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Title: Sam in the Suburbs
Author: Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Sam in the Suburbs" ***
SAM IN THE SUBURBS
P. G. WODEHOUSE
By P. G. WODEHOUSE
SAM IN THE SUBURBS
BILL THE CONQUEROR
LEAVE IT TO PSMITH
GOLF WITHOUT TEARS
JEEVES
MOSTLY SALLY
THREE MEN AND A MAID
INDISCRETIONS OF ARCHIE
THE LITTLE WARRIOR
A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
SAM IN
THE SUBURBS
BY
P. G. WODEHOUSE
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1925
BY P. G. WODEHOUSE
[Illustration]
THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1925.
SAM IN THE SUBURBS
--Q--
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SAM STARTS ON A JOURNEY 9
II. KAY OF VALLEY FIELDS 24
III. SAILORS DON’T CARE 44
IV. SCENE OUTSIDE FASHIONABLE NIGHT-CLUB 53
V. PAINFUL AFFAIR AT A COFFEE-STALL 61
VI. A FRIEND IN NEED 65
VII. SAM AT SAN RAFAEL 71
VIII. SAM AT MON REPOS 78
IX. BREAKFAST FOR ONE 82
X. SAM FINDS A PHOTOGRAPH 85
XI. SAM BECOMES A HOUSEHOLDER 90
XII. SAM IS MUCH TOO SUDDEN 97
XIII. INTRODUCING A SYNDICATE 127
XIV. THE CHIRRUP 144
XV. VISITORS AT MON REPOS 152
XVI. ASTONISHING STATEMENT OF HASH TODHUNTER 161
XVII. ACTIVITIES OF THE DOG AMY 179
XVIII. DISCUSSION AT A LUNCHEON TABLE 196
XIX. LORD TILBURY ENGAGES AN ALLY 210
XX. TROUBLE IN THE SYNDICATE 224
XXI. AUNT YSOBEL POINTS THE WAY 232
XXII. STORMY TIMES AT MON REPOS 250
XXIII. SOAPY MOLLOY’S BUSY AFTERNOON 267
XXIV. MAINLY ABOUT TROUSERS 288
XXV. SAM HEARS BAD NEWS 302
XXVI. SAM HEARS GOOD NEWS 313
XXVII. SPIRITED BEHAVIOUR OF MR. BRADDOCK 322
XXVIII. THE MISSING MILLIONS 329
XXIX. MR. CORNELIUS READS HIS HISTORY 336
SAM IN THE SUBURBS
CHAPTER ONE
SAM STARTS ON A JOURNEY
All day long, New York, stewing in the rays of a late August sun, had
been growing warmer and warmer; until now, at three o’clock in the
afternoon, its inhabitants, with the exception of a little group
gathered together on the tenth floor of the Wilmot Building on Upper
Broadway, had divided themselves by a sort of natural cleavage into two
main bodies--the one crawling about and asking those they met if this
was hot enough for them, the other maintaining that what they minded was
not so much the heat as the humidity.
The reason for the activity prevailing on the tenth floor of the Wilmot
was that a sporting event of the first magnitude was being pulled off
there--Spike Murphy, of the John B. Pynsent Import and Export Company,
being in the act of contesting the final of the Office Boys’
High-Kicking Championship against a willowy youth from the Consolidated
Eyebrow Tweezer and Nail File Corporation. The affair was taking place
on the premises of a few stenographers, chewing gum; some male wage
slaves in shirt sleeves; and Mr. John B. Pynsent’s nephew, Samuel
Shotter, a young man of agreeable features, who was acting as referee.
In addition to being referee, Sam Shotter was also the patron and
promoter of the tourney; the man but for whose vision and enterprise a
wealth of young talent would have lain undeveloped, thereby jeopardising
America’s chances should an event of this kind ever be added to the
program of the Olympic Games. It was he who, wandering about the office
in a restless search for methods of sweetening an uncongenial round of
toil, had come upon Master Murphy practicing kicks against the wall of a
remote corridor and had encouraged him to kick higher. It was he who had
arranged matches with representatives of other firms throughout the
building. And it was he who out of his own pocket had provided the purse
which, as the lad’s foot crashed against the plaster a full inch above
his rival’s best effort, he now handed to Spike together with a few
well-chosen words.
“Murphy,” said Sam, “is the winner. After a contest conducted throughout
in accordance with the best traditions of American high kicking, he has
upheld the honour of the John B. Pynsent Ex and Imp and retained his
title. In the absence of the boss, therefore, who has unfortunately been
called away to Philadelphia and so is unable to preside at this meeting,
I take much pleasure in presenting him with the guerdon of victory, this
handsome dollar bill. Take it, Spike, and in after years, when you are a
grey-haired alderman or something, look back to this moment and say to
yourself----”
Sam stopped, a little hurt. He thought he had been speaking rather well,
yet already his audience was walking out on him. Spike Murphy, indeed,
was running.
“Say to yourself----”
“When you are at leisure, Samuel,” observed a voice behind him, “I
should be glad of a word with you in my office.”
Sam turned.
“Oh, hullo, uncle,” he said.
He coughed; Mr. Pynsent coughed.
“I thought you had gone to Philadelphia,” said Sam.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Pynsent.
He made no further remark, but proceeded sedately to his room, from
which he emerged again a moment later with a patient look of inquiry on
his face.
“Come here, Sam,” he said. “Who,” he asked, pointing, “is this?”
Sam peeped through the doorway and perceived, tilted back in a swivel
chair, a long, lean man of repellent aspect. His large feet rested
comfortably on the desk, his head hung sideways and his mouth was open.
From his mouth, which was of generous proportions, there came a gurgling
snore.
“Who,” repeated Mr. Pynsent, “is this gentleman?”
Sam could not help admiring his uncle’s unerring instinct--that amazing
intuition which had led him straight to the realisation that if an
uninvited stranger was slumbering in his pet chair, the responsibility
must of necessity be his nephew Samuel’s.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know he was there.”
“A friend of yours?”
“It’s Hash.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Hash Todhunter, you know, the cook of the _Araminta_. You remember I
took a trip a year ago on a tramp steamer? This fellow was the cook. I
met him on Broadway this afternoon and gave him lunch. I brought him
back here because he wanted to see the place where I work.”
“Work?” said Mr. Pynsent, puzzled.
“I had no notion he had strayed into your room.”
Sam spoke apologetically, but he would have liked to point out that the
blame for all these embarrassing occurrences was really Mr. Pynsent’s.
If a man creates the impression that he is going to Philadelphia and
then does not go, he has only himself to thank for any complications
that may ensue. However, this was a technicality with which he did not
bother his uncle.
“Shall I wake him?”
“If you would be so good. And having done so, take him away and store
him somewhere and then come back. I have much to say to you.”
Shaken by a vigorous hand, the sleeper opened his eyes. Hauled to his
feet, he permitted himself to be led, still in a trancelike condition,
out of the room and down the passage to the cubbyhole where Sam
performed his daily duties. Here, sinking into a chair, he fell asleep
again; and Sam left him and went back to his uncle. Mr. Pynsent was
staring thoughtfully out of the window as he entered.
“Sit down, Sam,” he said.
Sam sat down.
“I’m sorry about all that, uncle.”
“All what?”
“All that business that was going on when you came in.”
“Ah, yes. What was it, by the way?”
“Spike Murphy was seeing if he could kick higher than a kid from a firm
downstairs.”
“And did he?”
“Yes.”
“Good boy,” said Mr. Pynsent approvingly. “You arranged the competition,
no doubt?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”
“You would. You have been in my employment,” proceeded Mr. Pynsent
evenly, “three months. In that time you have succeeded in thoroughly
demoralising the finest office force in New York.”
“Oh, uncle!” said Sam reproachfully.
“Thoroughly,” repeated Mr. Pynsent. “The office boys call you by your
Christian name.”
“They will do it,” sighed Sam. “I clump their heads, but the habit
persists.”
“Last Wednesday I observed you kissing my stenographer.”
“The poor little thing had toothache.”
“Also, Mr. Ellaby informs me that your work is a disgrace to the firm.”
There was a pause. “The English public school is the curse of the age,”
said Mr. Pynsent dreamily.
To a stranger the remark might have sounded irrelevant, but Sam
understood the import. He appreciated it for what it was--a nasty crack.
“Did they teach you anything at Wrykyn, Sam, except football?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What?”
“Oh, lots of things.”
“I have seen no evidence of it. Why your mother sent you to that place,
instead of to some good business college, I cannot imagine.”
“Well, you see, father had been there----”
Sam broke off. Mr. Pynsent, he was aware, had not been fond of the late
Anthony Shotter--considering, and possibly correctly, that his dead
sister had, in marrying that amiable but erratic person, been guilty of
the crowning folly of a frivolous and fluffy-headed life.
“A strong recommendation,” said Mr. Pynsent dryly.
Sam had nothing to say to this.
“You are very like your father in a great many ways,” said Mr. Pynsent.
Sam let this one go by too. They were coming off the bat a bit fast this
morning, but there was nothing to be done about it.
“And yet I am fond of you, Sam,” resumed Mr. Pynsent after a brief
pause.
This was more the stuff.
“And I am fond of you, uncle,” said Sam in a hearty voice. “When I think
of all you have done for me----”
“But,” went on Mr. Pynsent, “I feel that I shall like you even better
three thousand miles away from the offices of the Pynsent Export and
Import Company. We are parting, Sam--and immediately.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I, on the other hand,” said Mr. Pynsent, “am glad.”
There was a silence. Sam, feeling that the interview, having reached
this point, might be considered over, got up.
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Pynsent. “I want to tell you what plans I have
made for your future.”
Sam was agreeably surprised. He had not supposed that his future would
be of interest to Mr. Pynsent.
“Have you made plans?”
“Yes; everything is settled.”
“This is fine, uncle,” said Sam cordially. “I thought you were going to
drive me out into the snow.”
“Do you remember meeting an Englishman named Lord Tilbury at dinner at
my house?”
Sam did indeed. His Lordship had got him wedged into a corner after the
meal and had talked without a pause for more than half an hour.
“He is the proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company, a concern which
produces a great many daily and weekly papers in London.”
Sam was aware of this. Lord Tilbury’s conversation had been almost
entirely autobiographical.
“Well, he is returning to England on Saturday on the _Mauretania_, and
you are going with him.”
“Eh?”
“He has offered to employ you in his business.”
“But I don’t know anything about newspaper work.”
“You don’t know anything about anything,” Mr. Pynsent pointed out
gently. “It is the effect of your English public-school education.
However, you certainly cannot be a greater failure with Lord Tilbury
than you have been with me. That wastepaper basket over there has been
in my office only four days, and already it knows more about the export
and import business than you would learn if you stayed here fifty
years.”
Sam made plaintive noises. Fifty years, he considered, was an
overstatement.
“I concealed nothing of this from Lord Tilbury, but nevertheless he
insists on engaging you.”
“Odd,” said Sam. He could not help feeling a little flattered at this
intense desire for his services on the part of a man who had met him
only once. Lord Tilbury might be a bore, but there was no getting away
from the fact that he had that gift without which no one can amass a
large fortune--that strange, almost uncanny gift for spotting the good
man when he saw him.
“Not at all odd,” said Mr. Pynsent. “He and I are in the middle of a
business deal. He is trying to persuade me to do something which at
present I have not made up my mind to do. He thinks that by taking you
off my hands he will put me under an obligation. So he will.”
“Uncle,” said Sam impressively, “I will make good.”
“You’d better,” returned Mr. Pynsent, unmelted. “It is your last
chance. There is no earthly reason why I should go on supporting you for
the rest of your life, and I do not intend to do it. If you make a mess
of things at Tilbury House, don’t think that you can come running back
to me. There will be no fatted calf. Remember that.”
“I will, uncle, I will. But don’t worry. Something tells me I am going
to be good. I shall like going to England.”
“I am glad to hear that. Well, that is all. Good afternoon.”
“You know, it’s rather strange that you should be sending me over
there,” said Sam meditatively.
“I don’t think so. I am glad to have the chance.”
“What I mean is--do you believe in palmists?”
“I do not. Good-bye.”
“Because a palmist told me----”
“The door,” said Mr. Pynsent, “is one of those which close automatically
when the handle is released.”
Having tested this statement and proved it correct, Sam went back to his
own quarters, where he found Mr. Clarence (Hash) Todhunter, the popular
and energetic chef of the tramp steamer _Araminta_, awake and smoking a
short pipe.
“Who was the old boy?” inquired Mr. Todhunter.
“That was my uncle, the head of the firm.”
“Did I go to sleep in his room?”
“You did.”
“I’m sorry about that, Sam,” said Hash, with manly regret. “I had a late
night last night.”
He yawned spaciously. Hash Todhunter was a lean, stringy man in the
early thirties, with a high forehead and a ruminative eye. Irritated
messmates who had played poker with him had sometimes compared this eye
to that of a perishing fish; but to the critic whose judgment was not
biased and inflamed by recent pecuniary losses it would have been more
suggestive of a parrot which has looked on life and found it full of
disillusionment. There was a strong pessimistic streak in Hash, and in
his cups he was accustomed to hint darkly that if everyone had their
rights he would have been in the direct line of succession to an
earldom. It was a long and involved story, casting great discredit on
all the parties concerned; but as he never told it twice in the same
way, little credence was accorded to it by a discriminating fo’c’sle.
For the rest, he cooked the best dry hash on the Western Ocean, but was
not proud.
“Hash,” said Sam, “I’m going over to England.”
“Me too. We sail Monday.”
“Do you, by Jove!” said Sam thoughtfully. “I’m supposed to be going on
the _Mauretania_ on Saturday, but I’ve half a mind to come with you
instead. I don’t like the idea of six days _tête-à-tête_ with Lord
Tilbury.”
“Who’s he?”
“The proprietor of the Mammoth Publishing Company, where I am going to
work.”
“Have you got the push here then?”
It piqued Sam a little that this untutored man should so readily have
divined the facts. He also considered that Hash had failed in tact. He
might at least have pretended that he supposed it to be a case of
handing in a resignation.
“Yes, you might perhaps put it that way.”
“Not because of me sittin’ in his chair?”
“No. There are, apparently, a number of reasons. Hash, it’s a curious
thing, my uncle taking it into his head to shoot me over to England like
this. The other day a palmist told me that I was shortly going to take a
long journey, at the end of which I should meet a fair girl.... Hash!”
“Ur?”
“I want to show you something.”
He fumbled in his pocket and produced a note-case. Having done this, he
paused. Then, seeming to overcome a momentary hesitation, he opened the
case and from it, with the delicacy of an Indian priest at a shrine
handling a precious relic, extracted a folded piece of paper.
A casual observer, deceived by a certain cheery irresponsibility that
marked his behaviour, might have set Sam Shotter down as one of those
essentially material young men in whose armour romance does not easily
find a chink. He would have erred in this assumption. For all that he
weighed a hundred and seventy pounds of bone and sinew and had when
amused--which was often--a laugh like that of the hyena in its native
jungle, there was sentiment in Sam. Otherwise this paper would scarcely
have been in his possession.
“But before showing it to you,” he said, eying Hash intently, “I would
like to ask you a question. Do you see anything funny, anything
laughable, anything at all ludicrous, in a fellow going for a fishing
trip to Canada and being stuck in a hut miles from anywhere with nothing
to read and nothing to listen to except the wild duck calling to its
mate and the nifties of a French-Canadian guide who couldn’t speak more
than three words of English----”
“No,” said Hash.
“I haven’t finished. Do you--to proceed--see anything absurd in the fact
that such a fellow, in such a situation, finding the photograph of a
beautiful girl tacked up on the wall of the hut by some previous visitor
and having nothing else to look at for five weeks, should have fallen in
love with this photograph? Think before you answer.”
“No,” said Hash, after consideration. He was not a man who readily
detected the humorous aspect of anything.
“That’s good,” said Sam. “And lucky for you. Because had you let one
snicker out of yourself--just one--I would have smitten you rather
forcibly on the beezer. Well, I did.”
“Did what?”
“Found this picture tacked up on the wall and fell in love with it.
Look!”
He unfolded the paper reverently. It now revealed itself as a portion of
a page torn from one of those illustrated journals which brighten the
middle of the Englishman’s week. Its sojourn on the wall of the fishing
hut had not improved it. It was faded and yellow, and over one corner a
dark stain had spread itself, seeming to indicate that some occupant of
the hut had at one time or another done a piece of careless carving.
Nevertheless, he gazed at it as a young knight might have gazed upon the
Holy Grail.
“Well?”
Hash surveyed the paper closely.
“That’s mutton gravy,” he said, pointing at the stain and forming a
professional man’s swift diagnosis. “Beef wouldn’t be so dark.”
Sam regarded him with a glance of concentrated loathing which would have
embarrassed a more sensitive man.
“I show you this lovely face, all aglow with youth and the joy of life,”
he cried, “and all that seems to interest you is that some foul vandal,
whose neck I should like to wring, has splashed his beastly dinner over
it. Heavens, man, look at that girl! Have you ever seen such a girl?”
“She’s not bad.”
“Not bad! Can’t you see she’s simply marvellous?”
The photograph did, indeed, to a great extent justify Sam’s enthusiasm.
It represented a girl in hunting costume, standing beside her horse. She
was a trim, boyish-looking girl of about eighteen, slightly above the
medium height; and she gazed out of the picture with clear, grave,
steady eyes. At the corner of her mouth there was a little thoughtful
droop. It was a pretty mouth; but Sam, who had made a study of the
picture and considered himself the world’s leading authority upon it,
was of opinion that it would look even prettier when smiling.
Under the photograph, in leaded capitals, ran the words:
A FAIR DAUGHTER OF NIMROD.
Beneath this poetical caption, it is to be presumed, there had
originally been more definite information as to the subject’s identity,
but the coarse hand which had wrenched the page from its setting had
unfortunately happened to tear off the remainder of the letterpress.
“Simply marvellous,” said Sam emotionally. “What’s that thing of
Tennyson’s about a little English rosebud, she?”
“Tennyson? There was a feller when I was on the _Sea Bird_, called
Pennyman----”
“Oh, shut up! Isn’t she a wonder, Hash! And what is more--fair, wouldn’t
you say?”
Hash scratched his chin. He was a man who liked to think things over.
“Or dark,” he said.
“Idiot! Don’t tell me those eyes aren’t blue.”
“Might be,” admitted Hash grudgingly.
“And that hair would be golden, or possibly a very light brown.”
“How’m I to know?”
“Hash,” said Sam, “the very first thing I do when I get to England is to
find out who that girl is.”
“Easy enough.” Hash pointed the stem of his pipe at the caption.
“Daughter of Nimrod. All you got to do is get a telephone directory and
look him up. It’ll give the address as well.”
“How do you think of these things?” said Sam admiringly. “The only
trouble is, suppose old man Nimrod lives in the country. He sounds like
a hunting man.”
“Ah!” said Hash. “There’s that, o’ course.”
“No, my best scheme will be to find out what paper this is torn out of,
and then search back through the files for the picture.”
