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he returned, and signed to me to follow him.
The hall was in keeping with the outside of the building, lofty and imposing.
The floor was of oak, almost black with age, the walls were beautifully
wainscoted and carved, and here and there tall armoured figures looked down
upon me in disdainful silence. But the crowning glory of all was the
magnificent staircase that ran up from the centre. It was wide enough and
strong enough to have taken a coach and four, the pillars that supported it
were exquisitely carved, as were the banisters and rails. Halfway up was a
sort of landing, from which again the stairs branched off to right and left.
Above this landingplace, and throwing a stream of coloured light down into the
hall, was a magnificent stainedglass window, and on a lozenge in the centre of
it the arms that had so much puzzled me on the gateway. A nobler hall no one
could wish to possess, but brooding over it was the same air of poverty and
neglect I had noticed all about the place. By the time I had taken in these
things, my guide had reached a door at the further end. Pushing it open he
bade me enter, and I did so, to find a tall, elderly man of stern aspect
awaiting my coming.
He, like his servant, was dressed entirely in black, with the exception of a
white tie, which gave his figure a semiclerical appearance. His face was long
and somewhat pinched, his chin and upper lip were shaven, and his snowwhite,
closecropped whiskers ran in two straight lines from his jaw up to level with
his piercing, hawklike eyes. He would probably have been about seventyfive
years of age, but he did not carry it well.
In a low, monotonous voice he bade me welcome, and pointed to a chair, himself
remaining standing.
"My servant tells me you say your name is Hatteras?" he began.
"That is so," I replied. "My father was James Dymoke Hatteras."
He looked at me very sternly for almost a minute, not for a second betraying
the slightest sign of surprise.
Then putting his hands together, finger tip to finger tip, as I discovered
later was his invariable habit while thinking, he said solemnly:
A BID FOR FORTUNE OR DR. NIKOLA'S VENDETTA
A BID FOR FORTUNE OR DR. NIKOLA'S VENDETTA
29
"James was my younger brother. He misconducted himself gravely in England and
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
was sent abroad. After a brief career of spendthrift extravagance in
Australia, we never heard of him again. You may be his son, but then, on the
other hand, of course, you may not. I have no means of judging."
"I give you my word," I answered, a little nettled by his speech and the
insinuation contained in it; "but if you want further proof, I've got a Latin
book in my portmanteau with my father's name upon the flyleaf, and an
inscription in his own writing setting forth that it was given by him to me."
"A Catullus?"
"Exactly! a Catullus."
"Then I'll have to trouble you to return it to me at your earliest
convenience. The book is my property: I paid eighteenpence for it about eleven
o'clock a.m. on the 3rd of July, 1833, in the shop of John Burns, Fleet
Street, London. My brother took it from me a week later, and I have not been
able to afford myself another copy since."
"You admit then that the book is evidence of my father's identity?"
"I admit nothing. What do you want with me? What do you come here for? You
must see for yourself that I
am too poor to be of any service to you, and I have long since lost any public
interest I may once have possessed."
"I want neither one nor the other. I am home from Australia on a trip, and I
have a sufficient competence to render me independent of anyone."
"Ah! That puts a different complexion on the matter. You say you hail from
Australia? And what may you have been doing there?"
"Goldmining pearling trading!"
He came a step closer, and as he did so I noticed that his face had assumed a
look of indescribable cunning that was evidently intended to be of an
ingratiating nature. He spoke in little jerks, pressing his fingers together
between each sentence.
"Goldmining! Ah! And pearling! Well, well! And I suppose you have been
fortunate in your ventures?"
"Very!" I replied, having by this time determined on my line of action. "I
daresay my cheque for ten thousand pounds would not be dishonoured by the Bank
of England."
"Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand pounds! Dear me, dear me!" He shuffled up
and down the dingy room, all the time looking at me out of the corners of his
eyes, as if to make sure that I was telling him the truth.
"Come, come, uncle," I said, resolving to bring him to his bearings without
further waste of time. "This is not a very genial welcome to the son of a
longlost brother!"
"Well, well, you mustn't expect too much, my boy! You see for yourself the
position I'm in. The old place is shut up, going to rack and ruin. Poverty is
staring me in the face; I am cheated by everybody. Robbed right and left, not
knowing which way to turn. But I'll not be put upon. They may call me what
they please, but they can't get blood out of a stone. Can they? Answer me
that, now!"
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