Robert McIntyre’s face must
have expressed the utter astonishment which filled
his mind at this most unlooked-for announcement.
For a moment he thought that his companion must be
joking, but the ease and assurance with which he lounged
up the steps, and the deep respect with which a richly-clad
functionary in the hall swung open the door to admit
him, showed that he spoke in sober earnest. Raffles
Haw glanced back, and seeing the look of absolute
amazement upon the young artist’s features,
he chuckled quietly to himself.
“You will forgive me, won’t
you, for not disclosing my identity?” he said,
laying his hand with a friendly gesture upon the other’s
sleeve. “Had you known me you would have
spoken less freely, and I should not have had the
opportunity of learning your true worth. For example,
you might hardly have been so frank upon the matter
of wealth had you known that you were speaking to
the master of the Hall.”
“I don’t think that I
was ever so astonished in my life,” gasped Robert.
“Naturally you are. How
could you take me for anything but a workman?
So I am. Chemistry is one of my hobbies, and I
spend hours a day in my laboratory yonder. I
have only just struck work, and as I had inhaled some
not-over-pleasant gases, I thought that a turn down
the road and a whiff of tobacco might do me good.
That was how I came to meet you, and my toilet, I
fear, corresponded only too well with my smoke-grimed
face. But I rather fancy I know you by repute.
Your name is Robert McIntyre, is it not?”
“Yes, though I cannot imagine how you knew.”
“Well, I naturally took some
little trouble to learn something of my neighbours.
I had heard that there was an artist of that name,
and I presume that artists are not very numerous in
Tamfield. But how do you like the design?
I hope it does not offend your trained taste.”
“Indeed, it is wonderful marvellous!
You must yourself have an extraordinary eye for effect.”
“Oh, I have no taste at all;
not the slightest. I cannot tell good from bad.
There never was such a complete Philistine. But
I had the best man in London down, and another fellow
from Vienna. They fixed it up between them.”
They had been standing just within
the folding doors upon a huge mat of bison skins.
In front of them lay a great square court, paved with
many-coloured marbles laid out in a labyrinth of arabesque
design. In the centre a high fountain of carved
jade shot five thin feathers of spray into the air,
four of which curved towards each corner of the court
to descend into broad marble basins, while the fifth
mounted straight up to an immense height, and then
tinkled back into the central reservoir. On either
side of the court a tall, graceful palm-tree shot
up its slender stem to break into a crown of drooping
green leaves some fifty feet above their heads.
All round were a series of Moorish arches, in jade
and serpentine marble, with heavy curtains of the deepest
purple to cover the doors which lay between them.
In front, to right and to left, a broad staircase
of marble, carpeted with rich thick Smyrna rug work,
led upwards to the upper storeys, which were arranged
around the central court. The temperature within
was warm and yet fresh, like the air of an English
May.
“It’s taken from the Alhambra,”
said Raffles Haw. “The palm-trees are pretty.
They strike right through the building into the ground
beneath, and their roots are all girt round with hot-water
pipes. They seem to thrive very well.”
“What beautifully delicate brass-work!”
cried Robert, looking up with admiring eyes at the
bright and infinitely fragile metal trellis screens
which adorned the spaces between the Moorish arches.
“It is rather neat. But
it is not brass-work. Brass is not tough enough
to allow them to work it to that degree of fineness.
It is gold. But just come this way with me.
You won’t mind waiting while I remove this smoke?”
He led the way to a door upon the
left side of the court, which, to Robert’s surprise,
swung slowly open as they approached it. “That
is a little improvement which I have adopted,”
remarked the master of the house. “As you
go up to a door your weight upon the planks releases
a spring which causes the hinges to revolve.
Pray step in. This is my own little sanctum,
and furnished after my own heart.”
If Robert expected to see some fresh
exhibition of wealth and luxury he was woefully disappointed,
for he found himself in a large but bare room, with
a little iron truckle-bed in one corner, a few scattered
wooden chairs, a dingy carpet, and a large table heaped
with books, bottles, papers, and all the other debris
which collect around a busy and untidy man. Motioning
his visitor into a chair, Raffles Haw pulled off his
coat, and, turning up the sleeves of his coarse flannel
shirt, he began to plunge and scrub in the warm water
which flowed from a tap in the wall.
“You see how simple my own tastes
are,” he remarked, as he mopped his dripping
face and hair with the towel. “This is the
only room in my great house where I find myself in
a congenial atmosphere. It is homely to me.