“Maybe,” said Hash. He had plainly lost interest in the subject.
Sam was gazing dreamily at the picture.
“Do you see that little dimple just by the chin, Hash? My goodness, I’d
give something to see that girl smile!” He replaced the paper in his
note-case and sighed. “Love is a wonderful thing, Hash.”
Mr. Todhunter’s ample mouth curled sardonically.
“When you’ve seen as much of life as I have,” he replied, “you’d rather
have a cup of tea.”
CHAPTER TWO
KAY OF VALLEY FIELDS
The nameless individual who had torn from its setting the photograph
which had so excited the admiration of Sam Shotter had, as has been
already indicated, torn untidily. Had he exercised a little more care,
that lovelorn young man would have seen beneath the picture the
following legend:
MISS KAY DERRICK, DAUGHTER OF COL. EUSTACE
DERRICK, OF MIDWAYS HALL, WILTS.
And if he had happened to be in Piccadilly Circus on a certain afternoon
some three weeks after his conversation with Hash Todhunter, he might
have observed Miss Derrick in person. For she was standing on the island
there waiting for a Number Three omnibus.
His first impression, had he so beheld her, would certainly have been
that the photograph, attractive though it was, did not do her justice.
Four years had passed since it had been taken, and between the ages of
eighteen and twenty-two many girls gain appreciably in looks. Kay
Derrick was one of them. He would then have observed that his views on
her appearance had been sound. Her eyes, as he had predicted, were
blue--a very dark, warm blue like the sky on a summer night--and her
hair, such of it as was visible beneath a becoming little hat, was of a
soft golden brown. The third thing he would have noticed about her was
that she looked tired. And, indeed, she was. It was her daily task to
present herself at the house of a certain Mrs. Winnington-Bates in
Thurloe Square, South Kensington, to read to that lady and to attend to
her voluminous correspondence. And nobody who knew Mrs. Winnington-Bates
at all intimately would have disputed the right of any girl who did this
to look as tired as she pleased.
The omnibus arrived and Kay climbed the steps to the roof. The conductor
presented himself, punch in hand.
“Fez, pliz.”
“Valley Fields,” said Kay.
“Q,” said the conductor.
He displayed no excitement as he handed her the ticket, none of that
anxious concern exhibited by those who met the young man with the banner
marked Excelsior; for the days are long past when it was considered
rather a dashing adventure to journey to Valley Fields. Two hundred
years ago, when highwaymen roved West Kensington and snipe were shot in
Regent Street, this pleasant suburb in the Postal Division S. E. 21 was
a remote spot to which jaded bucks and beaux would ride when they wanted
to get really close to Nature. But now that vast lake of brick and
asphalt which is London has flooded its banks and engulfed it. The
Valley Fields of to-day is a mass of houses, and you may reach it not
only by omnibus but by train, and even by tram.
It was a place very familiar to Kay now, so that at times she seemed to
have been there all her life; and yet actually only a few months had
elapsed since she had been washed up on its shores like a piece of
flotsam; or, to put the facts with less imagery, since Mr. Wrenn, of San
Rafael, Burberry Road, had come forward on the death of her parents and
offered her a home there. This Mr. Wrenn being the bad Uncle Matthew who
in the dim past--somewhere around the year 1905--splashed a hideous blot
on the Derrick escutcheon by eloping with Kay’s Aunt Enid.
Kay had been a child of two at the time, and it was not till she was
eight that she heard the story, her informant being young Willoughby
Braddock, the stout boy who, with the aid of a trustee, owned the great
house and estates adjoining Midways. It was a romantic story--of a young
man who had come down to do Midways for the Stately-Homes-of-England
series appearing in the then newly established Pyke’s _Home Companion_;
who in the process of doing it had made the acquaintance of the sister
of its owner; and who only a few weeks later had induced her to run away
and marry him, thereby--according to the viewpoint of the
family--ruining her chances in this world and her prospects in the next.
For twenty years Matthew Wrenn had been the family outcast, and now time
had accomplished one more of its celebrated revenges. The death of
Colonel Derrick, which had followed that of his wife by a few months,
had revealed the fact that in addition to Norman blood he had also had
the simple faith which the poet ranks so much more highly--it taking the
form of trusting prospectuses which should not have deceived a child
and endeavouring to make up losses caused by the diminishing value of
land with a series of speculations, each of them more futile and
disastrous than the last. His capital had gone to the four winds,
Midways had gone to the mortgagees, and Kay, apprised of these facts by
a sympathetic family lawyer, had gone to Mr. Matthew Wrenn, now for many
years the editor of that same Pyke’s _Home Companion_ of which he had
once been the mere representative.
The omnibus stopped at the corner of Burberry Road, and Kay, alighting,
walked toward San Rafael. Burberry Road is not one of the more
fashionable and wealthy districts of Valley Fields, and most of the
houses in it are semi-detached. San Rafael belonged to this class, being
joined, like a stucco Siamese Twin, in indissoluble union to its
next-door neighbour, Mon Repos. It had in front of it a strip of gravel,
two apologetic-looking flower beds with evergreens in them, a fence, and
in the fence a gate, modelled on the five-barred gates of the country.
Out of this gate, as Kay drew near, there came an elderly gentleman,
tall, with grey hair and a scholarly stoop.
“Why, hullo, darling,” said Kay. “Where are you off to?”
She kissed her uncle affectionately, for she had grown very fond of him
in the months of their companionship.
“Just popping round to have a chat with Cornelius,” said Mr. Wrenn. “I
thought I might get a game of chess.”
In actual years Matthew Wrenn was on the right side of fifty; but as
editors of papers like Pyke’s _Home Companion_ are apt to do, he looked
older than he really was. He was a man of mild and dreamy aspect, and it
being difficult to imagine him in any dashing rôle, Kay rather supposed
that the energy and fire which had produced the famous elopement must
have come from the lady’s side.
“Well, don’t be late for dinner,” she said. “Is Willoughby in?”
“I left him in the garden.” Mr. Wrenn hesitated. “That’s a curious young
man, Kay.”
“It’s an awful shame that he should be inflicted on you, darling,” said
Kay. “His housekeeper shooed him out of his house, you know. She wanted
to give it a thorough cleaning. And he hates staying at clubs and
hotels, and I’ve known him all my life, and he asked me if we could put
him up, and--well, there you are. But cheer up, it’s only for to-night.”
“My dear, you know I’m only too glad to put up any friend of yours. But
he’s such a peculiar young fellow. I have been trying to talk to him for
an hour, and all he does is to look at me like a goldfish.”
“Like a goldfish?”
“Yes, with his eyes staring and his lips moving without any sound coming
from them.”
Kay laughed.
“It’s his speech. I forgot to tell you. The poor lamb has got to make a
speech to-night at the annual dinner of the Old Boys of his school. He’s
never made one before, and it’s weighing on his mind terribly.”
Mr. Wrenn looked relieved.
“Oh, I didn’t know. Honestly, my dear, I thought that he must be
mentally deficient.” He looked at his watch. “Well, if you think you can
entertain him, I will be going along.”
Mr. Wrenn went on his way; and Kay, passing through the five-barred
gate, followed the little gravel path which skirted the house and came
into the garden.
Like all the gardens in the neighbourhood, it was a credit to its
owner--on the small side, but very green and neat and soothing. The fact
that, though so widely built over, Valley Fields has not altogether lost
its ancient air of rusticity is due entirely to the zeal and devotion of
its amateur horticulturists. More seeds are sold each spring in Valley
Fields, more lawn mowers pushed, more garden rollers borrowed, more
snails destroyed, more green fly squirted with patent mixtures, than in
any other suburb on the Surrey side of the river. Brixton may have its
Bon Marché and Sydenham its Crystal Palace; but when it comes to
pansies, roses, tulips, hollyhocks and nasturtiums, Valley Fields points
with pride.
In addition to its other attractive features, the garden of San Rafael
contained at this moment a pinkish, stoutish, solemn young man in a
brown suit, who was striding up and down the lawn with a glassy stare in
his eyes.
“Hullo, Willoughby,” said Kay.
The young man came out of his trance with a strong physical convulsion.
“Oh, hullo, Kay.”
He followed her across the lawn to the tea table which stood in the
shade of a fine tree. For there are trees in this favoured spot as well
as flowers.
“Tea, Willoughby?” said Kay, sinking gratefully into a deck chair. “Or
have you had yours?”
“Yes, I had some.... I think----” Mr. Braddock weighed the question
thoughtfully. “Yes.... Yes, I’ve had some.”
Kay filled her cup and sipped luxuriously.
“Golly, I’m tired!” she said.
“Had a bad day?”
“Much the same as usual.”
“Mrs. B. not too cordial?”
“Not very. And, unfortunately, the son and heir was cordiality itself.”
Mr. Braddock nodded.
“A bit of a trial, that lad.”
“A bit.”
“Wants kicking.”
“Very badly.”
Kay gave a little wriggle of distaste. Technically, her duties at
Thurloe Square consisted of reading and writing Mrs. Winnington-Bates’
letters; but what she was engaged for principally, she sometimes
thought, was to act as a sort of spiritual punching bag for her
employer. To-day that lady had been exceptionally trying. Her son, on
the other hand, who had recently returned to his home after an
unsuccessful attempt to learn poultry farming in Sussex and was lounging
about it, with little to occupy him, had shown himself, in his few
moments of opportunity, more than usually gallant. What life needed to
make it a trifle easier, Kay felt, was for Mrs. Bates to admire her a
little more and for Claude Bates to admire her a little less.
“I remember him at school,” said Mr. Braddock. “A worm.”
“Was he at school with you?”
“Yes. Younger than me. A beastly little kid who stuffed himself with
food and frousted over fires and shirked games. I remember Sam Shotter
licking him once for stealing jam sandwiches at the school shop. By the
way, Sam’s coming over here. I had a letter from him.”
“Is he? And who is he? You’ve never mentioned his name before.”
“Haven’t I told you about old Sam Shotter?” asked Mr. Braddock,
surprised.
“Never. But he sounds wonderfully attractive. Anyone who licked Claude
Bates must have a lot of good in him.”
“He was at school with me.”
“What a lot of people seem to have been at school with you!”
“Well, there were about six hundred fellows at Wrykyn, you know. Sam and
I shared a study. Now there is a chap I envy. He’s knocked about all
over the world, having all sorts of fun. America one day, Australia the
next, Africa the day after.”
“Quick mover,” said Kay.
“The last I heard from him he was in his uncle’s office in New York, but
in this letter he says he’s coming over to work at Tilbury House.”
“Tilbury House? Really? I wonder if uncle will meet him.”
“Don’t you think it would be a sound move if I gave him a dinner or
something where he could meet a few of the lads? You and your uncle, of
course--and if I could get hold of old Tilbury.”
“Do you know Lord Tilbury?”
“Oh, yes; I play bridge with him sometimes at the club. And he took my
shooting last year.”
“When does Mr. Shotter arrive?”
“I don’t know. He says it’s uncertain. You see, he’s coming over on a
tramp steamer.”
“A tramp steamer? Why?”
“Well, it’s the sort of thing he does. Sort of thing I’d like to do
too.”
“You?” said Kay, amazed. Willoughby Braddock had always seemed to her a
man to whose well-being the refinements--and even the luxuries--of
civilisation were essential. One of her earliest recollections was of
sitting in a tree and hurling juvenile insults at him, it having come to
her ears through reliable channels that he habitually wore bed socks.
“What nonsense, Willoughby! You would hate roughing it.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Mr. Braddock stoutly. “I’d love a bit of adventure.”
“Well, why don’t you have it? You’ve got plenty of money. You could be a
pirate of the Spanish Main if you wanted.”
Mr. Braddock shook his head wistfully.
“I can’t get away from Mrs. Lippett.”
Willoughby Braddock was one of those unfortunate bachelors who are
doomed to live under the thrall of either a housekeeper or a valet. His
particular cross in life was his housekeeper, his servitude being
rendered all the more unescapable by the fact that Mrs. Lippett had been
his nurse in the days of his childhood. There are men who can defy a
woman. There are men who can cope with a faithful old retainer. But if
there are men who can tackle a faithful old female retainer who has
frequently smacked them with the back of a hairbrush, Willoughby
Braddock was not one of them.
“She would have a fit or go into a decline or something if I tried to
break loose.”
“Poor old Willoughby! Life can be very hard, can’t it? By the way, I met
my uncle outside. He was complaining that you were not very chummy.”
“No, was he?”
“He said you just sat there looking at him like a goldfish.”
“Oh, I say!” said Mr. Braddock remorsefully. “I’m awfully sorry. I mean,
after he’s been so decent, putting me up and everything. I hope you
explained to him that I was frightfully worried about this speech.”
“Yes, I did. But I don’t see why you should be. It’s perfectly simple
making a speech. Especially at an Old Boys’ dinner, where they won’t
expect anything very much. If I were you, I should just get up and tell
them one or two funny stories and sit down again.”
“I’ve got one story,” said Mr. Braddock more hopefully. “It’s about an
Irishman.”
“Pat or Mike?”
“I thought of calling him Pat. He’s in New York and he goes down to the
dock and he sees a diver coming up out of the water--in a diving suit,
you know--and he thinks the fellow--the diver, you understand--has
walked across the Atlantic and wishes he had thought of doing the same
himself, so as to have saved the fare, don’t you know.”
“I see. One of those weak-minded Irishmen.”
“Do you think it will amuse them?” asked Mr. Braddock anxiously.
“I should think they would roll off their seats.”
“No, really?” He broke off and stretched out a hand in alarm. “I say,
you weren’t thinking of having one of those rock cakes, were you?”
“I was. But I won’t if you don’t want me to. Aren’t they good?”
“Good? My dear old soul,” said Mr. Braddock earnestly, “they are Clara’s
worst effort--absolutely her very worst. I had to eat one because she
came and stood over me and watched me do it. It beats me why you don’t
sack that girl. She’s a rotten cook.”
“Sack Claire?” Kay laughed. “You might just as well try to sack her
mother.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“You can’t sack a Lippett.”
“No, I see what you mean. I wish she wasn’t so dashed familiar with a
fellow, though.”
“Well, she has known you almost as long as I have. Mrs. Lippett has
always been a sort of mother to you, so I suppose Claire regards herself
as a sort of sister.”
“Yes, I suppose it can’t be helped,” said Mr. Braddock bravely. He
glanced at his watch. “Ought to be going and dressing. I’ll find you out
here before I leave?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, I’ll be pushing along. I say, you do think that story about the
Irishman is all right?”
“Best thing I ever heard,” said Kay loyally.
For some minutes after he had left her she sat back in her chair with
her eyes closed, relaxing in the evening stillness of this pleasant
garden.
“Finished with the tea, Miss Kay?”
Kay opened her eyes. A solid little figure in a print dress was standing
at her side. A jaunty maid’s cap surmounted this person’s tow-coloured
hair. She had a perky nose and a wide, friendly mouth, and she beamed
upon Kay devotedly.
“Brought you these,” she said, dropping a rug, two cushions and a
footstool, beneath the burden of which she had been staggering across
the lawn like a small pack mule. “Make you nice and comfortable, and
then you can get a nice nap. I can see you’re all tired out.”
“That’s awfully good of you, Claire. But you shouldn’t have bothered.”
Claire Lippett, daughter of Willoughby Braddock’s autocratic housekeeper
and cook and maid-of-all-work at San Rafael, was a survivor of the
Midways epoch. She had entered the Derrick household at the age of
twelve, her duties at that time being vague and leaving her plenty of
leisure for surreptitious bird’s-nesting with Kay, then thirteen. On her
eighteenth birthday she had been promoted to the post of Kay’s personal
maid, and from that moment may be said formally to have taken charge.
The Lippett motto was Fidelity, and not even the famous financial crash
had been able to dislodge this worthy daughter of the clan. Resolutely
following Kay into exile, she had become, as stated, Mr. Wrenn’s cook.
And, as Mr. Braddock had justly remarked, a very bad cook too.
“You oughtn’t to go getting yourself all tired, Miss Kay. You ought to
be sitting at your ease.”
“Well, so I am,” said Kay.
There were times when, like Mr. Braddock, she found the Lippett
protectiveness a little cloying. She was a high-spirited girl and wanted
to face the world with a defiant “Who cares?” and it was not easy to do
this with Claire coddling her all the time as if she were a fragile and
sensitive plant. Resistance, however, was useless. Nobody had ever yet
succeeded in curbing the motherly spirit of the Lippetts, and probably
nobody ever would.
“Meantersay,” explained Claire, adjusting the footstool, “you ought not
to be soiling your hands with work, that’s what I mean. It’s a shame you
should be having to----”
She stopped abruptly. She had picked up the tea tray and made a wounding
discovery.
“You haven’t touched my rock cakes,” she said in a voice in which
reproach and disappointment were nicely blended. “And I made them for
you special.”
“I didn’t want to spoil my dinner,” said Kay hastily. Claire was a
temperamental girl, quick to resent slurs on her handiwork. “I’m sure
you’ve got something nice.”
Claire considered the point.
“Well, yes and no,” she said. “If you’re thinking of the pudding, I’m
afraid that’s off. The kitten fell into the custard.”
“No!”
“She did. And when I’d fished her out there wasn’t hardly any left.
Seemed to have soaked it into her like as if she was a sponge. Still,
there ’ud be enough for you if Mr. Wrenn didn’t want any.”
“No, it doesn’t matter, thanks,” said Kay earnestly.
“Well, I’m trying a new soup, which’ll sort of make up for it. It’s one
I read in a book. It’s called pottage ar lar princess. You’re sure you
won’t have one of these rock cakes, Miss Kay? Put strength into you.”
“No, thanks, really.”
“Right-ho; just as you say.”
Miss Lippett crossed the lawn and disappeared, and a soothing peace fell
upon the garden. A few minutes later, however, just as Kay’s head was
beginning to nod, from an upper window there suddenly blared forth on
the still air a loud and raucous voice, suggestive of costermongers
advertising their Brussels sprouts or those who call the cattle home
across the Sands of Dee.
“I am reminded by a remark of our worthy president,” roared the voice,
“of a little story which may be new to some of you present here
to-night. It seems that a certain Irishman had gone down to New York--I
mean, he was in New York and had gone down to the docks--and while
there--while there----”
The voice trailed off. Apparently the lungs were willing but the memory
was weak. Presently it broke out in another place.
“For the school, gentlemen, our dear old school, occupies a place in
our hearts--a place in our hearts--in the hearts of all of us--in
all our hearts--in our hearts, gentlemen--which nothing else can
fill. It forms, if I may put it that way, Mr. President and
gentlemen--forms--forms--forms a link that links the generations.
Whether we are fifty years old or forty or thirty or twenty, we are none
the less all of us contemporaries. And why? Because, gentlemen, we are
all--er--linked by that link.”
“Jolly good!” murmured Kay, impressed.
“That is why, Mr. President and gentlemen, though I am glad, delighted,
pleased, happy and--er--overjoyed to see so many of you responding to
the annual call of our dear old school, I am not surprised.”
