’s return with an approving smile.

“A most interesting adventure, my dear Ursula,” he observed. “Most interesting. I very much enjoyed meeting your gallant cavalier.”

“Interesting be hanged,” Ursula exclaimed indignantly. “That brute of a man might have killed me. Annette and I emptied all sorts of perfumes into my bath but I still smell or imagine I smell horrible things around me when I think of him. Heaven spare me from another adventure like that.”

“All’s well that ends well,” her father said pleasantly. “Just at this particular juncture it is an incident of considerable interest to me to have met the Mayor of Mechester.”

“Dad can’t get away from the fact,” his youngest son who had resumed his easy chair remarked, “that supposing the Mechester people decided upon the Burton Valley scheme it would put a cool half million into the family finances. I could do with a little of that myself.”

The Marquis coughed.

“It is, of course, impossible for us to approach a respectable person in Mr. Poynton’s position in any way upon the subject,” he said, “but I think, my dear Ursula, that it would be only a graceful action, considering his services to-day, if you were to invite him to dinner one evening next week–or sooner if you choose.”

“I should love to see him again,” Joyce Bellamy observed.

“A real man I call him–not a weak-kneed stripling like Freddy there. Wouldn’t I love to get someone to fight brawny gipsies for me and save me from having my clothes torn off my back? Of course it must be Ursula. She always gets the luck.”

Ursula was leaning back in her chair looking through the smoke of the cigarette she held between her fingers up to the raftered roof.

“I am not so sure, child,” she reflected, “that during five or ten minutes of that adventure you would have envied me particularly.”

“Tell me how he looked when he was fighting,” Joyce demanded. “Did he look as savage as I believe he could? What a chin and jaw the man has!”

“He is, I should imagine,” Ursula commented, “an unemotional person. He went into the fight with very much the same expression he had when I brought him in here and he found all you gasbags chattering away. The only time I have seen him look as though he might have a spark of humanity was–”

“When I spoke to him?” Joyce interrupted.

“Not at all,” Ursula told her. “It was when I said goodbye to him in the hall just now. His eyes twinkled. I believe that underneath it all he has a sense of humour.”

“Ye gods!” the son of the house murmured from his easy chair. “A mayor who rides on horseback and fights with gipsies possessed of a sense of humour!”

CHAPTER III

JOYCE BELLAMY fluttered into the little circle who were drinking cocktails in the lounge at Beaumanor before dinner that evening–a fairy-like apparition in white chiffon, the silken threads of her hair agleam in the shaded lights.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” she declared, holding out her hand for a glass, “I think Daniel Poynton, Mayor of Mechester, is the handsomest man I have ever seen in my life.”

“Revolting taste,” Freddy sighed.

“Where does the child get her standards from?” Exminster asked despairingly.

“It is quite useless your giving yourself away like this, dear Joyce,” Ursula murmured from the depths of her easy chair. “The man is mine. It is I whom he saved from unmentionable horrors and the loss of a purse containing I believe one ten shilling note. You don’t come in, my dear. You are not in the picture.”

Joyce accepted her cocktail and a seat on the divan.

“I don’t know why I ever stay in this house,” she complained. “Every possible man who comes to it is in love with Ursula and when something a little out of the ordinary comes along she wants him too! I shall end by being a night hostess at the Hammersmith Supper Club!”

“I doubt whether your certificates of respectability would be sufficient,” Lord Frederick warned her.

“I should discard all the friends who tried to make a butterfly of me,” Joyce announced. “My reputation would soon become unimpeachable. Lord Bledbury,” she went on, turning towards her host, “tell me seriously–don’t you admire Mr. Poynton?”

“A striking figure of a man,” the former admitted.

“I could picture him more as a stone mason than a cobbler,” his son declared.

“You are all very rude about him,” Ursula interposed “It is not as though we did not all understand. Freddy is annoyed because he thinks Mr. Poynton possesses a nonconformist conscience. Confess, Freddy, isn’t that the truth?”

“It’s not far from it,” the young man declared candidly. “I could feel the oil of sanctity bubbling up in him when he sheered off the question of the water supply. Why couldn’t he be reasonable and let us make him one of the family? Anything to get that water scheme passed.”

The Marquis, who had been pacing the lounge with his hands in his pockets, turned and faced his family.

“I am not at all sure,” he confided, “that after all it would be of much service to the Bledbury finances.”

His son looked at him aghast. Even Ursula removed her cigarette from her mouth and frowned.

“What on earth are you talking about, Father?” she asked. “The Burton Valley property is ours, isn’t it?”

“It’s been ours for something like four hundred years,” he assented. “Unfortunately, however, when I succeeded it was necessary to raise the death duties somehow or other and our lawyers, realising that the house was let and most of the land unprofitable, selected this part of the family property for a mortgage.”

“We can pay it off,” Freddy exclaimed.

Bledbury smiled dourly.

“What with?”

