The Copper Box/Chapter 3

R. PAWLEY, who looked very comfortable in an easy chair, with a glass of whisky and soda conveniently at hand, smiled upon us as if we were old acquaintances. He was clearly one of those gentlemen who speedily make themselves at home anywhere, and, as it presently appeared, are by no means backward in the art of finding things out. Indeed, he at once began to put leading questions.

“Your daughter, I presume, sir?” he suggested, with a glance at Madrasia.

“Not a bit of it!” answered Parslewe, in his most off-hand manner. “My ward.”

“Dear me, sir! now I could have thought that I saw a distinct family resemblance,” said Mr. Pawley. “This young gentleman, perhaps”

“Visitor of mine,” replied Parslewe. “Mr. Craye—a well-known artist.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” murmured Mr. Pawley. “I observed that you were doing something in your line when I saw you and Miss—I didn’t catch the young lady’s name, I think—Miss?”

“Durham!” said Parslewe. “Durham!”

“Just so, sir—Miss Durham. Ah!—and a very pleasant country this is, Mr. Craye, for your form of art—and very delightful quarters, I’m sure,” added Mr. Pawley, with a bow towards our host. “And you were saying, Mr. Parslewe?”

Madrasia, with an odd glance at me, went out of the room, and Parslewe, who, I thought, already looked bored to death by his visitor, turned to him.

“I was saying that if you’re really interested in that sort of thing—barrows and stone circles and so on, I’m scarcely the man to come to,” he said. “My tastes lie more chiefly in books. If you’re going to stay in the district a while, I can give you a list of titles of books—local and otherwise—that you can read up. I think you’d find all of them in the various libraries at Newcastle.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Parslewe, I’m sure,” replied Mr. Pawley. “I should value that, sir.”

Parslewe rose from his chair and left the room. I heard him climb the stair to his library on the next floor of the tower. Mr. Pawley looked at me. It was a peculiarly scrutinising, appraising glance—it gave me an idea that the man was wondering how much he could get out of me in the way of information.

“A very clever and learned gentleman, Mr. Parslewe,” he observed. “Uncommon!”

“I agree!” said I.

“Makes a man like me—just beginning to take an interest in these things, do you see—feel that he knows—ah, nothing!” he said.

“I quite understand you,” I assented.

“And what a—yes, you might call it—wealth of curiosities he’s gathered about him,” he continued. “Odds and ends of all sorts. Now, there’s an object that’s attracted my attention—a very pretty article!”

He rose suddenly, and walking across to the sideboard, picked up the copper box, holding it to the light, and examining it with exaggerated admiration.

“Beautiful bit of work, Mr.—Craye, I think—beautiful!” he said, unctuously. “Not made yesterday, that, sir. Old coat-of-arms, you see, and a motto. Um! You don’t happen to know whose family coat-of-arms that is, Mr. Craye?”

“No, I don’t,” said I. “Do you?”

“No, sir, no! as I remarked—when I saw you and the young lady down the road—I’m a learner, a novice, a neophyte, Mr. Craye,” he replied. “Fine coat-of-arms, though, that—and a peculiar motto. Now what would you take those words to signify, Mr. Craye?”

Before I could reply, we heard Parslewe coming back, and Mr. Pawley hastily put down the copper box and retreated to his chair, for all the world as if he had been caught or been about to be caught in the act of stealing something.

“These antiquaries!” he murmured, with a cautioning wink at me, “I know ’em!—they don’t like their treasures handled. Precious! Old pots—worth sixpence to some people—worth their weight in gold, to them. Just so!”

Parslewe came into the room with a sheet of notepaper in his hand; Mr. Pawley received it with gratitude as exaggerated as his admiration of the copper box. And presently he said that he must now be moving; I am sure it was with a desire to speed his departure that Parslewe offered to show him down the stair and to point out a short cut across the moor. So they vanished, and when Parslewe came back the tea-tray had just been brought in and Madrasia was busy at it. She turned on her guardian as he entered.

“Jimmie!” she exclaimed. “Who on earth was that creature?”

Parslewe laughed as he dropped into his favourite chair.

“No more idea than you have, my dear!” he answered. “Introduced himself as a humble fellow-labourer in the same field, in which—so he said—I’m a past master. Said he was holidaying in the neighbourhood, and had heard of me, so ventured to call and see me. Wanted to know if there were any objects worthy of his attention round about here—sepulchral things and so on. The odd thing,” continued Parslewe, with one of his sardonic laughs, “the very odd thing was that I never saw a man who looked less like an antiquary in my life!”

“Or talked less like one, I should think,” suggested Madrasia.

“Oh, he’d picked up a few cant phrases, somewhere or other,” observed Parslewe.

“He told me that he’d turned to this sort of thing, as he called it, for a hobby—a man, he observed, with the air of one uttering a hither-to-undiscovered truth, must have something to do. Ha-hah-hah!”

“He seems to have amused you, anyway,” remarked Madrasia.

“Aye!—why not?” assented Parslewe. “Of course he did; I thought he looked much more at home with a glass in his hand and a pipe in his mouth than he would amongst either books or barrows.”