From the kitchen door, a small knife in one hand and a half-peeled onion
in the other, there emerged the stocky figure of Claire Lippett. She
gazed up at the window wrathfully.
“Hi!”
“No, not surprised.”
“Hi!”
“And talking of being surprised, I am reminded of a little story which
may be new to some of you present here to-night. It seems that a certain
Irishman----”
From the days when their ancestresses had helped the menfolk of the
tribe to make marauding Danes wish they had stayed in Denmark, the
female members of Claire Lippett’s family had always been women of
action. Having said “Hi!” twice, their twentieth-century descendant
seemed to consider that she had done all that could reasonably be
expected of her in the way of words. With a graceful swing of her right
arm, she sent the onion shooting upward. And such was the never-failing
efficiency of this masterly girl that it whizzed through the open
window, from which, after a brief interval, there appeared, leaning
out, the dress-shirted and white-tied upper portion of Mr. Willoughby
Braddock. He was rubbing his ear.
“Be quiet, can’t you?” said Miss Lippett.
Mr. Braddock gazed austerely into the depths. Except that the positions
of the characters were inverted and the tone of the dialogue somewhat
different, it might have been the big scene out of _Romeo and Juliet_.
“What did you say?”
“I said be quiet. Miss Kay wants to get a bit of sleep. How can she get
a bit of sleep with that row going on?”
“Clara!” said Mr. Braddock portentously.
“Claire,” corrected the girl coldly, insisting on a point for which she
had had to fight all her life.
Mr. Braddock gulped.
“I shall--er--I shall speak to your mother,” he said.
It was a futile threat, and Claire signified as much by jerking her
shoulder in a scornful and derogatory manner before stumping back to the
house with all the honours of war. She knew--and Mr. Braddock knew that
she knew--that complaints respecting her favourite daughter would be
coldly received by Mrs. Lippett.
Mr. Braddock withdrew from the window, and presently appeared in the
garden, beautifully arrayed.
“Why, Willoughby,” said Kay admiringly, “you look wonderful!”
The kindly compliment did much to soothe Mr. Braddock’s wounded
feelings.
“No, really?” he said; and felt, as he had so often felt before, that
Kay was a girl in a million, and that if only the very idea of
matrimony did not scare a fellow so confoundedly, a fellow might very
well take a chance and see what would happen if he asked her to marry
him.
“And the speech sounded fine.”
“Really? You know, I got a sudden fear that my voice might not carry.”
“It carries,” Kay assured him.
The clouds which her compliments had chased from Mr. Braddock’s brow
gathered again.
“I say, Kay, you know, you really ought to do something about that girl
Clara. She’s impossible. I mean, throwing onions at a fellow.”
“You mustn’t mind. Don’t worry about her; it’ll make you forget your
speech. How long are you supposed to talk?”
“About ten minutes, I imagine. You know, this is going to just about
kill me.”
“What you must do is drink lots and lots of champagne.”
“But it makes me spotty.”
“Well, be spotty. I shan’t mind.”
Mr. Braddock considered.
“I will,” he said. “It’s a very good idea. Well, I suppose I ought to be
going.”
“You’ve got your key? That’s right. You won’t be back till pretty late,
of course. I’ll go and tell Claire not to bolt the door.”
When Kay reached the kitchen she found that her faithful follower had
stepped out of the pages of _Romeo and Juliet_ into those of _Macbeth_.
She was bending over a cauldron, dropping things into it. The kitten,
now comparatively dry and decustarded, eyed her with bright interest
from a shelf on the dresser.
“This is the new soup, Miss Kay,” she announced with modest pride.
“It smells fine,” said Kay, wincing slightly as a painful aroma of
burning smote her nostrils. “I say, Claire, I wish you wouldn’t throw
onions at Mr. Braddock.”
“I went up and got it back,” Claire reassured her. “It’s in the soup
now.”
“You’ll be in the soup if you do that sort of thing. What,” asked Kay
virtuously, “will the neighbours say?”
“There aren’t any neighbours,” Claire pointed out. A wistful look came
into her perky face. “I wish someone would hurry up and move into Mon
Ree-poss,” she said. “I don’t like not having next-doors. Gets lonely
for a girl all day with no one to talk to.”
“Well, when you talk to Mr. Braddock, don’t do it at the top of your
voice. Please understand that I don’t like it.”
“Now,” said Claire simply, “you’re cross with me.” And without further
preamble she burst into a passionate flood of tears.
It was this sensitiveness of hers that made it so difficult for the
young chatelaine of San Rafael to deal with the domestic staff. Kay was
a warm-hearted girl, and a warm-hearted girl can never be completely at
her ease when she is making cooks cry. It took ten minutes of sedulous
petting to restore the emotional Miss Lippett to her usual cheerfulness.
“I’ll never raise my voice so much as above a whisper to the man,” she
announced remorsefully at the end of that period. “All the same----”
Kay had no desire to reopen the Braddock argument.
“That’s all right, Claire. What I really came to say was--don’t put the
chain up on the front door to-night, because Mr. Braddock is sure to be
late. But he will come in quite quietly and won’t disturb you.”
“He’d better not,” said Miss Lippett grimly. “I’ve got a revolver.”
“A revolver!”
“Ah!” Claire bent darkly over her cauldron. “You never know when there
won’t be burglars in these low parts. The girl at Pontresina down the
road was telling me they’d had a couple of milk cans sneaked off their
doorstep only yesterday. And I’ll tell you another thing, Miss Kay. It’s
my belief there’s been people breaking into Mon Ree-poss.”
“What would they do that for? It’s empty.”
“It wasn’t empty last night. I was looking out of the window with one of
my noo-ralgic headaches--must have been between two and three in the
morning--and there was mysterious lights going up and down the
staircase.”
“You imagined it.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Kay, I did not imagine it. There they were,
as plain as plain. Might have been one of these electric torches the
criminal classes use. If you want to know what I think, Miss Kay, that
Mon Ree-poss is what I call a house of mystery, and I shan’t be sorry
when somebody respectable comes and takes it. The way it is now, we’re
just as likely as not to wake up and find ourselves all murdered in our
beds.”
“You mustn’t be so nervous.”
“Nervous?” replied Claire indignantly. “Nervous? Take more than a
burglar to make me nervous. All I’m saying is, I’m prepared.”
“Well, don’t go shooting Mr. Braddock.”
“That,” said Miss Lippett, declining to commit herself, “is as may be.”
CHAPTER THREE
SAILORS DON’T CARE
Some five hours after Willoughby Braddock’s departure from San Rafael, a
young man came up Villiers Street, and turning into the Strand, began to
stroll slowly eastward. The Strand, it being the hour when the theatres
had begun to empty themselves, was a roaring torrent of humanity and
vehicles; and he looked upon the bustling scene with the affectionate
eye of one who finds the turmoil of London novel and attractive. He was
a nice-looking young man, but what was most immediately noticeable about
him was his extraordinary shabbiness. Both his shoes were split across
the toe; his hands were in the pockets of a stained and weather-beaten
pair of blue trousers; and he gazed about him from under the brim of a
soft hat which could have been worn without exciting comment by any
scarecrow.
So striking was his appearance that two exquisites, emerging from the
Savoy Hotel and pausing on the pavement to wait for a vacant taxi, eyed
him with pained disapproval as he approached, and then, starting, stared
in amazement.
“Good Lord!” said the first exquisite.
“Good heavens!” said the second.
“See who that is?”
“S. P. Shotter! Used to be in the School House.”
“Captain of football my last year.”
“But, I say, it can’t be! Dressed like that, I mean.”
“It is.”
“Good heavens!”
“Good Lord!”
These two were men who had, in the matter of costume, a high standard.
Themselves snappy and conscientious dressers, they judged their fellows
hardly. Yet even an indulgent critic would have found it difficult not
to shake his head over the spectacle presented by Sam Shotter as he
walked the Strand that night.
The fact is it is not easy for a young man of adventurous and
inquisitive disposition to remain dapper throughout a voyage on a tramp
steamer. The _Araminta_, which had arrived at Millwall Dock that
afternoon, had taken fourteen days to cross the Atlantic, and during
those fourteen days Sam had entered rather fully into the many-sided
life of the ship. He had spent much time in an oily engine room; he had
helped the bos’n with a job of painting; he had accompanied the chief
engineer on his rambles through the coal bunkers; and on more than one
occasion had endeared himself to languid firemen by taking their shovels
and doing a little amateur stoking. One cannot do these things and be
foppish.
Nevertheless, it would have surprised him greatly had he known that his
appearance was being adversely criticised, for he was in that happy
frame of mind when men forget they have an appearance. He had dined
well, having as his guest his old friend Hash Todhunter. He had seen a
motion picture of squashy sex appeal. And now, having put Hash on an
eastbound tram, he was filled with that pleasant sense of well-being and
content which comes on those rare occasions when the world is just about
right. So far from being abashed by the shabbiness of his exterior Sam
found himself experiencing, as he strolled along the Strand, a
gratifying illusion of having bought the place. He felt like the young
squire returned from his travels and revisiting the old village.
Nor, though he was by nature a gregarious young man and fond of human
society, did the fact that he was alone depress him. Much as he liked
Hash Todhunter, he had not been sorry to part from him. Usually an
entertaining companion, Hash had been a little tedious to-night, owing
to a tendency to confine the conversation to the subject of a dog
belonging to a publican friend of his which was running in a whippet
race at Hackney Marshes next morning. Hash had, it seemed, betted his
entire savings on this animal, and not content with this, had pestered
Sam to lend him all his remaining cash to add to the investment. And
though Sam had found no difficulty in remaining firm, it is always a
bore to have to keep saying no.
The two exquisites looked at each other apprehensively.
“Shift ho, before he touches us, what?” said the first.
“Shift absolutely ho,” assented the second.
It was too late. The companion of their boyhood had come up, and after
starting to pass had paused, peering at them from under that dreadful
hat, which seemed to cut them like a knife, in the manner of one trying
to identify half-remembered faces.
“Bates and Tresidder!” he exclaimed at length. “By Jove!”
“Hullo,” said the first exquisite.
“Hullo!” said the second.
“Well, well!” said Sam.
There followed one of those awkward silences which so often occur at
these meetings of old schoolmates. The two exquisites were wondering
dismally when the inevitable touch would come, and Sam had just
recollected that these were two blighters whom, when _in statu
pupillari_, he had particularly disliked. Nevertheless, etiquette
demanded that a certain modicum of conversation be made.
“What have you been doing with yourselves?” asked Sam. “You look very
festive.”
“Been dining,” said the first exquisite.
“Old Wrykynian dinner,” said the second.
“Oh, yes, of course. It always was at this time of year, wasn’t it? Lots
of the lads there, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good dinner?”
“Goodish,” said the first exquisite.
“Not baddish,” said the second.
“Rotten speeches, though.”
“Awful!”
“Can’t think where they dig these blokes up.”
“No.”
“That man Braddock.”
“Frightful.”
“Don’t tell me the old Bradder actually made a speech!” said Sam,
pleased. “Was he very bad?”
“Worst of the lot.”
“Absolutely!”
“That story about the Irishman.”
“Foul!”
“And all that rot about the dear old school.”
“Ghastly!”
“If you ask me,” said the first exquisite severely, “my opinion is that
he was as tight as an owl.”
“Stewed to the eyebrows,” said the second.
“I watched him during dinner and he was mopping up the stuff like a
vacuum cleaner.”
There was a silence.
“Well,” said the first exquisite uncomfortably, “we must be pushing on.”
“Dashing off,” said the second exquisite.
“Got to go to supper at the Angry Cheese.”
“The where?” asked Sam.
“Angry Cheese. New night-club in Panton Street. See you sometime, what?”
“Oh, yes,” said Sam.
Another silence was about to congeal, when a taxi crawled up and the two
exquisites leaped joyously in.
“Awful, a fellow going right under like that,” said the first.
“Ghastly,” said the second.
“Lucky we got away.”
“Yes.”
“He was shaping for a touch,” said the first exquisite.
“Trembling on his lips,” said the second.
Sam walked on. Although the Messrs. Bates and Tresidder had never been
favourites of his, they belonged to what Mr. Braddock would have
called--and, indeed, had called no fewer than eleven times in his speech
that night--the dear old school; and the meeting with them had left him
pleasantly stimulated. The feeling of being a _seigneur_ revisiting his
estates after long absence grew as he threaded his way through the
crowd. He eyed the passers-by in a jolly, Laughing Cavalier sort of way,
wishing he knew them well enough to slap them on the back. And when he
reached the corner of Wellington Street and came upon a disheveled
vocalist singing mournfully in the gutter, he could not but feel it a
personal affront that this sort of thing should be going on in his
domain. He was conscious of a sensation of being individually
responsible for this poor fellow’s reduced condition, and the situation
seemed to him to call for largess.
On setting out that night Sam had divided his money into two portions.
His baggage, together with his letter of credit, had preceded him across
the ocean on the _Mauretania_; and as it might be a day or so before he
could establish connection with it, he had prudently placed the bulk of
his ready money in his note-case, earmarking it for the purchase of new
clothes and other necessaries on the morrow so that he might be enabled
to pay his first visit to Tilbury House in becoming state. The
remainder, sufficient for the evening’s festivities, he had put in his
trousers pockets.
It was into his right trousers pocket therefore that he now groped. His
fingers closed on a half-crown. He promptly dropped it. He was feeling
_seigneurial_, but not so _seigneurial_ as that. Something more in the
nature of a couple of coppers was what he was looking for, and it
surprised him to find that except for the half-crown the pocket appeared
to be empty. He explored the other pocket. That was empty too.
The explanation was, of course, that the life of pleasure comes high.
You cannot go stuffing yourself and a voracious sea cook at restaurants,
taking buses and Underground trains all over the place, and finally
winding up at a cinema palace, without cutting into your capital. Sam
was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the half-crown was his
only remaining spare coin. He was, accordingly, about to abandon the
idea of largess and move on, when the vocalist, having worked his way
through You’re the Sort of a Girl That Men Forget, began to sing that
other popular ballad entitled Sailors Don’t Care. And it was no doubt
the desire to refute the slur implied in these words on the great
brotherhood of which he was an amateur member that decided Sam to be
lavish.
The half-crown changed hands.
Sam resumed his walk. At a quarter past eleven at night there is little
to amuse and interest the stroller east of Wellington Street, so he now
crossed the road and turned westward. And he had not been walking more
than a few paces when he found himself looking into the brightly lighted
window of a small restaurant that appeared to specialise in shellfish.
The slab beyond the glass was paved with the most insinuating oysters.
Overcome with emotion, Sam stopped in his tracks.
There is something about the oyster, nestling in its shell, which in the
hours that come when the theatres are closed and London is beginning to
give itself up to nocturnal revelry stirs right-thinking men like a
bugle. There swept over Sam a sudden gnawing desire for nourishment.
Oysters with brown bread and a little stout were, he perceived, just
what this delightful evening demanded by way of a fitting climax. He
pulled out his note-case. Even if it meant an inferior suit next
morning, one of those Treasury notes which lay there must be broken into
here and now.
It seemed to Sam, looking back later at this moment, that at the very
first touch the note-case had struck him as being remarkably thin. It
appeared to have lost its old jolly plumpness, as if some wasting fever
had struck it. Indeed, it gave the impression, when he opened it, of
being absolutely empty.
It was not absolutely empty. It is true that none of the Treasury notes
remained, but there was something inside--a dirty piece of paper on
which were words written in pencil. He read them by the light that
poured from the restaurant window:
“DEAR SAM,--You will doubtless be surprised, Sam, to learn that I
have borowed your money. Dear Sam, I will send it back tomorow A.M.
prompt. Nothing can beat that wipet, Sam, so I have borowed your
money.
“Trusting this finds you in the pink,
“Yrs. Obedtly,
“C. TODHUNTER.”
Sam stood staring at this polished communication with sagging jaw. For
an instant it had a certain obscurity, the word “wipet” puzzling him
particularly.
Then, unlike the missing money, it all came back to him.
The rush of traffic was diminishing now, and the roar of a few minutes
back had become a mere rumble. It was almost as if London, sympathising
with his sorrow, had delicately hushed its giant voice. To such an
extent, in fact, was its voice hushed that that of the Wellington Street
vocalist was once more plainly audible, and there was in what he was
singing a poignant truth which had not impressed itself upon Sam when he
had first heard it.
“Sailors don’t care,” chanted the vocalist. “Sailors don’t care. It’s
something to do with the salt in the blood. Sailors don’t care.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SCENE OUTSIDE FASHIONABLE NIGHT-CLUB
The mental condition of a man who at half past eleven at night suddenly
finds himself penniless and without shelter in the heart of the great
city must necessarily be for a while somewhat confused. Sam’s first
coherent thought was to go back and try to recover that half-crown from
the wandering minstrel. After a very brief reflection, however, he
dismissed this scheme as too visionary for practical consideration. His
acquaintance with the other had been slight, but he had seen enough of
him to gather that he was not one of those rare spiritual fellows who
give half-crowns back. The minstrel was infirm and old, but many years
would have to elapse before he became senile enough for that. No, some
solution on quite different lines was required; and, thinking deeply,
Sam began to move slowly in the direction of Charing Cross.
He was as yet far from being hopeless. Indeed, his mood at this point
might have been called optimistic; for he realised that, if this
disaster had been decreed by fate from the beginning of time--and he
supposed it had been, though that palmist had made no mention of it--it
could hardly have happened at a more convenient spot. The Old Wrykynian
dinner had only just broken up, which meant that this portion of London
must be full of men who had been at school with him and would doubtless
be delighted to help him out with a temporary loan. At any moment now he
might run into some kindly old schoolfellow.
And almost immediately he did. Or, rather, the old schoolfellow ran into
him. He had reached the Vaudeville Theatre and had paused, debating
within himself the advisability of crossing the street and seeing how
the hunting was on the other side, when a solid body rammed him in the
back.
“Oh, sorry! Frightfully sorry! I say, awfully sorry!”
It was a voice which had been absent from Sam’s life for some years, but
he recognised it almost before he had recovered his balance. He wheeled
joyfully round on the stout and red-faced young man who was with some
difficulty retrieving his hat from the gutter.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but you are extraordinarily like a man I used to
know named J. W. Braddock.”
“I am J. W. Braddock.”
“Ah,” said Sam, “that accounts for the resemblance.”
He contemplated his erstwhile study companion with affection. He would
have been glad at any time to meet the old Bradder, but he was
particularly glad to meet him now. As Mr. Braddock himself might have
put it, he was glad, delighted, pleased, happy and overjoyed. Willoughby
Braddock, bearing out the words of the two exquisites, was obviously in
a somewhat vinous condition, but Sam was no Puritan and was not offended
by this. The thing about Mr. Braddock that impressed itself upon him to
the exclusion of all else was the fact that he looked remarkably rich.
He had that air, than which there is none more delightful, of being the
sort of man who would lend a fellow a fiver without a moment’s
hesitation.