I can read here and smoke my pipe in peace. Anything
like luxury is abhorrent to me.”
“Really, I should not have though it,”
observed Robert.
“It is a fact, I assure you.
You see, even with your views as to the worthlessness
of wealth, views which, I am sure, are very sensible
and much to your credit, you must allow that if a
man should happen to be the possessor of vast well,
let us say of considerable sums of money,
it is his duty to get that money into circulation,
so that the community may be the better for it.
There is the secret of my fine feathers. I have
to exert all my ingenuity in order to spend my income,
and yet keep the money in legitimate channels.
For example, it is very easy to give money away, and
no doubt I could dispose of my surplus, or part of
my surplus, in that fashion, but I have no wish to
pauperise anyone, or to do mischief by indiscriminate
charity. I must exact some sort of money’s
worth for all the money which I lay out You see my
point, don’t you?”
“Entirely; though really it
is something novel to hear a man complain of the difficulty
of spending his income.”
“I assure you that it is a very
serious difficulty with me. But I have hit upon
some plans some very pretty plans.
Will you wash your hands? Well, then, perhaps
you would care to have a look round. Just come
into this corner of the room, and sit upon this chair.
So. Now I will sit upon this one, and we are
ready to start.”
The angle of the chamber in which
they sat was painted for about six feet in each direction
of a dark chocolate-brown, and was furnished with
two red plush seats protruding from the walls, and
in striking contrast with the simplicity of the rest
of the apartment.
“This,” remarked Raffles
Haw, “is a lift, though it is so closely joined
to the rest of the room that without the change in
colour it might puzzle you to find the division.
It is made to run either horizontally or vertically.
This line of knobs represents the various rooms.
You can see ‘Dining,’ ‘Smoking,’
‘Billiard,’ ‘Library’ and so
on, upon them. I will show you the upward action.
I press this one with ‘Kitchen’ upon it.”
There was a sense of motion, a very
slight jar, and Robert, without moving from his seat,
was conscious that the room had vanished, and that
a large arched oaken door stood in the place which
it had occupied.
“That is the kitchen door,”
said Raffles Haw. “I have my kitchen at
the top of the house. I cannot tolerate the smell
of cooking. We have come up eighty feet in a
very few seconds. Now I press again and here we
are in my room once more.”
Robert McIntyre stared about him in astonishment.
“The wonders of science are greater than those
of magic,” he remarked.
“Yes, it is a pretty little
mechanism. Now we try the horizontal. I
press the ‘Dining’ knob and here we are,
you see. Step towards the door, and you will
find it open in front of you.”
Robert did as he was bid, and found
himself with his companion in a large and lofty room,
while the lift, the instant that it was freed from
their weight, flashed back to its original position.
With his feet sinking into the soft rich carpet, as
though he were ankle-deep in some mossy bank, he stared
about him at the great pictures which lined the walls.
“Surely, surely, I see Raphael’s
touch there,” he cried, pointing up at the one
which faced him.
“Yes, it is a Raphael, and I
believe one of his best. I had a very exciting
bid for it with the French Government. They wanted
it for the Louvre, but of course at an auction the
longest purse must win.”
“And this ‘Arrest of Catiline’
must be a Rubens. One cannot mistake his splendid
men and his infamous women.”
“Yes, it is a Rubens. The
other two are a Velasquez and a Teniers, fair specimens
of the Spanish and of the Dutch schools. I have
only old masters here. The moderns are in the
billiard-room. The furniture here is a little
curious. In fact, I fancy that it is unique.
It is made of ebony and narwhals’ horns.
You see that the legs of everything are of spiral
ivory, both the table and the chairs. It cost
the upholsterer some little pains, for the supply
of these things is a strictly limited one. Curiously
enough, the Chinese Emperor had given a large order
for narwhals’ horns to repair some ancient pagoda,
which was fenced in with them, but I outbid him in
the market, and his celestial highness has had to
wait. There is a lift here in the corner, but
we do not need it. Pray step through this door.
This is the billiard-room,” he continued as they
advanced into the adjoining room. “You see
I have a few recent pictures of merit upon the walls.
Here is a Corot, two Meissoniers, a Bouguereau, a
Millais, an Orchardson, and two Alma-Tademas.