“Well, really, I wondered whatever brought him here!” said Madrasia. “A neophyte, indeed!—in loud tweeds and a glaring necktie. I thought he was a sporting publican out for a walk.”

I did not say what I thought. The fact was I had some queer suspicions about Mr. Pawley. I had noticed his odd, shrewd, examining glances; he looked to me like a man who has an object, a mission; who is spying out the land; endeavouring to get at a discovery. That he had some purpose in view I was sure, but I said nothing to Parslewe and Madrasia. Just then we had a more pertinent and interesting matter to discuss.

Parslewe wanted me to stay there a while and to paint a landscape for him. He had a favourite view, near the house, and was keenly anxious that somebody should do justice to it—moreover, he wanted the picture to he painted in the freshness of springtide, though my own private inclination would have led me to paint it in the autumn. And he had offered me a handsome price for it, agreeing, too, that I should be allowed to submit it for the next Royal Academy exhibition. I was by no means unwilling to accept his offer, for apart from the advantages of the commission, the work meant spending at least a month or six weeks at Kelpieshaw—in the society of Madrasia. And I had already fallen in love with Madrasia.

We settled the affair of the picture over that tea-table. I decided to start on it at once and the first thing then was to get a suitable canvas. Parslewe said I should be sure to find one in Newcastle, and I arranged to journey there next day, seek out an artist’s colourman, and buy what I wanted. On this errand I was in Newcastle about noon on the following morning, and the first person I saw there was our recent visitor, the somewhat mysterious Mr. Pawley.

Mr. Pawley did not see me. I caught sight of him by accident, but, having seen him, I made it my business to watch him a little. He stood at the exit of one of the arrival platforms, and he was absorbed in looking for somebody or other. An express came in from the south; its passengers began to stream through the exit; presently Mr. Pawley—who was still attired as when I had last seen him—removed his cap and bowed with sincere obsequiousness. The object of his reverence was an elderly, big-framed, very consequential-looking man, whose large face was ornamented by a pair of old-fashioned whiskers, and who, in my opinion, had family solicitor written big all over himself and his attire, from his silk hat to his stout-soled, gaitered, square-toed boots. That he was a person of much greater importance than Mr. Pawley was very evident from the fact that he replied to Mr. Pawley’s obsequious greeting with a mere condescending nod, and at once resigned into his hands a Gladstone bag and a travelling rug. There was an interchange of brief remarks between the two—then they marched across the platform to the hotel and vanished within its portals, the large man going first, and Mr. Pawley playing porter behind.

My curiosity had been aroused so keenly by that time that I had some absurd notion of following Pawley and the white-whiskered person into the hotel, just to see if I could find out a little more about their mutual relation. But on reflection I went off about my own business. Having some knowledge of Newcastle, I walked up town to a certain restaurant of which I knew and highly approved; there I lunched and idled an hour away afterwards. After that I set out in quest of a firm whose name Parslewe had given me. Its manager had not got a canvas of the precise size I wanted, but he promised to make me one by noon of the following day, and I accordingly decided to stay in Newcastle for the night, and, later, went to the hotel at the station to book a room. In the smoking-room there, writing letters, was the white-whiskered person. Pawley was not with him. Nor was Pawley with him when, after dinner that evening, he came into the smoking-room again and took a chair close by my own in a comfortable comer. But now he was not alone; he came in company with a younger man, a middle-aged, sharp-eyed individual whom I also set down as having some connection with the law.

These two men had evidently just dined; a waiter brought them coffee and liqueurs; the elder man produced a cigar-case and offered it to his companion. They began to talk; sometimes quite audibly, at others, sinking their voices to whisperings. But they had scarcely lighted their cigars before a word or two from the white-whiskered man made me prick my ears.

“Without doubt!” he said. “Without any doubt, the copper box—its presence there—the coat-of-arms—the odd legend on the scroll—is a most valuable piece of evidence! As soon as I heard of it”

He bent nearer to his companion, and for a minute or two I failed to catch what he was saying. Out of my eye-corners, however, I could see that the younger man was listening, attentively and approvingly; from time to time he nodded his head as if in assent. Eventually he spoke.

“And you say that Pawley, in his opinion, took him to be of about that age?” he asked.

“That, of course, has to be considered.”

“Pawley is an observant fellow,” remarked the elder man. “I have employed Pawley on several occasions, and with excellent results. I can trust Pawley’s estimate of the age. It fits in exactly!”

The younger man regarded his cigar thoughtfully for a while.

“Odd!” he said at last. “Very odd! But I should say it is so!”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt of it,” answered the white-whiskered person. “At any rate, I am not going to travel all this way, and back again, without making sure. I shall not be deceived!” he added with strong emphasis on the personal pronoun, accompanied by a complacent chuckle. “Even a point-blank denial would not satisfy me! No dust will be thrown in my eyes!”

“You were fully acquainted with the circumstances of thirty years ago?” questioned the other. “Personally, I mean?”