Willoughby Braddock had secured his hat, and he now replaced it in a
sketchy fashion on his head. His face was flushed, and his eyes, always
slightly prominent, seemed to protrude like those of a snail--and an
extremely inebriated snail, at that.
“Imarraspeesh,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” said Sam.
“I made a speesh.”
“Yes, so I heard.”
“You heard my speesh?”
“I heard that you had made one.”
“How did you hear my speesh?” said Mr. Braddock, plainly mystified. “You
weren’t at the dinner.”
“No, but----”
“You couldn’t have been at the dinner,” proceeded Mr. Braddock,
reasoning closely, “because evening dress was obliggery and you aren’t
obliggery. I’ll tell you what--between you and me, I don’t know who the
deuce you are.”
“You don’t know me?”
“No, I don’t know you.”
“Pull yourself together, Bradder. I’m Sam Shotter.”
“Sham Sotter?”
“If you prefer it that way certainly. I’ve always pronounced it Sam
Shotter myself.”
“Sam Shotter?”
“That’s right.”
Mr. Braddock eyed him narrowly.
“Look here,” he said, “I’ll tell you something--something that’ll
interest you--something that’ll interest you very much. You’re Sam
Shotter.”
“That’s it.”
“We were at school together.”
“We were.”
“The dear old school.”
“Exactly.”
Intense delight manifested itself in Mr. Braddock’s face. He seized
Sam’s hand and wrung it warmly.
“How are you, my dear old chap, how are you?” he cried. “Old Sham
Spotter, by gad! By Jove! By George! My goodness! Fancy that! Well,
good-bye.”
And with a beaming smile he suddenly swooped across the road and was
lost to sight.
The stoutest heart may have its black moments. Depression claimed Sam
for its own. There is no agony like that of the man who has intended to
borrow money and finds that he has postponed the request till too late.
With bowed shoulders, he made his way eastward. He turned up Charing
Cross Road, and thence by way of Green Street into Leicester Square. He
moved listlessly along the lower end of the square, and presently,
glancing up, perceived graven upon the wall the words, “Panton Street.”
He halted. The name seemed somehow familiar. Then he remembered. The
Angry Cheese, that haunt of wealth and fashion to which those fellows,
Bates and Tresidder, had been going, was in Panton Street.
Hope revived in Sam. An instant before, the iron had seemed to have
entered his soul, but now he squared his shoulder and quickened his
steps. Good old Bates! Splendid old Tresidder! They were the men to help
him out of this mess.
He saw clearly now how mistaken can be the callow judgments which we
form when young. As an immature lad at school, he had looked upon Bates
and Tresidder with a jaundiced eye. He had summed them up in his mind,
after the hasty fashion of youth, as ticks and blisters. Aye, and even
when he had encountered them half an hour ago after the lapse of years,
their true nobility had not been made plain to him. It was only now, as
he padded along Panton Street like a leopard on the trail, that he
realised what excellent fellows they were and how fond he was of them.
They were great chaps--corkers, both of them. And when he remembered
that with a boy’s blindness to his sterling qualities he had once given
Bates six of the juiciest with a walking stick, he burned with remorse
and shame.
It was not difficult to find the Angry Cheese. About this newest of
London’s night-clubs there was nothing coy or reticent. Its doorway
stood open to the street, and cabs were drawing up in a constant stream
and discharging fair women and well-tailored men. Furthermore, to render
identification easy for the very dullest, there stood on the pavement
outside a vast commissionaire, brilliantly attired in the full-dress
uniform of a Czecho-Slovakian field-marshal and wearing on his head a
peaked cap circled by a red band, which bore in large letters of gold
the words “Angry Cheese.”
“Good evening,” said Sam, curvetting buoyantly up to this spectacular
person. “I want to speak to Mr. Bates.”
The field-marshal eyed him distantly. The man, one would have said, was
not in sympathy with him. Sam could not imagine why. With the prospect
of a loan in sight, he himself was liking everybody.
“Misteroo?”
“Mr. Bates.”
“Mr. Yates?”
“Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates. You know Mr. Bates?” said Sam. And such was the
stimulating rhythm of the melody into which the unseen orchestra had
just burst that he very nearly added, “He’s a bear, he’s a bear, he’s a
bear.”
“Bates?”
“Or Tresidder.”
“Make up your mind,” said the field-marshal petulantly.
At this moment, on the opposite side of the street, there appeared the
figure of Mr. Willoughby Braddock, walking with extraordinary swiftness.
His eyes were staring straight in front of him. He had lost his hat.
“Bradder!” cried Sam.
Mr. Braddock looked over his shoulder, waved his hand, smiled a smile of
piercing sweetness and passed rapidly into the night.
Sam was in a state of indecision similar to that of the dog in the
celebrated substance-and-shadow fable. Should he pursue this
will-o’-the-wisp, or should he stick to the sound Conservative policy of
touching the man on the spot? What would Napoleon have done?
He decided to remain.
“Fellow who was at school with me,” he remarked explanatorily.
“Ho!” said the field-marshal, looking like a stuffed sergeant-major.
“And now,” said Sam, “can I see Mr. Bates?”
“You cannot.”
“But he’s in there.”
“And you’re out ’ere,” said the field-marshal.
He moved away to assist a young lady of gay exterior to alight from a
taxicab. And as he did so, someone spoke from the steps.
“Ah, there you are!”
Sam looked up, relieved. Dear old Bates was standing in the lighted
doorway.
Of the four persons who made up the little group collected about the
threshold of the Angry Cheese, three now spoke simultaneously.
Dear old Bates said, “This is topping! Thought you weren’t coming.”
The lady said, “Awfully sorry I’m late, old cork.”
Sam said, “Oh, Bates.”
He was standing some little space removed from the main body when he
spoke, and the words did not register. The lady passed on into the
building. Bates was preparing to follow her, when Sam spoke again. And
this time nobody within any reasonable radius could have failed to hear
him.
“Hi, Bates!”
“Hey!” said the field-marshal, massaging his ear with a look of reproach
and dislike.
Bates turned, and as he saw Sam, there spread itself over his face the
startled look of one who, wandering gayly along some primrose path, sees
gaping before him a frightful chasm or a fearful serpent or some
menacing lion in the undergrowth. In this crisis, Claude Bates did not
hesitate. With a single backward spring--which, if he could have
remembered it and reproduced it later on the dancing floor, would have
made him the admired of all--he disappeared, leaving Sam staring blankly
after him.
A large fat hand, placed in no cordial spirit on his shoulder, awoke Sam
from his reverie. The field-marshal was gazing at him with a loathing
which he now made no attempt to conceal.
“You ’op it,” said the field-marshal. “We don’t want none of your sort
’ere.”
“But I was at school with him,” stammered Sam. The thing had been so
sudden that even now he could not completely realise that what
practically amounted to his own flesh and blood had thrown him down
cold.
“At school with ’im too, was you?” said the field-marshal. “The only
school you was ever at was Borstal. You ’op it, and quick. That’s what
you do, before I call a policeman.”
Inside the night-club, Claude Bates, restoring his nervous system with a
whisky and soda, was relating to his friend Tresidder the tale of his
narrow escape.
“Absolutely lurking on the steps!” said Bates.
“Ghastly!” said Tresidder.
CHAPTER FIVE
PAINFUL AFFAIR AT A COFFEE-STALL
London was very quiet. A stillness had fallen upon it, broken only by
the rattle of an occasional cab and the footsteps of some home-seeking
wayfarer. The lamplight shone on glistening streets, on pensive
policemen, on smoothly prowling cats, and on a young man in a shocking
suit of clothes whose faith in human nature was at zero.
Sam had now no definite objective. He was merely walking aimlessly with
the idea of killing time. He wandered on, and presently found that he
had passed out of the haunts of fashion into a meaner neighbourhood. The
buildings had become dingier, the aspect of the perambulating cats more
sinister and blackguardly. He had in fact reached the district which, in
spite of the efforts of its inhabitants to get it called Lower
Belgravia, is still known as Pimlico. And it was near the beginning of
Lupus Street that he was roused from his meditations by the sight of a
coffee-stall.
It brought him up standing. Once more he had suddenly become aware of
that gnawing hunger which had afflicted him outside the oyster
restaurant. Why he should be hungry, seeing that not so many hours ago
he had consumed an ample dinner, he could not have said. A
psychologist, had one been present, would have told him that the pangs
of starvation from which he supposed himself to suffer were purely a
figment of the mind, and that it was merely his subconscious self
reacting to the suggestion of food. Sam, however, had positive inside
information to the contrary; and he halted before the coffee-stall,
staring wolfishly.
There was not a large attendance of patrons. Three only were present.
One was a man in a sort of uniform who seemed to have been cleaning
streets, the two others had the appearance of being gentlemen of
leisure. They were leaning restfully on the counter, eating hard-boiled
eggs.
Sam eyed them resentfully. It was just this selfish sort of
epicureanism, he felt, that was the canker which destroyed empires. And
when the man in uniform, wearying of eggs, actually went on to
supplement them with a slice of seedcake, it was as if he were watching
the orgies that preceded the fall of Babylon. With gleaming eyes he drew
a step closer, and was thus enabled to overhear the conversation of
these sybarites.
Like all patrons of coffee-stalls, they were talking about the Royal
family, and for a brief space it seemed that a perfect harmony was to
prevail. Then the man in uniform committed himself to the statement that
the Duke of York wore a moustache, and the gentlemen of leisure united
to form a solid opposition.
“’E ain’t got no moustache,” said one.
“Cert’n’ly ’e ain’t got no moustache,” said the other.
“Wot,” inquired the first gentleman of leisure, “made you get that
silly idea into your ’ead that ’e’s got a moustache?”
“’E’s got a smorl clipped moustache,” said the man in uniform stoutly.
“A smorl clipped moustache?”
“A smorl clipped moustache.”
“You say he’s got a smorl clipped moustache?”
“Ah! A smorl clipped moustache.”
“Well, then,” said the leader of the opposition, with the air of a
cross-examining counsel who has dexterously trapped a reluctant witness
into a damaging admission, “that’s where you make your ruddy error.
Because ’e ain’t got no smorl clipped moustache.”
It seemed to Sam that a little adroit diplomacy at this point would be
in his best interests. He had not the pleasure of the duke’s
acquaintance and so was not really entitled to speak as an expert, but
he decided to support the man in uniform. The good graces of a fellow of
his careless opulence were worth seeking. In a soaring moment of
optimism it seemed to him that a hard-boiled egg and a cup of coffee
were the smallest reward a loyal supporter might expect. He advanced
into the light of the naphtha flare and spoke with decision.
“This gentleman is right,” he said. “The Duke of York has a small
clipped moustache.”
The interruption appeared to come on the three debaters like a
bombshell. It had on them an effect much the same as an uninvited
opinion from a young and newly joined member would have on a group of
bishops and generals in the smoking-room of the Athenæum Club. For an
instant there was a shocked silence; then the man in uniform spoke.
“Wot do you want, stickin’ your ugly fat ’ead in?” he demanded coldly.
Shakespeare, who knew too much ever to be surprised at man’s
ingratitude, would probably have accepted this latest evidence of it
with stoicism. It absolutely stunned Sam. A little peevishness from the
two gentlemen of leisure he had expected, but that his sympathy and
support should be received in this fashion by the man in uniform was
simply disintegrating. It seemed to be his fate to-night to lack appeal
for men in uniform.
“Yus,” agreed the leader of the opposition, “’oo arsked you to shove
in?”
“Comin’ stickin’ ’is ’ead in!” sniffed the man in uniform.
All three members of the supper party eyed him with manifest disfavour.
The proprietor of the stall, a silent hairy man, said nothing: but he,
too, cast a chilly glance of hauteur in Sam’s direction. There was a
sense of strain.
“I only said----” Sam began.
“And ’oo arsked you to?” retorted the man in uniform.
The situation was becoming difficult. At this tense moment, however,
there was a rattling and a grinding of brakes and a taxicab drew up at
the kerb, and out of its interior shot Mr. Willoughby Braddock.
“Getta cuppa coffee,” observed Mr. Braddock explanatorily to the
universe.
CHAPTER SIX
A FRIEND IN NEED
Of certain supreme moments in life it is not easy to write. The workaday
teller of tales, whose gifts, if any, lie rather in the direction of
recording events than of analysing emotion, finds himself baffled by
them. To say that Sam Shotter was relieved by this sudden reappearance
of his old friend would obviously be inadequate. Yet it is hard to find
words that will effectually meet the case. Perhaps it is simplest to say
that his feelings at this juncture were to all intents and purposes
those of the garrison besieged by savages in the final reel of a
motion-picture super-super-film when the operator flashes on the screen
the subtitle, “Hurrah! Here come the United States Marines!”
And blended with this heart-shaking thankfulness, came instantaneously
the thought that he must not let the poor fish get away again.
“Here, I say!” said Mr. Braddock, becoming aware of a clutching hand
upon his coat sleeve.
“It’s all right, Bradder, old man,” said Sam. “It’s only me.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
“Who are you?”
“Sam Shotter.”
“Sam Shotter?”
“Sam Shotter.”
“Sam Shotter who used to be at school with me?”
“The very same.”
“Are you Sam Shotter?”
“I am.”
“Why, so you are!” said Mr. Braddock, completely convinced. He displayed
the utmost delight at this re-union. “Mosestraornary coincidence,” he
said as he kneaded Sam lovingly about the shoulder. “I was talking to a
fellow in the Strand about you only an hour ago.”
“Were you, Bradder, old man?”
“Yes; nasty ugly-looking fellow. I bumped into him, and he turned round
and the very first thing he said was, ‘Do you know Sam Shotter?’ He told
me all sorts of interesting things about you too--all sorts of
interesting things. I’ve forgotten what they were, but you see what I
mean.”
“I follow you perfectly, Bradder. What’s become of your hat?”
A look of relieved happiness came in to Willoughby Braddock’s face.
“Have you got my hat? Where is it?”
“I haven’t got your hat.”
“You said you had my hat.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Braddock, disappointed. “Well, then, come and have a
cuppa coffee.”
It was with the feelings of a voyager who after much buffeting comes
safely at last to journey’s end that Sam ranged himself alongside the
counter which for so long had been but a promised land seen from some
distant Mount Pisgah. The two gentlemen of leisure had melted away into
the night, but the uniformed man remained, eating seedcake with a touch
of bravado.
“This gentleman a friend of yours, Sam?” asked Mr. Braddock, having
ordered coffee and eggs.
“I should say not,” said Sam with aversion. “Why, he thinks the Duke of
York has a small clipped moustache!”
“No!” said Mr. Braddock, shocked.
“He does.”
“Man must be a thorough ass.”
“Dropped on his head when a baby, probably.”
“Better have nothing to do with him,” said Mr. Braddock in a
confidential bellow.
The meal proceeded on its delightful course. Sam had always been fond of
Willoughby Braddock, and the spacious manner in which he now ordered
further hard-boiled eggs showed him that his youthful affection had not
been misplaced. A gentle glow began to steal over him. The coffee was
the kind of which, after a preliminary mouthful, you drink a little more
just to see if it is really as bad as it seemed at first, but it was
warm and comforting. It was not long before the world appeared very good
to Sam. He expanded genially. He listened with courteous attention to
Mr. Braddock’s lengthy description of his speech at the Old Wrykynian
dinner, and even melted sufficiently to extend an olive branch to the
man in uniform.
“Looks like rain,” he said affably.
“Who does?” asked Mr. Braddock, puzzled.
“I was addressing the gentleman behind you,” said Sam.
Mr. Braddock looked cautiously over his shoulder.
“But are we speaking to him?” he asked gravely. “I thought----”
“Oh, yes,” said Sam tolerantly. “I fancy he’s quite a good fellow
really. Wants knowing, that’s all.”
“What makes you think he looks like rain?” asked Mr. Braddock,
interested.
The chauffeur of the taxicab now added himself to their little group. He
said that he did not know about Mr. Braddock’s plans, but that he
himself was desirous of getting to bed. Mr. Braddock patted him on the
shoulder with radiant bonhomie.
“This,” he explained to Sam, “is a most delightful chap. I’ve forgotten
his name.”
The cabman said his name was Evans.
“Evans! Of course. I knew it was something beginning with a G. This is
my friend Evans, Sam. I forget where we met, but he’s taking me home.”
“Where do you live, Bradder?”
“Where do I live, Evans?”
“Down at Valley Fields, you told me,” said the cabman.
“Where are you living, Sam?”
“Nowhere.”
“How do you mean--nowhere?”
“I have no home,” said Sam with simple pathos.
“I’d like to dig you one,” said the man in uniform.
“No home?” cried Mr. Braddock, deeply moved. “Nowhere to sleep to-night,
do you mean? I say, look here, you must absolutely come back with me.
Evans, old chap, do you think there would be room for one more in that
cab of yours? Because I particularly want this gentleman to come back
with me. My dear old Sam, I won’t listen to any argument.”
“You won’t have to.”
“You can sleep on the sofa in the drawing-room. You ready, Evans, old
man? Splendid! Then let’s go.”
From Lupus Street, Pimlico, to Burberry Road, Valley Fields, is a
distance of several miles, but to Sam the drive seemed a short one. This
illusion was not due so much to the gripping nature of Mr. Braddock’s
conversation, though that rippled on continuously, as to the fact that,
being a trifle weary after his experiences of the night, he dozed off
shortly after they had crossed the river. He awoke to find that the cab
had come to a standstill outside a wooden gate which led by a short
gravel path to a stucco-covered house. A street lamp, shining feebly,
was strong enough to light up the name San Rafael. Mr. Braddock paid the
cabman and ushered Sam through the gate. He produced a key after a
little searching, and having mounted the steps opened the door. Sam
found himself in a small hall, dimly lighted by a turned-down jet of
gas.
“Go right in,” said Mr. Braddock. “I’ll be back in a moment. Got to see
a man.”
“Got to what?” said Sam, surprised.
“Got to see a man for a minute. Fellow named Evans, who was at school
with me. Most important.”
And with that curious snipelike abruptness which characterised his
movements to-night, Willoughby Braddock slammed the front door violently
and disappeared.
Sam’s feelings, as the result of his host’s impulsive departure, were
somewhat mixed. To the credit side of the ledger he could place the fact
that he was safely under the shelter of a roof, which he had not
expected to be an hour ago; but he wished that, before leaving, his
friend had given him a clew as to where was situated this drawing-room
with its sofa whereon he was to spend the remainder of the night.
However, a brief exploration would no doubt reveal the hidden chamber.
It might even be that room whose door faced him across the hall.
He was turning the handle with the view of testing this theory, when a
voice behind him, speaking softly but with a startling abruptness, said,
“Hands up!”
