The Unknown Mr. Brown

CHAPTER ONE

IT had seemed a long time to the impatient schoolgirl waiting in the outer office of Messrs. Chappie, Chappie & Ponsonby’s city premises on the occasion of that first extraordinary interview before the elderly clerk ushered her into the presence of the senior partner.

“I’m Victoria Mary Hayes,” she had announced confidingly almost before the door had closed behind her. “Are
you
Mr. Brown?”

The benevolent-looking old gentleman who was rising to greet her paused half-way and sat down again, his deceptive air of bonhomie momentarily vanishing behind an expression of prim disapproval.

“Certainly not,” he replied, sounding faintly shocked. “And I might remind you, young lady, that the identity of your—er—benefactor is no concern of yours. You are very unlikely to meet.”

“Oh!” She sounded both disappointed and justly reproved, but the next minute had returned to the attack with, he thought, a most improper want of respect. “But it sounds so unlikely. Complete strangers don’t adopt you out of the blue, and if they did they would surely want to have a look at you first—not buying a pig in a poke, if you see what I mean.”

“Mr. Brown has
not
adopted you, as we’ve been at some pains to point out in our correspondence, the lawyer retorted a little sharply. “As to having a look at you, as you rather baldly put it, I have already explained that he saw you in court and for reasons best known to himself decided on this rather unusual course of action. Since he has followed the case he is quite aware of your history. Whether he is—er—buying a pig in a poke will be up to you,” he added with a somewhat wintry smile. “It would seem that, unlike counsel for the prosecution, he was—er—not unmoved by your evidence.”

“Counsel for the prosecution was too busy having a ball at my expense to worry about my feelings. He got a kick out of every minute of it,” she retorted with some venom, and he frowned.

“My dear child! Robert Farmer is too able and too experienced in cross-examination to—er—get a kick out of making mincemeat of a schoolgirl,” he said with some sharpness. “In my opinion, you should never have been called in the first place, and had Farmer been defending he would not have made that mistake. Your evidence did your father no good.”

“No,” she answered quietly, sounding suddenly grave and older than her fourteen years, “they told me afterwards I had let him down. You see, Mr. Chappie, I hadn’t understood that I must give prearranged answers even if they weren’t strictly true.”

“Yes, well ... your evidence was clearly ill-prepared, but it’s all over now and at least you will not have to suffer for your father’s mistakes,” the lawyer said rather testily, but he observed her uneasily across the imposing width of his desk. She sat there staring beyond him at the impressive rows of deed-boxes, looking as she had looked that day in the witness-box, withdrawn to the point of stupidity, with those wide blue eyes staring blankly over Counsel’s shoulder. She was too thin and her face was all angles with ears that were not only a peculiar shape but seemed to be much too large, and he wondered what young Farmer, who was said to have an eye for the ladies, had made of her when he rose to cross-examine. He had dealt with her gently enough to begin with, mindful of Mr. Justice Seldon’s well-known prejudices in the matter of children giving evidence, but she had proved a stubborn and argumentative witness and Farmer could hardly be blamed for a little rough handling towards the end.

It had been an unsavoury case altogether, Mr. Chappie reflected distastefully, uncovering shady financial transactions which had put several small firms out of business. Grahame Hayes had been a dupe rather than a principal and might have got off lightly, but the defence had been mishandled and he made a bad impression in the box. The court had adjourned, leaving the judge’s summing up for the morrow. Bail having been granted upon a large security, Hayes had returned to his home but, unable to face a prison sentence, he had taken an overdose which, if unsatisfactory from the point of view of justice, at least saved the country expense, thought Mr. Chappie with his usual cynicism.

It had been tough on the girl of course. The mother had been dead for some years and there were no relations to offer a home or financial security. The expensive education her father had planned for her would certainly have come to nothing but for the whim of an eccentric client with more money than sense and a taste for playing providence, thought Mr. Chappie.

“Well now,” he said briskly, “returning to Mr. Brown ... have you quite understood this situation?”

“Understood what?” she asked vaguely.

“The arrangements that have been made for your future,” the lawyer replied impatiently. Really! The child could look almost half-witted at times with that wide, unblinking stare and the mousy hair dragged back from those prominent ears, giving her a skinned appearance.

“Oh, yes,” she answered with rather disconcerting composure. “A Trust has been formed which operates until I’m twenty-one. I’m to finish my education along the lines my father had laid down, spend the holidays at places appointed by Mr. Brown, apply to this office for money when necessary, send periodical reports of progress to Mr. Brown and be responsible to Mr. Brown for good behaviour. I suppose,” she added with a sudden grin, “there really
is
a Mr. Brown?”

“Oh, yes, my client exists and will expect a reckoning,” he assured her with a heavy attempt at roguishness, “so don’t run away with the idea that you can play ducks and drakes with his money, young lady.”

She gave him a long, considering look as she got up slowly, smoothing down her brief skirt with unchildlike carefulness, then she bestowed upon him that unexpected slow, rather beguiling smile which, he remembered, had momentarily halted Counsel in the early stages of his cross-examination.

“I think I’ve learnt my lesson regarding other people’s money, Mr. Chappie,” she said in a cool little voice and, for almost the first time in his professional career, he found himself put out of countenance. He did not like the girl, he decided uncomfortably, and understood very well what had prompted Robert Farmer’s subsequent harshness.

“My dear child, I had no intention—I was merely using a colloquialism—the sort of—er—avuncular jest not intended to be taken seriously,” he said, rather red in the face, heaving his corpulent figure out of his chair with some effort.

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Chappie. No hard feelings,” she told him kindly, then suddenly reverted to her proper age. “Mr. Brown must be stinking rich—stinking rich and slightly bats, wouldn’t you say?” she observed. “That isn’t his real name, of course, is it?”