“Any bank would lend us the money if they knew that the Corporation of Mechester were ready to buy the land surely,” Ursula ventured.

“No doubt,” her father agreed. “The only trouble is that we don’t know for certain that the town of Mechester is willing to buy it. They may yet adopt one of the other schemes.”

“And that divine man knows,” Joyce Bellamy murmured. “I think Ursula and I between us, or separately, ought to be able to make him tell us.”

There was a somewhat wistful silence. Ursula broke into it brusquely.

“Of course we can’t do anything of the sort.”

“Might get him into serious trouble,” Exminster agreed.

“There are even further complications,” the Marquis sighed as he helped himself to another cocktail from the tray. “The interest on the mortgages is–er–considerably overdue.”

“Who are the mortgagees?” Exminster enquired.

“Some insurance company, I believe.”

“That, of course, is a pity. A corporate body is always so much more difficult to negotiate with. Insurance companies have no hearts,” Exminster sighed. “Wish I could help. I’ll talk to my lawyers if you like.”

“Couldn’t think of it, my dear fellow,” his host insisted. “You have all the trouble in the world, I know, to keep your own estates together. In any case Pleydell came down from town to-night to let us know the worst. He’s changing now.”

“Here he is,” Ursula observed looking up the broad staircase. “He looks rather like a figure of fate.”

Sir Gervase Pleydell, tall, lantern-jawed and bespectacled, made his apologies to Ursula as dinner was announced.

“It is entirely your father’s fault that I am here, you know, Lady Ursula,” he explained. “He steadfastly refuses to answer letters and there is a certain matter which has reached the state of urgency–”

“The Burton Valley lands?” she ventured.

Pleydell coughed.

“It is a matter which I must discuss with your father tonight without fail. Do you know,” he went on, as he unfolded his napkin, “of all His Lordship’s family seats this is the one I admire the most?”

Ursula looked around meditatively at the tapestried walls, perfectly proportioned high ceiling and up at the quaint musicians’ gallery.

“I quite agree with you,” she said. “You must see that we never lose it.”

For a polite man Pleydell, after his first glass of port, was almost brutally insistent.

“I am compelled, your lordship,” he said, turning to his host, “in your interests to forget my manners. I must catch the ten-thirty train to London. I have a car waiting and the express will be stopped at Lewborough. May I beg for a few minutes with you, Lady Ursula and Lord Frederick?”

“Certainly, my dear Pleydell,” the Marquis acknowledged graciously. “There’s no need, however, to break up this little gathering. The Duke is almost one of the family and knows all my affairs. Miss Bellamy, I think, we can ignore. I will have coffee served afterwards in the lounge. Now I am coming over to your side. Here we all are. You can look upon us as a family party. Let’s hear the worst.”

Sir Gervase adjusted his eyeglass and drew a paper from his pocket.

“I am going to spare you all the legal phraseology,” he said. “The mortgagees of your Burton Valley property have given notice that they wish to foreclose. The interest is overdue. The utmost extension of time we have been able to get is until Thursday fortnight. If the money is not paid by then the estates will go.”

“How much?” the Marquis asked.

“Eighty-seven thousand pounds odd.”

“Do these fellows who want the land know about the Mechester water scheme?”

“I very much fear that they do.”

“Is there any chance of borrowing the money and paying off the present mortgagees?” Ursula asked.

“Not unless we can obtain certain information from someone officially connected with the Borough of Mechester as to their intentions.”

Sir Gervase folded up his paper and looked around the little group.

“Anything to suggest beyond that, Sir Gervase?” the Marquis enquired.

“Only that if you could possibly find the money through a friend,” the lawyer replied, “I should do it. The property itself is worth a great deal more than the eighty-seven thousand pounds. With the water rights, if the town of Mechester adopts the Burton Valley scheme, the property should be worth at least a quarter of a million.”

There was a somewhat dreary silence.

“You wouldn’t like to take a shot at it yourself, I suppose, Sir Gervase?” Freddy suggested.

The lawyer shook his head.

“My dear Lord Frederick,” he remonstrated, “the emoluments of my profession do not leave us with such sums; added to which, I have seven partners.”

“It scarcely comes within the scope of the family solicitor’s activities to provide money for impecunious clients, Freddy,” his father reminded him, “Sir Gervase has done a friendly action in placing the matter before us.”

“I thank your lordship,” Sir Gervase said rising to his feet. “If upon reflection there is anything you are able to do in the matter I shall be in London all the month and you have until Thursday fortnight to find the money.”

Sir Gervase took leave of his fellow guests. They all strolled out together into the lounge where coffee was waiting. The Marquis himself saw his guest off. He returned to find a disconsolate party awaiting him.

“To think of a quarter of a million going west,” Freddy groaned.

The Marquis coughed. He glanced benignly towards Ursula.

“I am afraid after all,” he said, “that our suggestion half in jest of a short time ago must be taken seriously. We must invite this new hero of yours, Ursula, to dine.”