At the foot of the stairs, her wide mouth set in a determined line, her
tow-coloured hair adorned with gleaming curling pins, there was standing
a young woman in a pink dressing gown and slippers. In her right hand,
pointed at his head, she held a revolver.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SAM AT SAN RAFAEL
It is not given to every girl who makes prophecies to find those
prophecies fulfilled within a few short hours of their utterance; and
the emotions of Claire Lippett, as she confronted Sam in the hall of San
Rafael, were akin to those of one who sees the long shot romp in ahead
of the field or who unexpectedly solves the cross-word puzzle. Only that
evening she had predicted that burglars would invade the house, and here
one was, as large as life. Mixed, therefore, with her disapproval of
this midnight marauder, was a feeling almost of gratitude to him for
being there. Of fear she felt no trace. She presented the pistol with a
firm hand.
One calls it a pistol for the sake of technical accuracy. To Sam’s
startled senses it appeared like a young cannon, and so deeply did he
feel regarding it that he made it the subject of his opening
remark--which, by all the laws of etiquette, should have been a graceful
apology for and explanation of his intrusion.
“Steady with the howitzer!” he urged.
“What say?” said Claire coldly.
“The lethal weapon--be careful with it. It’s pointing at me.”
“I know it’s pointing at you.”
“Oh, well, so long as it only points,” said Sam.
He felt a good deal reassured by the level firmness of her tone. This
was plainly not one of those neurotic, fluttering females whose fingers
cannot safely be permitted within a foot of a pistol trigger.
There was a pause. Claire, still keeping the weapon poised, turned the
gas up. Upon which, Sam, rightly feeling that the ball of conversation
should be set rolling by himself, spoke again.
“You are doubtless surprised,” he said, plagiarising the literary style
of Mr. Todhunter, “to see me here.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
“No. You keep those hands of yours up.”
Sam sighed.
“You wouldn’t speak to me in that harsh tone,” he said, “if you knew all
I had been through. It is not too much to say that I have been
persecuted this night.”
“Well, you shouldn’t come breaking into people’s houses,” said Claire
primly.
“You are labouring under a natural error,” said Sam. “I did not break
into this charming little house. My presence, Mrs. Braddock, strange as
it may seem, is easily explained.”
“Who are you calling Mrs. Braddock?”
“Aren’t you Mrs. Braddock?”
“No.”
“You aren’t married to Mr. Braddock?”
“No, I’m not.”
Sam was a broad-minded young man.
“Ah, well,” he said, “in the sight of God, no doubt----”
“I’m the cook.”
“Oh,” said Sam, relieved, “that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Well, you know, it seemed a trifle odd for a moment that you should be
popping about here at this time of night with your hair in curlers and
your little white ankles peeping out from under a dressing gown.”
“Coo!” said Claire in a modest flutter. She performed a swift adjustment
of the garment’s folds.
“But if you’re Mr. Braddock’s cook----”
“Who said I was Mr. Braddock’s cook?”
“You did.”
“I didn’t any such thing. I’m Mr. Wrenn’s cook.”
“Mr. who?”
“Mr. Wrenn.”
This was a complication which Sam had not anticipated.
“Let us get this thing straight,” he said. “Am I to understand that this
house does not belong to Mr. Braddock?”
“Yes, you are. It belongs to Mr. Wrenn.”
“But Mr. Braddock had a latchkey.”
“He’s staying here.”
“Ah!”
“What do you mean--ah?”
“I intended to convey that things are not so bad as I thought they were.
I was afraid for a moment that I had got into the wrong house. But it’s
all right. You see, I met Mr. Braddock a short while ago and he brought
me back here to spend the night.”
“Oh?” said Claire. “Did he? Ho! Oh, indeed?”
Sam looked at her anxiously. He did not like her manner.
“You believe me, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“But surely----”
“If Mr. Braddock brought you here, where is he?”
“He went away. He was, I regret to say, quite considerably squiffed.
Immediately after letting me in he dashed off, banging the door behind
him.”
“Likely!”
“But listen, my dear little girl----”
“Less of it!” said Claire austerely. “It’s a bit thick if a girl can’t
catch a burglar without having him start to flirt with her.”
“You wrong me!” said Sam. “You wrong me! I was only saying----”
“Well, don’t.”
“But this is absurd. Good heavens, use your intelligence! If my story
wasn’t true, how could I know anything about Mr. Braddock?”
“You could easily have asked around. What I say is if you were all right
you wouldn’t be going about in a suit of clothes like that. You look
like a tramp.”
“Well, I’ve just come off a tramp steamer. You mustn’t go judging people
by appearance. I should have thought they would have taught you that at
school.”
“Never you mind what they taught me at school.”
“You have got me all wrong. I’m a millionaire--or rather my uncle is.”
“Mine’s the Shah of Persia.”
“And a few weeks ago he sent me over to England, the idea being that I
was to sail on the _Mauretania_. But that would have involved sharing a
suite with a certain Lord Tilbury and the scheme didn’t appeal to me. So
I missed the ship and came over on a cargo boat instead.”
He paused. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the story sounded thin.
He passed it in a swift review before his mind. Yes, thin.
And it was quite plain from her expression that the resolute young lady
before him shared this opinion.
She wrinkled her small nose skeptically, and, having finished wrinkling
it, sniffed.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” she said.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t,” said Sam. “True though it is, it has a
phony ring. Really to digest that story, you have to know Lord Tilbury.
If you had the doubtful pleasure of the acquaintance of that king of
bores, you would see that I acted in the only possible way. However, if
it’s too much for you, let it go, and we will approach the matter from a
new angle. The whole trouble seems to be my clothes, so I will make you
a sporting offer. Overlook them for the moment, give me your womanly
trust and allow me to sleep on the drawing-room sofa for the rest of the
night, and not only will blessings reward you but I promise you--right
here and now--that in a day or two I will call at this house and let you
see me in the niftiest rig-out that ever man wore. Imagine it! A
brand-new suit, custom-made, silk serge linings, hand-sewed, scallops on
the pocket flaps--and me inside! Is it a bet?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Think well! When you first see that suit you will say to yourself that
the coat doesn’t seem to sit exactly right. You will be correct. The
coat will not sit exactly right. And why? Because there will be in the
side pocket a large box of the very finest mixed chocolates, a present
for a good girl. Come now! The use of the drawing-room for the few
remaining hours of the night. It is not much to ask.”
Claire shook her head inflexibly.
“I’m not going to risk it,” she said. “By rights I ought to march you
out into the street and hand you over to the policeman.”
“And have him see you in curling pins? No, no!”
“What’s wrong with my curling pins?” demanded Claire fiercely.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Sam hastily. “I admire them. It only occurred
to me as a passing thought----”
“The reason I don’t do it is because I’m tender-hearted and don’t want
to be too hard on a feller.”
“It is a spirit I appreciate,” said Sam. “And would that there had been
more of it abroad in London this night.”
“So out you go, and don’t let me hear no more of you. Just buzz off,
that’s all I ask. And be quick about it, because I need my sleep.”
“I was wrong about those chocolates,” said Sam. “Silly mistake to make.
What will really be in that side pocket will be a lovely diamond
brooch.”
“And a motor car and a ruby ring and a new dress and a house in the
country, I suppose. Outside!”
Sam accepted defeat. The manly spirit of the Shotters was considerable,
but it could be broken.
“Oh, all right, I’ll go. One of these days, when my limousine splashes
you with mud, you will be sorry for this.”
“And don’t bang the door behind you,” ordered the ruthless girl.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SAM AT MON REPOS
Standing on the steps and gazing out into the blackness, Sam now
perceived that in the interval between his entrance into San Rafael and
his exit therefrom, the night, in addition to being black, had become
wet. A fine rain had begun to fall, complicating the situation to no
small extent.
For some minutes he remained where he was, hoping for Mr. Braddock’s
return. But the moments passed and no sound of footsteps, however
distant, broke the stillness; so, after going through a brief
commination service in which the names of Hash Todhunter, Claude Bates
and Willoughby Braddock were prominently featured, he decided to make a
move. And it was as he came down from the steps on to the little strip
of gravel that he saw a board leaning drunkenly towards him a few paces
to his left, and read on that board the words “To Let, Furnished.”
This opened up an entirely new train of thought. It revealed to him what
he had not previously suspected, that the house outside which he stood
was not one house but two houses. It suggested, moreover, that the one
to which the board alluded was unoccupied, and the effect of this was
extraordinarily stimulating.
He hurried along the gravel; and rounding the angle of the building,
saw dimly through the darkness a structure attached to its side which
looked like a conservatory. He bolted in; and with a pleasant feeling of
having circumvented Fate, sat down on a wooden shelf intended as a
resting place for potted geraniums.
But Fate is not so easily outmanœuvred. Fate, for its own inscrutable
reasons, had decided that Sam was to be thoroughly persecuted to-night,
and it took up the attack again without delay. There was a sharp
cracking sound and the wooden shelf collapsed in ruin. Sam had many
excellent qualities, but he did not in the least resemble a potted
geranium, and he went through the woodwork as if it had been paper. And
Fate, which observes no rules of the ring and has no hesitation about
hitting a man when he is down, immediately proceeded to pour water down
his neck through a hole in the broken roof.
Sam rose painfully. He saw now that he had been mistaken in supposing
that this conservatory was a home from home. He turned up his coat
collar and strode wrathfully out into the darkness. He went round to the
back of the house with the object of ascertaining if there was an
outside coal cellar where a man might achieve dryness, if not positive
comfort. And it was as he stumbled along that he saw the open window.
It was a sight which in the blackness of the night he might well have
missed; but suffering had sharpened his senses, and he saw it
plainly--an open window only a few feet above the ground. Until this
moment the idea of actually breaking into the house had not occurred to
him; but now, regardless of all the laws which discourage such
behaviour, he put his hand on the sill and scrambled through. The rain,
as if furious at the escape of its prey, came lashing down like a shower
bath.
Sam moved carefully on. Groping his way, he found himself at the foot of
a flight of stairs. He climbed these cautiously and became aware of
doors to left and right.
The room to the right was empty, but the other one contained a bed. It
was a bed, however, that had been reduced to such a mere scenario that
he decided to leave it and try his luck downstairs. The board outside
had said “To Let, Furnished,” which suggested the possibility of a
drawing-room sofa. He left the room and started to walk down the stairs.
At first, as he began the descent, the regions below had been in
complete darkness. But now a little beam of light suddenly pierced the
gloom--a light that might have been that of an electric torch. It was
wavering uncertainly, as if whoever was behind it was in the grip of a
strong emotion of some kind.
Sam also was in the grip of a strong emotion. He stopped and held his
breath. For the space of some seconds there was silence. Then he
breathed again.
Perfect control of the breathing apparatus is hard to acquire. Singers
spend years learning it. Sam’s skill in that direction was rudimentary.
It had been his intention to let his present supply of breath gently out
and then, very cautiously, to take another supply gently in. Instead of
which, he gave vent to a sound so loud and mournful that it made his
flesh creep. It was half a snort and half a groan, and it echoed
through the empty house like a voice from the tomb.
This, he felt, was the end. Further concealment was obviously out of the
question. Dully resentful of the curse that seemed to be on him
to-night, he stood waiting for the inevitable challenge from below.
No challenge came. Instead, there was a sharp clatter of feet, followed
by a distant scrabbling sound. The man behind the torch had made a rapid
exit through the open window.
For a moment Sam stood perplexed. Then the reasonable explanation came
to him. It was no caretaker who had stood there, but an intruder with as
little right to be on the premises as he himself. And having reached
this conclusion, he gave no further thought to the matter. He was
feeling extraordinarily sleepy now and speculations as to the identity
of burglars had no interest for him. His mind was occupied entirely by
the question of whether or not there was a sofa in the drawing-room.
There was, and a reasonably comfortable sofa too. Sam had reached the
stage where he could have slept on spikes, and this sofa seemed to him
as inviting as the last word in beds, with all the latest modern springs
and box mattresses. He lay down and sleep poured over him like a healing
wave.
CHAPTER NINE
BREAKFAST FOR ONE
It was broad daylight when he woke. Splashes of sunlight were on the
floor, and outside a cart clattered cheerfully. Rising stiffly, he was
aware of a crick in the neck and of that unpleasant sensation of
semi-suffocation which comes to those who spend the night in a disused
room with the windows closed. More even than a bath and a shave, he
desired fresh air. He made his way down the passage to the window by
which he had entered. Outside, glimpses of a garden were visible. He
climbed through and drew a deep breath.
The rain of the night had left the world sweet and clean. The ragged
grass was all jewelled in the sunshine, and birds were singing in the
trees. Sam stood drinking in the freshness of it all, feeling better
every instant.
Finally, having performed a few of those bending and stretching
exercises which form such an admirable corrective to the effects of a
disturbed night, he strolled down the garden path, wishing he could
somehow and at no very distant date connect with a little breakfast.
“For goodness sake!”
He looked up. Over the fence which divided the garden from the one next
door a familiar face was peering. It was his hostess of last night.
But, whereas then she had been curling-pinned and dressing-gowned, she
was now neatly clad in print and wore on her head a becoming cap. Her
face, moreover, which had been hard and hostile, was softened by a
friendly grin.
“Good morning,” said Sam.
“How did you get there?”
“When you turned me out into the night,” said Sam reproachfully, “I took
refuge next door.”
“I say, I’m sorry about that,” said the girl remorsefully. “But how was
I to know that you were telling the truth?” She giggled happily. “Mr.
Braddock came back half an hour after you had left. He made such a rare
old row that I came down again----”
“And shot him, I hope. No? A mistake, I think.”
“Well, then, he asked where you were. He said your name was Evans.”
“He was a little confused. My name is Shotter. I warned you that he was
not quite himself. What became of him then?”
“He went up to bed. I’ve just taken him up a tray, but all he did was to
look at it and moan and shut his eyes again. I say, have you had any
breakfast?”
“Don’t torture me.”
“Well, hop over the fence then. I’ll get you some in two ticks.”
Sam hopped. The sun seemed very bright now, and the birds were singing
with a singular sweetness.
“Would it also run to a shave and a bath?” he asked, as they walked
toward the house.
“You’ll find Mr. Wrenn’s shaving things in the bathroom.”
“Is this heaven?” said Sam. “Shall I also find Mr. Wrenn by any chance?”
“Oh, no, him and Miss Kay have been gone half an hour.”
“Excellent! Where is this bathroom?”
“Up those stairs, first door to the left. When you come down, go into
that room there, and I’ll bring the tray in. It’s the drawing-room, but
the dining-room table isn’t cleared yet.”
“I shall enjoy seeing your drawing-room, of which I have heard so much.”
“Do you like eggs?”
“I do--and plenty of them. Also bacon--a good deal of bacon. Oh, and by
the way----” added Sam, leaning over the banisters.
“Yes?”
“----toast--lots and lots of toast.”
“I’ll get you all you can eat.”
“You will? Tell me,” said Sam, “it has been puzzling me greatly. How do
you manage to get that dress on over your wings?”
CHAPTER TEN
SAM FINDS A PHOTOGRAPH
Sam, when he came downstairs some twenty minutes later, was definitely
in what Mr. Hash Todhunter would have described as the pink. The night
had been bad, but joy had certainly come in the morning. The sight of
the breakfast tray on a small table by the window set the seal on his
mood of well-being; and for a long, luxurious space he had eyes for
nothing else. It was only after he had consumed the eggs, the bacon, the
toast, the coffee and the marmalade that he yielded to what is usually
the first impulse of a man who finds himself in a strange room and began
to explore.
It was some half minute later that Claire Lippett, clearing the
dining-room table, was startled to the extent of dropping a butter dish
by a loud shout or cry that seemed to proceed from the room where she
had left her guest.
Hurrying thither, she found him behaving in a strange manner. He was
pointing at a photograph on the mantelpiece and gesticulating wildly.
“Who’s that?” he cried as she entered. He seemed to have difficulty with
his vocal cords.
“Eh?”
“Who the devil’s that?”
“Language!”
“Who is it? That girl--who is she? What’s her name?”
“You needn’t shout,” said Claire, annoyed.
The photograph which had so excited this young man was the large one
that stood in the centre of the mantelpiece. It represented a girl in
hunting costume, standing beside her horse, and it was Claire’s
favourite. A dashing and vigorous duster, with an impressive record of
smashed china and broken glass to her name, she always handled this
particular work of art with a gentle tenderness.
“That?” she said. “Why, that’s Miss Kay, of course.”
She came forward and flicked a speck of dust off the glass.
“Taken at Midways, that was,” she said, “two or three years ago, before
the old colonel lost his money. I was Miss Kay’s maid then--personal
maid,” she added with pride. She regarded the photograph wistfully, for
it stood to her for all the pomps and glories of a vanished yesterday,
for the brave days when there had been horses and hunting costumes and
old red chimneys against a blue sky and rabbits in the park and sunlight
on the lake and all the rest of the things that made up Midways and
prosperity. “I remember the day that photograph was took. It was printed
in the papers, that photograph was.”
Sam continued to be feverish.
“Miss Kay? Who’s Miss Kay?”
“Miss Kay Derrick, Mr. Wrenn’s niece.”
“The man who lives here, do you mean?”
“Yes. He gave Miss Kay a home when everything went smash. That’s how I
come to be here. I could have stopped at Midways if I’d of liked,” she
said. “The new people who took the place would have kept me on if I’d of
wanted. But I said, ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going with Miss Kay,’ I said.
‘I’m not going to desert her in her mis-for-chewn,’ I said.”
Sam started violently.
“You don’t mean--you can’t mean--you don’t mean she lives here?”
“Of course she does.”
“Not actually lives here--not in this very house?”
“Certainly.”
“My gosh!”
Sam quivered from head to foot. A stupendous idea had come to him.
“My gosh!” he cried again, with bulging eyes. Then, with no more
words--for it was a time not for words but for action--he bounded from
the room.
To leap out of the front door and clatter down the steps to the board
which stood against the fence was with Sam the work of a moment. Beneath
the large letters of the To Let, Furnished, he now perceived other
smaller letters informing all who might be interested that applications
for the tenancy of that desirable semi-detached residence, Mon Repos,
should be made to Messrs. Matters & Cornelius, House Agents, of Ogilvy
Street, Valley Fields, S. E. He galloped up the steps again and beat
wildly upon the door.
“Now what?” inquired Claire.
“Where is Ogilvy Street?”
“Up the road, first turning to the left.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Out on the gravel, he paused, pondered and returned.
“Back again?” said Claire.
“Did you say left or right?”
“Left.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Claire.
This time Sam performed the descent of the steps in a single leap. But
reaching the gate, he was struck by a thought.
“Fond of exercise, aren’t you?” said Claire patiently.
“Suddenly occurred to me,” explained Sam, “that I’d got no money.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“These house-agent people would expect a bit of money down in advance,
wouldn’t they?”
“Sounds possible. Are you going to take a house?”
“I’m going to take Mon Repos,” said Sam. “And I must have money. Where’s
Mr. Braddock?”
“In bed.”
“Where’s his room?”
“Top floor back.”
“Thanks.”
“Dee-lighted,” said Claire.
Her statement that the guest of the house was in bed proved accurate.