“It’s the name my client chooses to be known by. As to your other assumption, had I observed any sign of—er—derangement, I would scarcely have been a party to such an undertaking,” he replied rather pompously.

“No, I suppose not. Still, you must admit it all sounds a bit cock-eyed—unless, of course, he had something to do with my father’s trouble and is salving his conscience. Is he—salving his conscience, I mean?”

Mr. Chappie’s countenance assumed a purple tinge. “That is a most improper suggestion,” he snapped severely.

“Improper? I don’t understand. I wasn’t suggesting that the old gentleman was indecent, or anything.”

He shot her a suspicious glance, resolving firmly to delegate future interviews to one of his partners, but she was gazing at him with what appeared to be honest perplexity and he cleared his throat gustily.

“Merely a legal use of the term and not intended to imply—er—indecency—however, you will be well advised to check your quite natural curiosity,” he told her, his hand already on the bell which would summon his clerk. “Your—er—benefactor has particularly stressed that he wishes to remain anonymous, neither does he desire any personal contact with you. Just think of him as someone in the background holding a watching brief for you which, if I may say so without offence, is more than you could rightly expect in the—er—circumstances.”

“Oh, I entirely agree with you,” she said obligingly, edging towards the door. “If it wasn’t for this mysterious Mr. Brown I would be begging my bread in the streets like the unfortunate heroines in our cook’s favourite romances.” She paused at the door as a fresh thought struck her. “Perhaps I remind him of someone he has lost, which of course would explain things—a much loved only daughter?”

“As far as I am aware, Mr. Brown is unmarried,” he replied somewhat stiffly, then aware that even this much in
f
ormation was a breach of professional etiquette, he pressed his bell with determined finality.

She looked surprised but made no comment, then apologising politely for taking up so much of his valuable time, departed abruptly without waiting for the clerk to show her out.

Now, four years later, Victoria found herself travelling to the same destination on the top of a city-bound bus, summoned at last to a meeting with Mr. Brown. He had assumed so many different disguises through the imaginative years of her schooldays that she told herself the reality was sure to be a let-down. Whether he was a crusty recluse who had been crossed in love, or a reformed criminal expiating his past through charity, or just a rich eccentric with a taste for power, she owed him the security which her father had planned for her and she hoped he would not regret his munificence when they met.

She had been accustomed for so long to her situation that she had ceased to regard it as strange. She had, as required, written regularly to Mr. Brown, stiff, impersonal little letters, dutifully reporting progress in her studies and receiving in due course brief acknowledgements from Chappie, Chappie & Ponsonby. She wished that Mr. Brown would sometimes reply in person, but he never did, neither despite vague promises, had he ever attended prize-givings or end-of-term theatricals, occasions when the presence of parents and guardians afforded much consequence to the participants.

The London house had been sold to meet the demands of creditors, but the week-end bungalow in the country had been retained for the period of her schooling, and here the holidays had been spent with Dora Scott, her father’s one-time secretary who had dealt with his private affairs and run his house ever since he had become a widower.

Upon leaving school Victoria had been against the doubtful advantages of being finished abroad.

“It’s silly these days when most girls are finding jobs and saving their parents unnecessary expense,” she had told Scottie, “and specially so in my case. When the Trust is finally wound up, I’ll presumably have to earn a living, so why waste time and Mr. Brown’s money playing at being a future deb? It’s time I met this Mr. Brown and put him wise. Who do you think he is, Scottie? One of Father’s less respectable cronies doing penance?”

“I’ve no idea. Your father had many contacts in all walks of life. Any one of them might conceivably be repaying a favour and, whoever he may be, it doesn’t do to look a gift horse in the mouth. At least he’s giving you the start in life your father had planned for you.”

“Well, things have changed since then and I’ve done with school now. Far better to send me to some training college where I can learn something useful instead of wasting time being groomed for social occasions which I’m never likely to grace.”

“Well, why don’t you write and suggest it?” Scottie had said to end the argument, and Victoria had. She not only firmly stated her views, but intimated that it was time she was summoned to a personal interview with Mr. Brown. And summoned she had been to attend the offices of Messrs. Chappie, Chappie & Ponsonby at eleven-thirty on the following Friday when her remarks would be given attention. So here she was, riding on the top of a bus, her anticipation mounting with every mile, determined to like and even to love Mr. Brown in whatever guise he should present himself.

The bus halted to set down passengers outside the Law Courts and she watched the gowned and bewigged figures hurrying to and fro amongst the loitering sightseers, sharply reminded of her own unhappy experience. She could look back now on that brief interruption in the ordered pattern of her schooldays with discomfort rather than sorrow, but as she gazed down upon those forbidding halls of justice, certain faces rose clearly in her mind as if she had seen them yesterday. Her father, pale and uneasy, sporting the inevitable carnation in his buttonhole and refusing to catch her eye, the judge heavily aloof on his bench, looking rather like a sad, elderly bloodhound whose drooping ears had turned grey, and the thin-lipped, ironic face of the prosecuting counsel as he stripped her of dignity and assurance. She had little recollection of Counsel for the Defence who had taken her so gently through the preliminaries, but Robert Farmer’s face with its fastidious, chiselled look, cold and colourless as the dusty grey of his wig, she would remember always with that same hurt resentment she had felt as a child. Until the advent of Mr. Brown had directed her fancies into other channels it had afforded her pleasure to invent crushing defeats for Mr. Farmer, even bodily harm, and she had been delighted to learn from the gossip columns in the Sunday press that his engagement to some well-known socialite had been broken off on the very eve of marriage. It had been distinctly soothing to the spirit to picture Mr. Farmer suffering the pangs of unrequited love, and although by now he had probably married someone else, Victoria still liked to imagine that things had turned out badly for him.