“Fully! Thirty-five years ago, to be exact. He—if it is so—is now fifty-six years of age. Oh, yes, I knew everything, was concerned in everything,” affirmed the elder man.

“Up to a certain point, you know, up to a certain point. Now, if I can only get at close quarters, and Pawley assures me that’s by no means difficult, I can satisfy myself rather cleverly. For instance”

Once more he leaned nearer to his companion and lowered his voice; the conversation tailed off into whisperings. And now, fearful lest I should in any way betray myself, I rose from my chair, left their neighbourhood, and under pretence of looking at the evening newspapers spread out on a centre table, went across to another part of the room. I picked up a paper and sat down, affecting to look at it. But in reality, I was still watching the two men, and wondering what it was that they were talking about.

For without doubt it had to do with my host, Parslewe. The references to the copper box, to the coat-of-arms engraved on it, to the curiously worded motto appearing on the scroll beneath, all that meant Parslewe. Pawley, again; whom had Pawley been visiting but Parslewe? And Pawley’s estimate, so much valued by White Whiskers, that was, of course, in relation to the age of Parslewe. It was all Parslewe, and it didn’t require much thought or reflection or analysis on my part to decide that about and around Parslewe hung a decided mystery.

But of what nature? It seemed to me, judging him by my short yet very intimate acquaintanceship, that Parslewe was a decidedly frank and candid man. He had told me a good deal about himself. He had left England as a very young man, gone East, settled down in Madras, gone into partnership there with another Englishman, Madrasia’s father, trading in cotton and indigo, made a big fortune, and, on the death of his partner and his partner’s wife, had brought Madrasia to England, to settle down as I had found them. All that seemed a plain and straight story, with nothing remarkable or mysterious about it. What, then, were these men after? For there was no doubt in my mind now that Pawley had come to Kelpieshaw as a spy, seeking some particular information, and evidently getting what he wanted in an inspection of Parslewe and an examination of the copper box.

That copper box began to assume a sinister significance in my thoughts of it and its relation to this affair. But what was its relation? It was a box, and it was made of copper. Beautifully made, to be sure, and by some man who had taken vast artistic pride in his work; the engraving of the coat-of-arms, too, was beautifully done. But, after all, it was only a copper box! What was there about it, then, or appertaining to it, that made these men, if not exactly keen about it, at any rate remarkably interested in the mere fact of its existence?

I saw no more of the two men in the smoking-room that night, except that I caught a glimpse of White Whiskers, as I had come to call him, going bedward at the same time as myself, and on my corridor. I saw him again next morning, in the coffee-room, at breakfast; he looked bigger, more solemn and judicial than ever. But no Pawley came to him; I wondered what had become of Pawley. Perhaps he had gone back to sneak round Kelpieshaw again—anyway, I myself was going back there as soon as my canvas was ready. And I had already made up my mind that when I got there I should tell Parslewe that at Newcastle there were people talking about him and his copper box.

The man who was making my canvas had his shop in a side street off Haymarket; I set off to it a little before noon, intending to get my parcel, return to the station, and depart for Wooler. But half-way up Percy Street I suddenly saw White Whiskers, a little way in front of me. With him was the man with whom I had seen him in conversation the night before. Once more they were in conversation; it seemed to be earnest and intense, judging by their attitude; White Whiskers had his arm linked in that of his companion, to whom he bent, confidently; the other listened with rapt attention. Out of sheer curiosity I followed them. They turned, eventually, into St. Thomas Street, and then began to look at the names over the shops. Finally, White Whiskers raised his umbrella and pointed to a sign; a moment later they entered the shop beneath it. And from a little distance I saw what was on the sign:.

Copper again! copper box, coppersmith—the whole thing was becoming more mysterious than ever! Here were these men, who had been talking about a copper box the night before, now entering the shop of a man who worked in copper. Why? I wanted to know. And instead of going off on my own proper business to the artist’s colourman’s shop, I crossed the street, walked on a little, turned, and kept an eye on the door into which White Whiskers and his companion had vanished.

They were in there about half-an-hour. I stuck to my post, though I knew I was running the risk of losing my train. At last they came out. They came nodding and wagging their heads as if whatever had transpired within had settled the question—White Whiskers, in particular, looked un commonly satisfied with himself. They went away, round the corner into the Haymarket—and thereupon, with a desperate resolution generated by sheer curiosity, I boldly entered the coppersmith’s establishment. Its proprietor, an uncomfortably canny-looking sort of person, elderly and spectacled, stood behind the counter; his keen eyes fell upon me at once with such shrewd inquiry that I felt decidedly embarrassed, and knew myself to be growing red about cheeks and ears.

“Oh, ah, er,” I began lamely. “I—that is—have you any old articles in copper, you know—curiosities and that sort of thing—to sell?”

It seemed to me that he took an unconscionable time in replying. When he did reply, it was with a curt monosyllable.

“No!”

“The fact is I—sometimes—go in for collecting such things,” I said. “I”

He suddenly bent forward across his counter, and gave me a keen, searching look.

“What are you after, young man?” he asked severely. “I saw you—watching those gentlemen.”