Sam, entering the apartment indicated, found his old school friend lying
on his back with open mouth and matted hair. He was snoring
rhythmically. On a chair at his side stood a tray containing a teapot,
toast and a cold poached egg of such raffish and leering aspect that
Sam, moving swiftly to the dressing table, averted his eyes as he
passed.
The dressing table presented an altogether more pleasing picture. Heaped
beside Mr. Braddock’s collar box and hair-brushes was a small mountain
of notes and silver--a fascinating spectacle with the morning sunshine
playing on them. With twitching fingers, Sam scooped them up; and
finding pencil and paper, paused for a moment, seeking for words.
It is foolish to attempt to improve on the style of a master. Hash
Todhunter had shown himself in a class of his own at this kind of
literary composition, and Sam was content to take him as a model. He
wrote:
“DEAR BRADDER: You will doubtless be surprised to learn that I have
borrowed your money. I will return it in God’s good time.
Meanwhile, as Sir Philip Sidney said to the wounded soldier, my
need is greater than yours.
“Trusting this finds you in the pink,
“Yrs. Obedtly,
“S. SHOTTER.”
Then, having propped the note against the collar box, he left the room.
A sense of something omitted, some little kindly act forgotten, arrested
him at the head of the stairs. He returned; and taking the poached egg,
placed it gently on the pillow beside his friend’s head. This done, he
went downstairs again, and so out on the broad trail that led to the
premises of Messrs. Matters & Cornelius, House Agents, of Ogilvy
Street.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SAM BECOMES A HOUSEHOLDER
What Mr. Matters would have thought of Sam as he charged breezily into
the office a few minutes later we shall never know, for Mr. Matters died
in the year 1910. Mr. Cornelius thought him perfectly foul. After one
swift, appraising stare through his gold-rimmed spectacles, he went so
far as to share this opinion with his visitor.
“I never give to beggars,” he said. He was a venerable old man with a
white beard and bushy eyebrows, and he spoke with something of the
intonation of a druid priest chanting at the altar previous to sticking
the knife into the human sacrifice. “I do not believe in indiscriminate
charity.”
“I will fill in your confession book some other time,” said Sam. “For
the moment, let us speak of houses. I want to take Mon Repos in Burberry
Road.”
The druid was about to recite that ancient rune which consists of the
solemn invocation to a policeman, when he observed with considerable
surprise that his young visitor was spraying currency in great
quantities over the table. He gulped. It was unusual for clients at his
office to conduct business transactions in a manner more suitable to the
Bagdad of the _Arabian Nights_ than a respectable modern suburb. He
could hardly have been more surprised if camels laden with jewels and
spices had paraded down Ogilvy Street.
“What is all this?” he asked, blinking.
“Money,” said Sam.
“Where did you get it?”
He eyed Sam askance. And Sam, who, as the heady result of a bath, shave,
breakfast and the possession of cash, had once more forgotten that there
was anything noticeable about his appearance, gathered that here was
another of the long line of critics who had failed to recognise his true
worth at first sight.
“Do not judge me by the outer crust,” he said. “I am shabby because I
have been through much. When I stepped aboard the boat at New York I was
as natty a looking young fellow as you could wish to see. People nudged
one another as I passed along the pier and said, ‘Who is he?’”
“You come from America?”
“From America.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Cornelius, as if that explained everything.
“My uncle,” said Sam, sensing the change in the atmosphere and pursuing
his advantage, “is Mr. John B. Pynsent, the well-to-do millionaire of
whom you have doubtless heard.... You haven’t? One of our greatest
captains of industry. He made a vast fortune in fur.”
“In fur? Really?”
“Got the concession for providing the snakes at the Bronx Zoo with
earmuffs, and from that moment never looked back.”
“You surprise me,” said Mr. Cornelius. “Most interesting.”
“A romance of commerce,” agreed Sam. “And now, returning to this matter
of the house----”
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Cornelius. His voice, as he eyed the money on the
table, was soft and gentle. He still looked like a druid priest, but a
druid priest on his afternoon off. “For how long a period did you wish
to rent Mon Repos, Mr.--er----”
“Shotter is the name.... Indefinitely.”
“Shall we say three months rent in advance?”
“Let us say just those very words.”
“And as to references----”
Sam was on the point of giving Mr. Wrenn’s name, until he recollected
that he had not yet met that gentleman. Using his shaving brush and
razor and eating food from his larder seemed to bring them very close
together. He reflected.
“Lord Tilbury,” he said. “That’s the baby.”
“Lord Tilbury, of the Mammoth Publishing Company?” said Mr. Cornelius,
plainly awed. “Do you know him?”
“Know him? We’re more like brothers than anything. There’s precious
little Lord Tilbury ever does without consulting me. It might be a good
idea to call him up on the phone now. I ought to let him know that I’ve
arrived.”
Mr. Cornelius turned to the telephone, succeeded after an interval in
getting the number, and after speaking with various unseen underlings,
tottered reverently as he found himself talking to the great man in
person. He handed the instrument to Sam.
“His Lordship would like to speak to you, Mr. Shotter.”
“I knew it, I knew it,” said Sam. “Hello! Lord Tilbury? This is Sam. How
are you? I’ve just arrived. I came over in a tramp steamer, and I’ve
been having all sorts of adventures. Give you a good laugh. I’m down at
Valley Fields at the moment, taking a house. I’ve given your name as a
reference. You don’t mind? Splendid! Lunch? Delighted. I’ll be along as
soon as I can. Got to get a new suit first. I slept in my clothes last
night.... Well, good-bye. It’s all right about the references,” he said,
turning to Mr. Cornelius. “Carry on.”
“I will draw up the lease immediately, Mr. Shotter. If you will tell me
where I am to send it----”
“Send it?” said Sam surprised. “Why, to Mon Repos, of course.”
“But----”
“Can’t I move in at once?”
“I suppose so, if you wish it. But I fancy the house is hardly ready for
immediate tenancy. You will need linen.”
“That’s all right. A couple of hours shopping will fix that.”
Mr. Cornelius smiled indulgently. He was thoroughly pro-Sam by now.
“True American hustle,” he observed, waggling his white beard. “Well, I
see no objection, if you make a point of it. I will find the key for
you. Tell me, Mr. Shotter,” he asked as he rummaged about in drawers,
“what has caused this great desire on your part to settle in Valley
Fields? Of course, as a patriotic inhabitant, I ought not to be
surprised. I have lived in Valley Fields all my life, and would not live
anywhere else if you offered me a million pounds.”
“I won’t.”
“I was born in Valley Fields, Mr. Shotter, and I love the place, and I
am not ashamed to say so.
“‘Breathes there the man with soul so dead,’” inquired Mr. Cornelius,
“‘Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose
heart hath ne’er within him burned as home his footsteps he hath turn’d
from wandering on a foreign strand?’”
“Ah!” said Sam. “That’s what we’d all like to know, wouldn’t we?”
“‘If such there breathe,’” proceeded Mr. Cornelius, “‘go mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell. High though his titles, proud his
name, boundless his wealth as wish can claim, despite those titles,
power, and pelf, the wretch, concentred all in self----’”
“I have a luncheon engagement at 1:30,” said Sam.
“‘----Living, shall forfeit fair renown, and, doubly dying, shall go
down to the vile dust from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonour’d and
unsung.’ Those words, Mr. Shotter----”
“A little thing of your own?”
“Those words, Mr. Shotter, will appear on the title page of the history
of Valley Fields, which I am compiling--a history dealing not only with
its historical associations, which are numerous, but also with those
aspects of its life which my occupation as house agent has given me
peculiar opportunities of examining. I get some queer clients, Mr.
Shotter.”
Sam was on the point of saying that the clients got a queer house agent,
thus making the thing symmetrical, but he refrained.
“It may interest you to know that a very well-known criminal, a man who
might be described as a second Charles Peace, once resided in the very
house which you are renting.”
“I shall raise the tone.”
“Like Charles Peace, he was a most respectable man to all outward
appearances. His name was Finglass. Nobody seems to have had any
suspicion of his real character until the police, acting on information
received, endeavoured to arrest him for the perpetration of a great bank
robbery.”
“Catch him?” said Sam, only faintly interested.
“No; he escaped and fled the country. But I was asking you what made you
settle on Valley Fields as a place of residence. You would seem to have
made up your mind very quickly.”
“Well, the fact is, I happened to catch sight of my next-door
neighbours, and it struck me that they would be pleasant people to live
near.”
Mr. Cornelius nodded.
“Mr. Wrenn is greatly respected by all who know him.”
“I liked his razor,” said Sam.
“If you are going to Tilbury House it is possible that you may meet him.
He is the editor of Pyke’s _Home Companion_.”
“Is that so?” said Sam. “Pyke’s _Home Companion_, eh?”
“I take it in regularly.”
“And Mr. Wrenn’s niece? A charming girl, I thought.”
“I scarcely know her,” said Mr. Cornelius indifferently. “Young women do
not interest me.”
The proverb about casting pearls before swine occurred to Sam.
“I must be going,” he said coldly. “Speed up that lease, will you. And
if anyone else blows in and wants to take the house, bat them over the
head with the office ruler.”
“Mr. Wrenn and I frequently play a game of chess together,” said Mr.
Cornelius.
Sam was not interested in his senile diversions.
“Good morning,” he said stiffly, and passed out into Ogilvy Street.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SAM IS MUCH TOO SUDDEN
§ 1
The clocks of London were striking twelve when Sam, entering the Strand,
turned to the left and made his way toward Fleet Street to keep his
tryst with Lord Tilbury at the offices of the Mammoth Publishing
Company.
In the interval which had elapsed since his parting from Mr. Cornelius a
striking change had taken place in his appearance, for he had paid a
visit to that fascinating shop near Covent Garden which displays on its
door the legend, “Cohen Bros., Ready-Made Clothiers,” and is the Mecca
of all who prefer to pluck their garments ripe off the bough instead of
waiting for them to grow. The kindly brethren had fitted him out with a
tweed suit of bold pattern, a shirt of quality, underclothing, socks, a
collar, sock suspenders, a handkerchief, a tie pin and a hat with the
same swift and unemotional efficiency with which, had he desired it,
they would have provided the full costume of an Arctic explorer, a duke
about to visit Buckingham Palace, or a big-game hunter bound for Eastern
Africa. Nor had they failed him in the matter of new shoes and a
wanghee. It was, in short, an edition de luxe of S. Pynsent Shotter,
richly bound and profusely illustrated, that now presented itself to the
notice of the public.
The tonic of new clothes is recognised by all students of human nature.
Sam walked with a springy jauntiness, and his gay bearing, combined with
the brightness of his exterior, drew many eyes upon him.
Two of these eyes belonged to a lean and stringy man of mournful
countenance who was moving in the opposite direction, away from London’s
newspaper land. For a moment they rested upon Sam in a stare that had
something of dislike in it, as if their owner resented the intrusion
upon his notice of so much cheerfulness. Then they suddenly widened into
a stare of horror, and the man stopped, spellbound. A hurrying
pedestrian, bumping into him from behind, propelled him forward, and
Sam, coming up at four miles an hour, bumped into him in front. The
result of the collision was a complicated embrace, from which Sam was
extricating himself with apologies when he perceived that this person
with whom he had become entangled was no stranger, but an old friend.
“Hash!” he cried.
There was nothing in Mr. Todhunter’s aspect to indicate pleasure at the
encounter. He breathed heavily and spoke no word.
“Hash, you old devil!” said Sam joyfully.
Mr. Todhunter licked his lips uncomfortably. He cast a swift glance over
his shoulder, as if debating the practicability of a dive into the
traffic. He endeavoured, without success, to loosen the grip of Sam’s
hand on his coat sleeve.
“What are you wriggling for?” asked Sam, becoming aware of this.
“I’m not wriggling,” said Hash. He spoke huskily and in a tone that
seemed timidly ingratiating. If the voice of Mr. Cornelius had resembled
a druid priest’s, Clarence Todhunter’s might have been likened to that
of the victim on the altar. “I’m not wriggling, Sam. What would I want
to wriggle for?”
“Where did you spring from, Hash?”
Mr. Todhunter coughed.
“I was just coming from leaving a note for you, Sam, at that place
Tilbury House, where you told me you’d be.”
“You’re a great letter writer, aren’t you?”
The allusion was not lost upon Mr. Todhunter. He gulped and his
breathing became almost stertorous.
“I want to explain about that, Sam,” he said. “Explain, if I may use the
term, fully. Sam,” said Mr. Todhunter thickly, “what I say and what I
always have said is, when there’s been a little misunderstanding between
pals--pals, if I may use the expression, what have stood together side
by side through thick and through thin--pals what have shared and shared
alike----” He broke off. He was not a man of acute sensibility, but he
could see that the phrase, in the circumstances, was an unhappy one.
“What I say is, Sam, when it’s like that--well, there’s nothing like
letting bygones be bygones and, so to speak, burying the dead past. As a
man of the world, you bein’ one and me bein’ another----”
“I take it,” said Sam, “from a certain something in your manner, that
that moth-eaten whippet of yours did not win his race.”
“Sam,” said Mr. Todhunter, “I will not conceal it from you. I will be
frank, open and above board. That whippet did not win.”
“Your money then--and mine--is now going to support some bookie in the
style to which he has been accustomed?”
“It’s gorn, Sam,” admitted Mr. Todhunter in a deathbed voice. “Yes, Sam,
it’s gorn.”
“Then come and have a drink,” said Sam cordially.
“A drink?”
“Or two.”
He led the way to a hostelry that lurked coyly among shops and office
buildings. Hash followed, marvelling. The first stunned horror had
passed, and his mind, such as it was, was wrestling with the insoluble
problem of why Sam, with the facts of the whippet disaster plainly
before him, was so astoundingly amiable.
The hour being early even for a perpetually thirsty community like that
of Fleet Street, the saloon bar into which they made their way was free
from the crowds which would have interfered with a quiet chat between
friends. Two men who looked like printers were drinking beer in a
corner, while at the counter a haughty barmaid was mixing a cocktail for
a solitary reveller in a velours hat. This individual had just made a
remark about the weather in a rich and attractive voice, and his
intonation was so unmistakably American that Sam glanced at him as he
passed; and, glancing, half stopped, arrested by something strangely
familiar about the man’s face.
It was not a face which anyone would be likely to forget if they had
seen it often; and the fact that it brought no memories back to him
inclined Sam to think that he could never have met this rather
striking-looking person, but must have seen him somewhere on the street
or in a hotel lobby. He was a handsome, open-faced man of middle-age.
“I’ve seen that fellow before somewhere,” he said, as he sat with Hash
at a table by the window.
“’Ave you?” said Hash, and there was such a manifest lack of interest in
his tone that Sam, surprised at his curtness, awoke to the realisation
that he had not yet ordered refreshment. He repaired the omission and
Hash’s drawn face relaxed.
“Hash,” said Sam, “I owe you a lot.”
“Me?” said Hash blankly.
“Yes. You remember that photograph I showed you?”
“The girl--Nimrod?”
“Yes. Hash, I’ve found her, and purely owing to you. If you hadn’t taken
that money it would never have happened.”
Mr. Todhunter, though he was far from understanding, endeavoured to
assume a simper of modest altruism. He listened attentively while Sam
related the events of the night.
“And I’ve taken the house next door,” concluded Sam, “and I move in
to-day. So, if you want a shore job, the post of cook in the Shotter
household is open. How about it?”
A sort of spasm passed across Hash’s wooden features.
“You want me to come and cook?”
“I’ve got to get a cook somewhere. Can you leave the ship?”
“Can I leave the ship? Mister, you watch and see how quick I can leave
that ruddy ocean-going steam kettle! I’ve been wanting a shore job ever
since I was cloth-head enough to go to sea.”
“You surprise me,” said Sam. “I have always looked on you as one of
those tough old salts who can’t be happy away from deep waters. I
thought you sang chanteys in your sleep. Well, that’s splendid. You had
better go straight down to the house and start getting things fixed up.
Here’s the key. Write the address down--Mon Repos, Burberry Road, Valley
Fields.”
A sharp crash rang through the room. The man at the bar, who had
finished his cocktail and was drinking a whisky and soda, had dropped
his glass.
“’Ere!” exclaimed the barmaid, startled, a large hand on the left side
of her silken bosom.
The man paid no attention to her cry. He was staring with marked
agitation at Sam and his companion.
“How do I get there?” asked Hash.
“By train or bus--there’s any number of ways.”
“And I can go straight into the house?”
“Yes; I’ve taken it from this morning.”
Sam hurried out. Hash, pausing to write down the address, became aware
that he was being spoken to.
“Say, pardon me,” said the fine-looking man who was clutching at his
sleeve. “Might I have a word with you, brother?”
“Well?” said Hash suspiciously. The last time an American had addressed
him as brother it had cost him eleven dollars and seventy-five cents.
“Did I understand your pal who’s gone out to say that he had rented a
house named Mon Repos down in Valley Fields?”
“Yes, you did. What of it?”
The man did not reply. Consternation was writ upon his face, and he
passed a hand feebly across his broad forehead. The silence was broken
by the cold voice of the barmaid.
“That’ll be threepence I’ll kindly ask you for, for that glass,” said
the barmaid. “And if,” she added with asperity, “you ’ad to pay for the
shock you give me, it ’ud cost you a tenner.”
“Girlie,” replied the man sadly, watching Hash as he shambled through
the doorway, “you aren’t the only one that’s had a shock.”
§ 2
While Sam was walking down Fleet Street on his way to Tilbury House,
thrilled with the joy of existence and swishing the air jovially with
his newly purchased wanghee, in Tilbury House itself the proprietor of
the Mammoth Publishing Company was pacing the floor of his private
office, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, his eyes staring
bleakly before him.
Lord Tilbury was a short, stout, commanding-looking man, and practically
everything he did had in it something of the Napoleonic quality. His
demeanour now suggested Napoleon in captivity, striding the deck of the
_Bellerophon_ with vultures gnawing at his breast.
So striking was his attitude that his sister, Mrs. Frances Hammond, who
had called to see him, as was her habit when business took her into the
neighbourhood of Tilbury House, paused aghast in the doorway, while the
obsequious boy in buttons who was ushering her in frankly lost his nerve
and bolted.
“Good gracious, Georgie!” she cried. “What’s the matter?”
His Lordship came to a standstill and something faintly resembling
relief appeared in his square-cut face. Ever since the days when he had
been plain George Pyke, starting in business with a small capital and a
large ambition, his sister Frances had always been a rock of support. It
might be that her advice would help him to cope with the problem which
was vexing him now.
“Sit down, Francie,” he said. “Thank goodness you’ve come. Just the
person I want to talk to.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m telling you. You remember that when I was in America I met a man
named Pynsent?”
“Yes.”
“This man Pynsent was the owner of an island off the coast of Maine.”
“Yes, I know. And you----”
“An island,” continued Lord Tilbury, “densely covered with trees. He
used it merely as a place of retirement, for the purpose of shooting and
fishing; but when he invited me there for a week-end I saw its
commercial possibilities in an instant.”
