In a minute or two, with a sherry and bitters by his side and a Parascho cigarette between his lips he seemed the personification of correctness, good-humour, and mild enjoyment.
Very little was known about Eustace Charliewood outside his social life. He lived in Chambers in Jermyn Street, but few people were ever invited there, and it was obvious that he must use what was actually his home as very little more than a place in which to sleep and to take breakfast. He was of good family, there was no doubt about that, being a member of the Norfolk Charliewoods, and a second son of old Sir Miles Charliewood, of King's Lynn. Some people said that Eustace Charliewood was not received by his family; there had been some quarrel many years before. This rumour gained general belief, as Charliewood never seemed to be asked to go down to his father's place for the shooting, or, indeed, upon any occasion whatever. There was nothing against Eustace Charliewood. Nobody could associate his name with any unpleasant scandal, or point out to him as being in any way worse than half a hundred men of his own position and way of life. Yet he was not very generally popular—people just liked him, said "Oh, Eustace Charliewood isn't half a bad sort!" and left it at that. Perhaps a certain mystery about him and about his sources of income annoyed those people who would like to see their neighbour's bank-book once a week.
Charliewood lived fairly well, and everybody said, "How on earth does he manage it?" the general opinion being that his father and elder brother paid him an allowance to keep him outside the life of the family.
About one o'clock Mr. Charliewood went into the club dining-room. The head waiter hurried up to him, and there was a somewhat protracted and extremely confidential conversation as to the important question of lunch. As the waiter would often remark to his underlings, "It's always a pleasure to do for a gentleman like Mr. Charliewood, because he gives real thought to his meals, chooses his wine with care and his food with discrimination, not like them young men we get up from Hoxford and Cambridge, who'll eat anything you put before 'em, and smacks their lips knowing over a corked bottle of wine."
"Very well," Mr. Charliewood said, "Robert, the clear soup, a portion of the sole with mushrooms, a grilled kidney and a morsel of Camembert. That will do very well. A half bottle of the '82 Neirsteiner and a Grand Marnier with my coffee."
Having decided this important question, Mr. Charliewood looked round the room to see if any of his particular friends were there. He caught the eye of a tall, young-looking man with a silly face and very carefully dressed. This was young Lord Landsend, a peer of twenty-one summers, who had recently been elected to the Baobab Tree Club, and who had a profound admiration for the worldly wisdom of his fellow member.
The young man got up from his table and came over to Mr. Charliewood.
"I say, Charlie," he said, "I'm going to motor down to Richmond this afternoon, just to get an appetite for dinner; will you come?"
Charliewood was about to agree, when a waiter brought him a telegram upon a silver tray. He opened it, read it, crushed the flimsy pink Government paper in his hand and said—
"Awfully sorry, Landsend, but I've just had a wire making an appointment which I must keep."
He smiled as he did so.
"Ah," said the young gentleman, with a giggle, prodding his friend in the shoulder with a thin, unsteady finger. "Ah, naughty, naughty!"
With that he returned to his place, and Mr. Charliewood lunched alone.
Once he smoothed out the telegram again, and read it with a slight frown and an anxious expression in his eyes. It ran as follows—
Be here three this afternoon without fail.
Gouldesbrough.
When Mr. Charliewood had paid his bill and left the dining-room, the head waiter remarked with a sigh and a shake of the head that his pet member did not seem to enjoy his food to-day. "Which is odd, Thomas," concluded that oracle, "because a finer sole-oh-von-blong I never see served in the Club."
Charliewood got into a cab, gave the driver the name and address of a house in Regent's Park, lit a cigar and sat back in deep thought. He smoked rather rapidly, seeing nothing of the moving panorama of the streets through which the gondola of London bore him swiftly and noiselessly. His face wore a sullen and rather troubled expression, not at all the expression one would have imagined likely in a man who had been summoned to pay an afternoon call upon so famous and popular a celebrity as Sir William Gouldesbrough, F.R.S.
There are some people who are eminent in science, literature, or art, and whose eminence is only appreciated by a small number of learned people and stamped by an almost unregarded official approbation. These are the people who, however good their services may be, are never in any sense popular names, until many years after they are dead and their labours for humanity have passed into history and so become recognized by the crowd. But there are other celebrities who are popular and known to the "Man in the street." Sir William Gouldesbrough belonged to the latter class. Everybody knew the name of the famous scientist. His picture was constantly in the papers. His name was a household word, and with all his arduous and successful scientific work, he still found time to be a frequent figure in society, and a man without whom no large social function, whether public or private, was considered to be complete. He was the sort of person, in short, of whom one read in the newspapers—"and among the other distinguished guests were Sir Henry Irving, Sir Alma Tadema, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, and Sir William Gouldesbrough."
He had caught the popular attention by the fact that he was still a comparatively young man of five and forty. He had caught the ear and attention of the scientific world by his extraordinary researches into the lesser known powers of electric currents. Moreover, and it is an unusual combination, he was not only an investigator of the lesser known attributes of electricity who could be ranked with Tessler, Edison, or Marconi, but he was a psychologist and pathologist of European reputation. He was said by those who knew to have probed more deeply into mental processes than almost any man of his time, and for two or three years now every one who was on the inside track of things knew that Sir William Gouldesbrough was on the verge of some stupendous discovery which was to astonish the world as nothing else had astonished it in modern years.
Eustace Charliewood appeared to be an intimate friend of this great man. He was often at his house, they were frequently seen together, and the reason for this strange combination was always a fruitful subject of gossip.
Serious people could not understand what Gouldesbrough saw in a mere pleasant-mannered and idle clubman, of no particular distinction or importance. Frivolous society people could not understand how Mr. Charliewood cared to spend his time with a man who took life seriously and was always bothering about stupid electricity, while in the same breath they rather admired Charliewood for being intimate with such a very important person in England as Sir William Gouldesbrough undoubtedly was.
For two or three years now this curious friendship had been a piquant subject of discussion, and both Sir William's and Mr. Charliewood's most intimate friends had spent many pleasant hours in inventing this or that base and disgraceful reason for such a combination.
Yet as the cab rolled smoothly up Portland Place Mr. Charliewood did not look happy. He threw his cigar away with a petulant gesture, and watched a street arab dive for it among the traffic with a sneer of disgust.
He unbuttoned his heavy astrachan coat; it felt tight across his chest, and he realized that his nerves were still unstrung, despite the efforts of the morning. Then he took a cheque-book from his pocket and turned over the counterfoils till he came to the last balance. He frowned again, put it away, and once more leant back with a sigh of resignation.
In a few more minutes the cab drew up at a brick wall which encircled a large house of red brick, a house built in the Georgian period.
Only the top of the place could be seen from the street, as the wall was somewhat unusually high, while the only means of entrance was a green door let into the brickwork, with a brass bell-pull at one