It seems to me to be a pity to hang pictures over
these walls of carved oak. Look at those birds
hopping and singing in the branches. They really
seem to move and twitter, don’t they?”
“They are perfect. I never
saw such exquisite work. But why do you call
it a billiard-room, Mr. Haw? I do not see any
board.”
“Oh, a board is such a clumsy
uncompromising piece of furniture. It is always
in the way unless you actually need to use it.
In this case the board is covered by that square of
polished maple which you see let into the floor.
Now I put my foot upon this motor. You see!”
As he spoke, the central portion of the flooring flew
up, and a most beautiful tortoise-shell-plated billiard-table
rose up to its proper position. He pressed a
second spring, and a bagatelle-table appeared in the
same fashion. “You may have card-tables
or what you will by setting the levers in motion,”
he remarked. “But all this is very trifling.
Perhaps we may find something in the museum which
may be of more interest to you.”
He led the way into another chamber,
which was furnished in antique style, with hangings
of the rarest and richest tapestry. The floor
was a mosaic of coloured marbles, scattered over with
mats of costly fur. There was little furniture,
but a number of Louis Quatorze cabinets
of ebony and silver with delicately-painted plaques
were ranged round the apartment.
“It is perhaps hardly fair to
dignify it by the name of a museum,” said Raffles
Haw. “It consists merely of a few elegant
trifles which I have picked up here and there.
Gems are my strongest point. I fancy that there,
perhaps, I might challenge comparison with any private
collector in the world. I lock them up, for even
the best servants may be tempted.”
He took a silver key from his watch
chain, and began to unlock and draw out the drawers.
A cry of wonder and of admiration burst from Robert
McIntyre, as his eyes rested upon case after case filled
with the most magnificent stones. The deep still
red of the rubies, the clear scintillating green of
the emeralds, the hard glitter of the diamonds, the
many shifting shades of béryls, of amethysts,
of onyxes, of cats’-eyes, of opals, of agates,
of cornelians seemed to fill the whole chamber with
a vague twinkling, many-coloured light. Long slabs
of the beautiful blue lapis lazuli, magnificent bloodstones,
specimens of pink and red and white coral, long strings
of lustrous pearls, all these were tossed out by their
owner as a careless schoolboy might pour marbles from
his bag.
“This isn’t bad,”
he said, holding up a great glowing yellow mass as
large as his own head. “It is really a very
fine piece of amber. It was forwarded to me by
my agent at the Baltic. Twenty-eight pounds,
it weighs. I never heard of so fine a one.
I have no very large brilliants there were
no very large ones in the market but my
average is good. Pretty toys, are they not?”
He picked up a double handful of emeralds from a drawer,
and then let them trickle slowly back into the heap.
“Good heavens!” cried
Robert, as he gazed from case to case. “It
is an immense fortune in itself. Surely a hundred
thousand pounds would hardly buy so splendid a collection.”
“I don’t think that you
would do for a valuer of precious stones,” said
Raffles Haw, laughing. “Why, the contents
of that one little drawer of brilliants could not
be bought for the sum which you name. I have a
memo. here of what I have expended up to date on my
collection, though I have agents at work who will
probably make very considerable additions to it within
the next few weeks. As matters stand, however,
I have spent let me see-pearls one forty
thousand; emeralds, seven fifty; rubies, eight forty;
brilliants, nine twenty; onyxes I have several
very nice onyxes-two thirty. Other gems, carbuncles,
agates hum! Yes, it figures out at
just over four million seven hundred and forty thousand.
I dare say that we may say five millions, for I have
not counted the odd money.”
“Good gracious!” cried
the young artist, with staring eyes.
“I have a certain feeling of
duty in the matter. You see the cutting, polishing,
and general sale of stones is one of those industries
which is entirely dependent upon wealth. If we
do not support it, it must languish, which means misfortune
to a considerable number of people. The same
applies to the gold filigree work which you noticed
in the court. Wealth has its responsibilities,
and the encouragement of these handicrafts are among
the most obvious of them. Here is a nice ruby.
It is Burmese, and the fifth largest in existence.
I am inclined to think that if it were uncut it would
be the second, but of course cutting takes away a
great deal.” He held up the blazing red
stone, about the size of a chestnut, between his finger
and thumb for a moment, and then threw it carelessly
back into its drawer. “Come into the smoking-room,”
he said; “you will need some little refreshment,
for they say that sight-seeing is the most exhausting
occupation in the world.”