“Yes, you told me. You----”
“I said to myself,” proceeded Lord Tilbury, one of whose less engaging
peculiarities it was that he never permitted the fact that his audience
was familiar with a story to keep him from telling it again, “I said to
myself, ‘This island, properly developed, could supply all the paper the
Mammoth needs and save me thousands a year!’ It was my intention to buy
the place and start paper mills.”
“Yes, and----”
“Paper mills,” said Lord Tilbury firmly. “I made an offer to Pynsent. He
shilly-shallied. I increased my offer. Still he would give me no
definite answer. Sometimes he seemed willing to sell, and then he would
change his mind. And then, when I was compelled to leave and return to
England, an idea struck me. He had been talking about his nephew and how
he was anxious for him to settle down and do something----”
“So you offered to take him over here and employ him in the Mammoth,”
said Mrs. Hammond with a touch of impatience. She loved and revered her
brother, but she could not conceal it from herself that he sometimes
tended to be prolix. “You thought it would put him under an obligation.”
“Exactly. I imagined I was being shrewd. I supposed that I was
introducing into the affair just that little human touch which sometimes
makes all the difference. Well, it will be a bitter warning to me never
again to be too clever. Half the business deals in this world are ruined
by one side or the other trying to be too clever.”
“But, George, what has happened? What is wrong?”
Lord Tilbury resumed his patrol of the carpet.
“I’m telling you. It was all arranged that he should sail back with me
on the _Mauretania_, but when the vessel left he was nowhere to be
found. And then, about the second day out, I received a wireless message
saying, ‘Sorry not to be with you. Coming _Araminta_. Love to all.’ I
could not make head or tail of it.”
“No,” said Mrs. Hammond thoughtfully; “it is very puzzling. I think it
may possibly have meant----”
“I know what it meant--now. The solution,” said Lord Tilbury bitterly,
“was vouchsafed to me only an hour ago by the boy himself.”
“Has he arrived then?”
“Yes, he has arrived. And he travelled on a tramp steamer.”
“A tramp steamer! But why?”
“Why? Why? How should I know why? Last night, he informed me, he slept
in his clothes.”
“Slept in his clothes? Why?”
“How should I know why? Who am I to analyse the motives of a boy who
appears to be a perfect imbecile?”
“But have you seen him?”
“No. He rang up on the telephone from the office of a house agent in
Valley Fields. He has taken a house there and wished to give my name as
a reference.”
“Valley Fields? Why Valley Fields?”
“Don’t keep on saying why,” cried Lord Tilbury tempestuously. “Haven’t I
told you a dozen times that I don’t know why--that I haven’t the least
idea why?”
“He does seem an eccentric boy.”
“Eccentric? I feel as if I had allowed myself to be saddled with the
guardianship of a dancing dervish. And when I think that if this young
idiot gets into any sort of trouble while he is under my charge, Pynsent
is sure to hold me responsible. I could kick myself for ever having been
fool enough to bring him over here.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself, Georgie.”
“It isn’t a question of blaming myself. It’s a question of Pynsent
blaming me and getting annoyed and breaking off the deal about the
island.”
And Lord Tilbury, having removed his thumbs from the armholes of his
waistcoat in order the more freely to fling them heavenwards, uttered a
complicated sound which might be rendered phonetically by the word
“Cor!” tenser and more dignified than the “Coo!” of the lower-class
Londoner, but expressing much the same meaning.
In the hushed silence which followed, the buzzer on the desk sounded.
“Yes? Eh? Oh, send him up.” Lord Tilbury laid down the instrument and
turned to his sister grimly. “Shotter is downstairs,” he said. “Now you
will be able to see him for yourself.”
Mrs. Hammond’s first impression when she saw Sam for herself was that
she had been abruptly confronted with something in between a cyclone and
a large Newfoundland puppy dressed in bright tweeds. Sam’s mood of
elation had grown steadily all the way down Fleet Street, and he burst
into the presence of his future employer as if he had just been let off
a chain.
“Well, how are you?” he cried, seizing Lord Tilbury’s hand in a grip
that drew from him a sharp yelp of protest.
Then, perceiving for the first time the presence of a fair stranger, he
moderated his exuberance somewhat and stared politely.
“My sister, Mrs. Hammond,” said Lord Tilbury, straightening his fingers.
Sam bowed. Mrs. Hammond bowed.
“Perhaps I had better leave you,” said Mrs. Hammond. “You will want to
talk.”
“Oh, don’t go,” said Sam hospitably.
“I have business in Lombard Street,” said Mrs. Hammond, discouraging
with a cold look what seemed to her, rightly or wrongly, a disposition
on the part of this young man to do the honours and behave generally as
if he were trying to suggest that Tilbury House was his personal
property but that any relative of Lord Tilbury was welcome there. “I
have to visit my bank.”
“I shall have to visit mine pretty soon,” said Sam, “or the wolf will be
scratching at the door.”
“If you are short of funds----” began Lord Tilbury.
“Oh, I’m all right for the present, thanks. I pinched close on fifty
pounds from a man this morning.”
“You did what?” said Lord Tilbury blankly.
“Pinched fifty pounds. Surprising he should have had so much on him. But
lucky--for me.”
“Did he make any objection to your remarkable behaviour?”
“He was asleep at the time, and I didn’t wake him. I just left a poached
egg on his pillow and came away.”
Lord Tilbury swallowed convulsively and his eye sought that of Mrs.
Hammond in a tortured glare.
“A poached egg?” he whispered.
“So that he would find it there when he woke,” explained Sam.
Mrs. Hammond had abandoned her intention of withdrawing and leaving the
two men together for a cosy chat. Georgie, it seemed to her from his
expression, needed a woman’s loving support. Sam appeared to have
affected him like some unpleasant drug, causing starting of the eyes and
twitching of the muscles.
“It is a pity you missed the _Mauretania_, Mr. Shotter,” she said. “My
brother had hoped that you would travel with him so that you could have
a good talk about what you were to do when you joined his staff.”
“Great pity,” said Sam, omitting to point out that it was for that very
reason that he had allowed the _Mauretania_ to depart without him.
“However, it’s all right. I have found my niche.”
“You have done what?”
“I have selected my life work.” He pulled out of his pocket a crumpled
paper. “I would like to attach myself to Pyke’s _Home Companion_. I
bought a copy on my way here, and it is the goods. You aren’t reading
the serial by any chance, are you--_Hearts Aflame_, by Cordelia Blair? A
winner. I only had time to glance at the current instalment, but it was
enough to make me decide to dig up the back numbers at the earliest
possible moment. In case you haven’t read it, it is Leslie Mordyke’s
wedding day, and a veiled woman with a foreign accent has just risen in
the body of the church and forbidden the banns. And,” said Sam warmly,
“I don’t blame her. It appears that years ago----”
Lord Tilbury was making motions of distress, and Mrs. Hammond bent
solicitously, like one at a sick bed, to catch his fevered whisper.
“My brother,” she announced, “wishes----”
“----was hoping,” corrected Lord Tilbury.
“----was hoping,” said Mrs. Hammond, accepting the emendation, “that
you would join the staff of the _Daily Record_ so that you might be
under his personal eye.”
Sam caught Lord Tilbury’s personal eye, decided that he had no wish to
be under it and shook his head.
“The _Home Companion_,” said Lord Tilbury, coming to life, “is a very
minor unit of my group of papers.”
“Though it has a large circulation,” said Mrs. Hammond loyally.
“A very large circulation, of course,” said Lord Tilbury; “but it offers
little scope for a young man in your position, anxious to start on a
journalistic career. It is not--how shall I put it?--it is not a vital
paper, not a paper that really matters.”
“In comparison with my brother’s other papers,” said Mrs. Hammond.
“In comparison with my other papers, of course.”
“I think you are wrong,” said Sam. “I cannot imagine a nobler life work
for any man than to help produce Pyke’s _Home Companion_. Talk about
spreading sweetness and light, why, Pyke’s _Home Companion_ is the paper
that wrote the words and music. Listen to this; ‘A. M. B. (Brixton). You
ask me for a simple and inexpensive method of curing corns. Get an
ordinary swede, or turnip, cut and dig out a hole in the top, fill the
hole with common salt and allow to stand till dissolved. Soften the corn
morning and night with this liquid.’”
“Starting on the reportorial staff of the _Daily Record_,” said Lord
Tilbury, “you would be in a position----”
“Just try to realise what that means,” proceeded Sam. “What it amounts
to is that the writer of that paragraph has with a stroke of the pen
made the world a better place. He has brightened a home. Possibly he has
averted serious trouble between man and wife. A. M. B. gets the ordinary
swede, digs out the top, pushes in the salt, and a week later she has
ceased to bully her husband and beat the baby and is a ray of sunshine
about the house--and all through Pyke’s _Home Companion_.”
“What my brother means----” said Mrs. Hammond.
“Similarly,” said Sam, “with G. D. H. (Tulse Hill), who wants to know
how to improve the flavour of prunes. You or I would say that the
flavour of prunes was past praying for, that the only thing to do when
cornered by a prune was to set your teeth and get it over with. Not so
Pyke’s----”
“He means----”
“----_Home Companion._ ‘A little vinegar added to stewed prunes,’ says
the writer, ‘greatly improves the flavour. And although it may seem
strange, it causes less sugar to be used.’ What happens? What is the
result? G. D. H.’s husband comes back tired and hungry after a day’s
work. ‘Prunes for dinner again, I suppose?’ he says moodily. ‘Yes,
dear,’ replies G. D. H., ‘but of a greatly improved flavour.’ Well, he
doesn’t believe her, of course. He sits down sullenly. Then, as he
deposits the first stone on his plate, a delighted smile comes into his
face. ‘By Jove!’ he cries. ‘The flavour is greatly improved. They still
taste like brown paper soaked in machine oil, but a much superior grade
of brown paper. How did you manage it?’ ‘It was not I, dearest,’ says G.
D. H., ‘but Pyke’s _Home Companion_. Acting on their advice, I added a
little vinegar, with the result that not only is the flavour greatly
improved but, strange though it may seem, I used less sugar.’ ‘Heaven
bless Pyke’s _Home Companion_!’ cries the husband. With your permission
then,” said Sam, “I will go straight to Mr. Wrenn and inform him that I
have come to fight the good fight under his banner. ‘Mr. Wrenn,’ I shall
say----”
Lord Tilbury was perplexed.
“Do you know Wrenn? How do you know Wrenn?”
“I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him, but we are next-door
neighbours. I have taken the house adjoining his. Mon Repos, Burberry
Road, is the address. You can see for yourself how convenient this will
be. Not only shall we toil all day in the office to make Pyke’s _Home
Companion_ more and more of a force among the _intelligentsia_ of Great
Britain but in the evenings, as we till our radishes, I shall look over
the fence and say, ‘Wrenn,’ and Wrenn will say, ‘Yes, Shotter?’ And I
shall say, ‘Wrenn, how would it be to run a series on the eradication of
pimples in canaries?’ ‘Shotter,’ he will reply, dropping his spade in
his enthusiasm, ‘this is genius. ’Twas a lucky day, boy, for the old
_Home Companion_ when you came to us.’ But I am wasting time. I should
be about my business. Good-bye, Mrs. Hammond. Good-bye, Lord Tilbury.
Don’t trouble to come with me. I will find my way.”
He left the room with the purposeful step of the man of affairs, and
Lord Tilbury uttered a sound which was almost a groan.
“Insane!” he ejaculated. “Perfectly insane!”
Mrs. Hammond, womanlike, was not satisfied with simple explanation.
“There is something behind this, George!”
“And I can’t do a thing,” moaned His Lordship, chafing, as your strong
man will, against the bonds of fate. “I simply must humour this boy, or
the first thing I know he will be running off on some idiotic prank and
Pynsent will be sending me cables asking why he has left me.”
“There is something behind this,” repeated Mrs. Hammond weightily. “It
stands to reason. Even a boy like this young Shotter would not take a
house next door to Mr. Wrenn the moment he landed unless he had some
motive. George, there is a girl at the bottom of this.”
Lord Tilbury underwent a sort of minor convulsion. His eyes bulged and
he grasped the arms of his chair.
“Good God, Francie! Don’t say that! Pynsent took me aside before I left
and warned me most emphatically to be careful how I allowed this boy to
come in contact with--er--members of the opposite sex.”
“Girls,” said Mrs. Hammond.
“Yes, girls,” said Lord Tilbury, as if pleasantly surprised at this neat
way of putting it. “He said he had had trouble a year or so ago----”
“Mr. Wrenn must have a daughter,” said Mrs. Hammond, pursuing her train
of thought. “Has Mr. Wrenn a daughter?”
“How the devil should I know?” demanded His Lordship, not unnaturally
irritated. “I don’t keep in touch with the home life of every man in
this building.”
“Ring him up and ask him.”
“I won’t. I don’t want my staff to think I’ve gone off my head. Besides,
you may be quite wrong.”
“I shall be extremely surprised if I am,” said Mrs. Hammond.
Lord Tilbury sat gazing at her pallidly. He knew that Francie had a
sixth sense in these matters.
§ 3
At about the moment when Sam entered the luxuriously furnished office of
the Mammoth Publishing Company’s proprietor and chief, in a smaller and
less ornate room in the same building Mr. Matthew Wrenn, all unconscious
of the good fortune about to descend upon him in the shape of the
addition to his staff of a live and go-ahead young assistant, was seated
at his desk, busily engaged in promoting the best interests of that
widely read weekly, Pyke’s _Home Companion_. He was, in fact, correcting
the proofs of an article--ably written, but too long to quote
here--entitled What a Young Girl Can Do in Her Spare Time; Number 3, Bee
Keeping.
He was interrupted in this task by the opening of the door, and looking
up, was surprised to see his niece, Kay Derrick.
“Why, Kay!” said Mr. Wrenn. She had never visited him at his office so
early as this, for Mrs. Winnington-Bates expected her serfs to remain on
duty till at least four o’clock. In her blue eyes, moreover, there was a
strange glitter that made him subtly uneasy. “Why, Kay, what are you
doing here?”
Kay sat down on the desk. Having ruffled his grizzled hair with an
affectionate hand, she remained for a while in silent meditation.
“I hate young men!” she observed at length. “Why isn’t everyone nice and
old--I mean elderly, but frightfully well preserved, like you, darling?”
“Is anything the matter?” asked Mr. Wrenn anxiously.
“Nothing much. I’ve left Mrs. Bates.”
“I’m very glad to hear it, my dear. There is no earthly reason why you
should have to waste your time slaving----”
“You’re worse than Claire,” said Kay, her eyes ceasing to glitter. “You
both conspire to coddle me. I’m young and strong, and I ought to be
earning my living. But,” she went on, tapping his head with her finger
to emphasise her words, “I will not continue in a job which involves
being kissed by worms like Claude Bates. No, no, no, sir!”
Mr. Wrenn raised a shocked and wrathful face.
“He kissed you?”
“Yes. You had an article in the _Home Companion_ last week, uncle,
saying what a holy and beautiful thing the first kiss is. Well, Claude
Bates’ wasn’t. He hadn’t shaved and he was wearing a dressing gown.
Also, he was pallid and greenish, and looked as if he had been out all
night. Anything less beautiful and holy I never saw.”
“He kissed you! What did you do?”
“I hit him very hard with a book which I was taking to read to Mrs.
Bates. It was the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham’s _Is There a Hell?_ and I’ll
bet Claude thought there was. Until then I had always rather disliked
Mrs. Bates’ taste in literature, which shows how foolish I was. If she
had preferred magazines, where would I have been? There were about six
hundred pages of Aubrey Jerningham, bound in stiff cloth, and he blacked
Claude’s eye like a scholar and a gentleman. And at that moment in came
Mrs. Bates.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Wrenn, enthralled.
“Well, a boy’s best friend is his mother. Have you ever seen one of
those cowboy films where there is trouble in the bar-room? It was like
that. Mrs. Bates started to dismiss me, but I got in first with my
resignation, shooting from the hip, as it were. And then I came away,
and here I am.”
“The fellow should be horsewhipped,” said Mr. Wrenn, breathing heavily.
“He isn’t worth bothering about,” said Kay.
The riot of emotion into which she had been plunged by the addresses of
the unshaven Bates had puzzled her. But now she understood. It was
galling to suppose so monstrous a thing, but the explanation was, she
felt, that there had been condescension in his embrace. If she had been
Miss Derrick of Midways, he would not have summoned up the nerve to
kiss her in a million years; but his mother’s secretary and companion
had no terror for him. And at the thought a deep thrill of gratitude to
the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham passed through Kay. How many a time, wearied
by his duties about the parish, must that excellent clergyman have been
tempted to scamp his work and shirk the labour of adding that extra
couple of thousand words which just make all the difference to
literature when considered in the light of a missile.
But he had been strong. He had completed his full six hundred pages and
seen to it that his binding had been heavy and hard and sharp about the
edges. For a moment, as she sat there, the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham seemed
to Kay the one bright spot in a black world.
She was still meditating upon him when there was a hearty smack on the
door and Sam came in.
“Good morning, good morning,” he said cheerily.
And then he saw Kay, and on the instant his eyes widened into a goggling
stare, his mouth fell open, his fingers clutched wildly at nothing, and
he stood there, gaping.
Kay met his stare with a defiant eye. In her present mood she disliked
all young men, and there seemed nothing about this one to entitle him to
exemption from her loathing. Rather, indeed, the reverse, for his
appearance jarred upon her fastidious taste.
If the Cohen Bros., of Covent Garden, have a fault, it is that they
sometimes allow their clients to select clothes that are a shade too
prismatic for anyone who is not at the same time purchasing a banjo and
a straw hat with a crimson ribbon. Fittings take place in a dimly lit
interior, with the result that suits destined to make phlegmatic horses
shy in the open street seem in the shop to possess merely a rather
pleasing vivacity. One of these Sam had bought, and it had been a
blunder on his part. If he had intended to sing comic songs from a punt
at Henley Regatta, he would have been suitably, even admirably, attired.
But as a private gentleman he was a little on the bright side. He
looked, in fact, like a bookmaker who won billiard tournaments, and Kay
gazed upon him with repulsion.
He, on the other hand, gazed at her with a stunned admiration. That
photograph should have prepared him for something notable in the way of
feminine beauty; but it seemed to him, as he raked her with eyes like
small dinner plates, that it had been a libel, an outrage, a gross
caricature. This girl before him was marvellous. Helen of Troy could
have been nothing to her. He loved her shining eyes, unaware that they
shone with loathing. He worshipped her rose-flushed cheeks, not knowing
that they were flushed because he had been staring at her for
thirty-three seconds without blinking and she was growing restive
beneath his gaze.
Mr. Wrenn was the first to speak.
“Did you want anything?” he asked.
“What?” said Sam.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Eh?”
Mr. Wrenn approached the matter from a fresh angle.
“This is the office of Pyke’s _Home Companion_. I am Mr. Wrenn, the
editor. Did you wish to see me?”
“Who?” said Sam.
At this point Kay turned to the window, and the withdrawal of her eyes
had the effect of releasing Sam from his trance. He became aware that a
grey-haired man, whom he dimly remembered having seen on his entry into
the room some hours before, was addressing him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You wished to see me?”
“Yes,” said Sam; “yes, yes.”
“What about?” asked Mr. Wrenn patiently.
The directness and simplicity of the question seemed to clear Sam’s
head. He recalled now what it was that had brought him here.
“I’ve come over from America to join the staff of Pyke’s _Home
Companion_.”
“What?”
“Lord Tilbury wants me to.”
“Lord Tilbury?”
“Yes; I’ve just been seeing him.”
“But he has said nothing to me about this, Mr.----”
“----Shotter. No, we only arranged it a moment ago.”
Mr. Wrenn was a courteous man, and though he was under the impression
that his visitor was raving, he did not show it.
“Perhaps I had better see Lord Tilbury,” he suggested, rising. “By the
way, my niece, Miss Derrick. Kay, my dear, Mr. Shotter.”
The departure of the third party and the sudden institution of the
intimacies of a _tête-à-tête_ had the usual effect of producing a
momentary silence. Then Kay moved away from the window and came to the
desk.
“Did you say you had come from America?” she asked, fiddling with Mr.
Wrenn’s editorial pencil. She had no desire to know, but she supposed
she must engage this person in conversation.
“From America, yes. Yes, from America.”
“Is this your first visit to England?” asked Kay, stifling a yawn.
“Oh, no. I was at school in England.”
“Really? Where?”
“At Wrykyn.”
Kay’s attitude of stiff aloofness relaxed. She became interested.
“Good gracious! Of course!” She looked upon him quite benevolently. “A
friend of yours was talking to me about you only yesterday--Willoughby
Braddock.”
“Do you know the Bradder?” gulped Sam, astounded.
“I’ve known him all my life.”
A most extraordinary sensation flooded over Sam. It was hard to analyse,
but its effects were thoroughly definite. At the discovery that this
wonderful girl knew the old Bradder and that they could pave the way to
a beautiful friendship by talking about the old Bradder, the office of
Pyke’s _Home Companion_ became all at once flooded with brilliant
sunshine. Birds twittered from the ceiling, and blended with their notes
was the soft music of violins and harps.
“You really know the Bradder?”
“We were children together.”
“What a splendid chap!”
“Yes, he’s a dear.”
“What a corker!”
“Yes!”
“What an egg!”
“Yes. Tell me, Mr. Shotter,” said Kay wearying of this eulogy, “do you
remember a boy at your school named Bates?”
Sam’s face darkened. Time had softened the anguish of that moment
outside the Angry Cheese, but the sting still remained.
“Yes, I do.”
“Willoughby Braddock told me that you once beat Bates with a walking
stick.”
“Yes.”
“A large walking stick?”
“Yes.”
“Did you beat him hard?”
“Yes, as hard as ever I could lay it in.”
A little sigh of gratification escaped Kay.
“Ah!” she said.
In the course of the foregoing conversation the two had been diminishing
inch by inch the gap which had separated them at its outset, so that
they had come to be standing only a short distance apart; and now, as
she heard those beautiful words, Kay looked up into Sam’s face with a
cordial, congratulatory friendliness which caused him to quiver like a
smitten blanc-mange. Then, while he was still reeling, she smiled. And
it is at this point that the task of setting down the sequence of events
becomes difficult for the historian.
For, briefly, what happened next was that Sam, groping forward in a
bemused fashion and gathering her clumsily into his arms, kissed Kay.
§ 4
It might, of course, be possible to lay no stress upon this
occurrence--to ignore it and pass. In kissing, as kissing, there is
nothing fundamentally reprehensible. The early Christians used to do it
all the time to everyone they met. But the historian is too conscious of
the raised eyebrows of his audience to attempt this attitude. Some
explanation, he realises, some argument to show why Sam is not to be
condemned out of hand, is imperative.
In these circumstances the embarrassing nature of the historian’s
position is readily intelligible. Only a short while back he was
inviting the customers to shudder with loathing at the spectacle of
Claude Bates kissing this girl, and now, all in a flash, he finds
himself faced with the task of endeavouring to palliate the behaviour of
Sam Shotter in doing the very same thing.
Well, he must do the best he can. Let us marshal the facts.
In the first place, there stood on Mr. Wrenn’s desk, as on every other
editorial desk in Tilbury House, a large framed card bearing the words,
DO IT NOW! Who shall say whether this may not subconsciously have
influenced the young man?
In the second place, when you have been carrying about a girl’s
photograph in your breast pocket for four months and brooding over it
several times a day with a beating heart, it is difficult for you to
regard that girl, when you eventually meet her, as a perfect stranger.
And in the third place--and here we approach the very root of the
matter--there was the smile.
Girls as pretty as Kay Derrick, especially if their faces are by nature
a little grave, should be extremely careful how and when they smile.
There was that about Kay’s face when in repose which, even when she was
merely wondering what trimming to put on a hat, gave strangers the
impression that here was a pure white soul musing wistfully on life’s
sadness. The consequence was that when she smiled it was as if the sun
had suddenly shone out through clouds. Her smile seemed to make the
world on the instant a sweeter and a better place. Policemen, when she
flashed it on them after being told the way somewhere, became of a
sudden gayer, happier policemen and sang as they directed the traffic.
Beggars, receiving it as a supplement to a small donation, perked up
like magic and started to bite the ears of the passers-by with an
abandon that made all the difference. And when they saw that smile, even
babies in their perambulators stopped looking like peevish poached eggs
and became almost human.
And it was this smile that she had bestowed upon Sam. And Sam, it will
be remembered, had been waiting months and months for it.
We have made out, we fancy, a pretty good case for Samuel Shotter; and
it was a pity that some kindly person was not present in Mr. Wrenn’s
office at that moment to place these arguments before Kay. For not one
of them occurred to her independently. She could see no excuse whatever
for Sam’s conduct. She had wrenched herself from his grasp and moved to
the other side of the desk, and across this she now regarded him with a
blazing eye. Her fists were clenched and she was breathing quickly. She
had the air of a girl who would have given a year’s pocket money for a
copy of the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham’s _Is There a Hell?_
Gone was that delightful spirit of comradeship which, when he had been
telling of his boyish dealings with Claude, had made him seem almost a
kindred soul. Gone was that soft sensation of gratitude which had come
to her on his assurance that he had not risked spoiling that repulsive
youth by sparing the rod. All she felt now was that her first
impressions of this young man had been right, and that she had been
mauled and insulted by a black-hearted bounder whose very clothes should
have warned her of his innate despicableness. It seems almost incredible
that anyone should think such a thing of anybody, but it is a fact that
in that instant Kay Derrick looked upon Sam as something even lower in
the graduated scale of human subspecies than Claude Winnington-Bates.
As for Sam, he was still under the ether.
Nothing is more difficult for both parties concerned than to know what
to say immediately after an occurrence like this. An agitated silence
was brooding over the room, when the necessity for speech was removed by
the re-entry of Mr. Wrenn.
Mr. Wrenn was not an observant man. Nor was he sensitive to atmosphere.
He saw nothing unusual in his niece’s aspect, nothing out of the way in
Sam’s. The fact that the air inside the office of Pyke’s _Home
Companion_ was quivering with charged emotion escaped his notice
altogether. He addressed Sam genially.
“It is quite all right, Mr. Shotter. Lord Tilbury wishes you to start
work on the _Companion_ at once.”
Sam turned to him with the vague stare of the newly awakened
sleepwalker.
“It will be nice having you in the office,” added Mr. Wrenn amiably. “I
have been short-handed. By the way, Lord Tilbury asked me to send you
along to him at once. He is just going out to lunch.”
“Lunch?” said Sam.
“He said you were lunching with him.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sam dully.
Mr. Wrenn watched him shamble out of the room with a benevolent eye.
“We’ll go and have a bite to eat too, my dear,” he said, removing the
alpaca coat which it was his custom to wear in the office. “Haven’t had
lunch with you since I don’t know when.” He reached for the hook which
held his other coat. “I shall like having this young Shotter in the
office,” he said. “He seems a nice young fellow.”
“He is the most utterly loathsome creature I have ever met,” said Kay.
Mr. Wrenn, startled, dropped his hat.
“Eh? What do you mean?”
“Just what I say. He’s horrible.”
“But, my dear girl, you only met him five minutes ago.”
“I know.”
Mr. Wrenn stooped for his hat and smoothed it with some agitation.
“This is rather awkward,” he said.
“What is?”
“Your feeling like that about young Shotter.”
“I don’t see why. I don’t suppose I shall ever meet him again.”
“But you will. I don’t see how it can be prevented. Lord Tilbury tells
me that this young man has taken a lease on Mon Repos.”
“Mon Repos!” Kay clutched at the desk. “You don’t mean Mon Repos next
door to us?”
“Yes; and it is so difficult to avoid one’s next-door neighbours.”
Kay’s teeth met with a little click.
“It can be done,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
INTRODUCING A SYNDICATE
Across the way from Tilbury House, next door to the massive annex
containing the offices of _Tiny Tots_, _Sabbath Jottings_, _British
Girlhood_, the _Boys’ Adventure Weekly_ and others of the more recently
established of the Mammoth Publishing Company’s periodicals, there
stands a ramshackle four-storied building of an almost majestic
dinginess, which Lord Tilbury, but for certain regulations having to do
with ancient lights, would have swallowed up years ago, as he had
swallowed the rest of the street.
The first three floors of this building are occupied by firms of the
pathetic type which cannot conceivably be supposed to do any business,
and yet hang on with dull persistency for decade after decade. Their
windows are dirty and forlorn and most of the lettering outside has been
worn away, so that on the second floor it would appear that trade is
being carried by the Ja--& Sum--r--Rub--Co., while just above, Messrs.
Smith, R-bi-s-n & G----, that mystic firm, are dealing in something
curtly described as c----. It is not until we reach the fourth and final
floor that we find the modern note struck.
Here the writing is not only clear and golden but, when read,
stimulating to the imagination. It runs:
THE TILBURY DETECTIVE AGENCY, LTD.
J. Sheringham Adair, Mgr.
Large and Efficient Staff
and conjures up visions of a suite of rooms filled with hawk-faced men
examining bloodstains through microscopes or poring tensely over the
papers connected with the singular affair of the theft of the
maharajah’s ruby.
On the morning, however, on which Sam Shotter paid his visit to Tilbury
House, only one man was sitting in the office of the detective agency.
He was a small and weedy individual, clad in a suit brighter even than
the one which Sam had purchased from the Brothers Cohen. And when it is
stated in addition that he wore a waxed moustache and that his
handkerchief, which was of colored silk, filled the air with a noisome
perfume, further evidence is scarcely required to convince the reader
that he is being introduced to a most undesirable character.
Nevertheless, the final damning fact may as well be revealed. It is
this--the man was not looking out of a window.
Tilbury Street is very narrow and the fourth-floor windows of this
ramshackle building are immediately opposite those of the fourth floor
of Tilbury House. Alexander Twist therefore was in a position, if he
pleased, to gaze through into the private sanctum of the proprietor of
the Mammoth Publishing Company and obtain the spiritual uplift which
could hardly fail to result from the spectacle of that great man at
work. Alone of London’s millions of inhabitants, he had it in his power
to watch Lord Tilbury pacing up and down, writing at his desk or
speaking into the dictating device who knows what terrific thoughts.
Yet he preferred to sit at a table playing solitaire--and, one is
prepared to bet, cheating. One need not, one fancies, say more.
So absorbed was Mr. Twist in his foolish game that the fact that someone
was knocking on the door did not at first penetrate his senses. It was
only when the person outside, growing impatient, rapped the panel with
some hard object which might have been the handle of a lady’s parasol
that he raised his head with a start. He swept the cards into a drawer,
gave his coat a settling tug and rose alertly. The knock sounded like
business, and Mr. Twist, who was not only J. Sheringham Adair, Mgr., but
the large and efficient staff as well, was not the man to be caught
unprepared.
“Come in,” he shouted.
With a quick flick of his hand he scattered a top dressing of
important-looking papers about the table and was bending over these with
a thoughtful frown when the door opened.
At the sight of his visitor he relaxed the preoccupied austerity of his
demeanour. The new-comer was a girl in the middle twenties, of bold but
at the moment rather sullen good looks. She had the bright hazel eyes
which seldom go with a meek and contrite heart. Her colouring was vivid,
and in the light from the window her hair gleamed with a sheen that was
slightly metallic.
“Why, hello, Dolly,” said Mr. Twist.
“Hello,” said the girl moodily.
“Haven’t seen you for a year, Dolly. Never knew you were this side at
all. Take a seat.”
The visitor took a seat.
“For the love of pop, Chimp,” she said, eying him with a languid
curiosity, “where did you get the fungus?”
Mr. Twist moved in candid circles, and the soubriquet Chimp--short for
Chimpanzee--by which he was known not only to his intimates but to
police officials in America who would have liked to become more intimate
than they were, had been bestowed upon him at an early stage of his
career in recognition of a certain simian trend which critics affected
to see in the arrangement of his features.
“Looks good, don’t you think?” he said, stroking his moustache fondly.
It and money were the only things he loved.
“Anything you say. And I suppose, when you know you may be in the coop
any moment, you like to have all the hair you can while you can.”
Mr. Twist felt a little wounded. He did not like badinage about his
moustache. He did not like tactless allusions to the coop. And he was
puzzled by the unwonted brusqueness of the girl’s manner. The Dora Gunn
he had known had been a cheery soul, quite unlike this tight-lipped,
sombre-eyed person now before him.
The girl was looking about her. She seemed perplexed.
“What’s all this?” she asked, pointing her parasol at the writing on the
window.
Mr. Twist smiled indulgently and with a certain pride. He was, he
flattered himself, a man of ideas, and this of presenting himself to the
world as a private investigator he considered one of his happiest.
“Just camouflage,” he said. “Darned useful to have a label. Keeps people
from asking questions.”
“It won’t keep me from asking questions. That’s what I’ve come for. Say,
Chimp, can you tell the truth without straining a muscle?”
“You know me, Dolly.”
“Yes, that’s why I asked. Well, I’ve come to get you to tell me
something. Nobody listening?”
“Not a soul.”
“How about the office boy?”
“I haven’t got an office boy. Who do you think I am--Pierpont Morgan?”
Thus reassured, the girl produced a delicate handkerchief, formerly the
property of Harrod’s Stores and parted from unwittingly by that
establishment.
“Chimp,” she said, brushing away a tear, “I’m sim’ly miserable.”
Chimp Twist was not the man to stand idly by while beauty in distress
wept before him. He slid up and was placing a tender arm about her
shoulder, when she jerked herself away.
“You can tie a can to that stuff,” she said with womanly dignity. “I’d
like you to know I’m married.”
“Married?”
“Sure. Day before yesterday--to Soapy Molloy.”
“Soapy!” Mr. Twist started. “What in the world did you want to marry
that slab of Gorgonzola for?”
“I’ll ask you kindly, if you wouldn’t mind,” said the girl in a cold
voice, “not to go alluding to my husband as slabs of Gorgonzola.”
“He is a slab of Gorgonzola.”
“He is not. Well, anyway, I’m hoping he’s not. It’s what I come here to
find out.”
Mr. Twist’s mind had returned to the perplexing matter of the marriage.
“I don’t get this,” he said. “I saw Soapy a couple of weeks back and he
didn’t say he’d even met you.”
“He hadn’t then. We only run into each other ten days ago. I was walking
up the Haymarket and I catch sight of a feller behind me out of the
corner of my eye, so I faint on him, see?”
“You’re still in that line, eh?”
“Well, it’s what I do best, isn’t it?”
Chimp nodded. Dora Molloy--Fainting Dolly to her friends--was
unquestionably an artist in her particular branch of industry. It was
her practice to swoon in the arms of rich-looking strangers in the
public streets and pick their pockets as they bent to render her
assistance. It takes all sorts to do the world’s work.
“Well, then I seen it was Soapy, and so we go to lunch and have a nice
chat. I always was strong for that boy, and we were both feeling kind of
lonesome over here in London, so we fix it up. And now I’m sim’ly
miserable.”
“What,” inquired Mr. Twist, “is biting you?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. This is what’s happened: Last night this bird
Soapy goes out after supper and doesn’t blow in again till four in the
morning. Four in the morning, I’ll trouble you, and us only married two
days. Well, if he thinks a young bride’s going to stand for that sort of
conduct right plumb spang in the middle of what you might call the
honeymoon, he’s got a second guess due him.”
“What did you do?” asked Mr. Twist sympathetically, but with a touch of
that rather unctuous complacency which bachelors display at moments like
this.
“I did plenty. And he tried to alibi himself by pulling a story. That
story the grand jury is now going to investigate and investigate
good.... Chimp, did you ever hear of a man named Finglass?”
There was that in Mr. Twist’s manner that seemed to suggest that he was
a reluctant witness, but he answered after a brief hesitation.
“Sure!”
“Oh, you did, eh? Well, who was he then?”
“He was big,” said Chimp, and there was a note of reverence in his
voice. “One of the very biggest, old Finky was.”
“How was he big? What did he ever do?”
“Well, it was before your time and it happened over here, so I guess you
may not have heard of it; but he took a couple of million dollars away
from the New Asiatic Bank.”
Mrs. Molloy was undeniably impressed. The formidable severity of her
manner seemed to waver.
“Were you and Soapy mixed up with him?”
“Sure! We were the best pals he had.”
“Is he alive?”
“No; he died in Buenos Aires the other day.”
Mrs. Molloy bit her lower lip thoughtfully.
“Say, it’s beginning to look to me like that story of Soapy’s was the
goods after all. Listen, Chimp, I’d best tell you the whole thing. When
I give Soapy the razz for staying out all night like the way he done, he
pulled this long spiel about having had a letter from a guy he used to
know named Finglass, written on his deathbed, saying that this guy
Finglass hadn’t been able to get away with the money he’d swiped from
this New Asiatic Bank on account the bulls being after him, and he’d had
to leave the whole entire lot of it behind, hidden in some house down in
the suburbs somewheres. And he told Soapy where the house was, and Soapy
claims that what kep’ him out so late was he’d been searching the house,
trying to locate the stuff. And what I want to know is, was he telling
the truth or was he off somewheres at one of these here now gilded
night-clubs, cutting up with a bunch of janes and doing me wrong?”
Again Mr. Twist seemed to resent the necessity of acting as a favourable
witness for a man he obviously disliked. He struggled with his feelings
for a space.
“Yes, it’s true,” he said at length.
“But listen here. This don’t seem to me to gee up. If this guy Finglass
wanted Soapy to have the money, why did he wait all this time before
telling him about it?”
“Thought he might find a chance of sneaking back and getting it himself,
of course. But he got into trouble in Argentina almost as soon as he hit
the place, and they stowed him away in the cooler; and he only got out
in time to write the letters and then make his finish.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Finky wrote to me too.”
“Oh, did he? Well, then, here’s another thing that don’t seem to make
sense: When he did finally get round to telling Soap about this money,
why couldn’t he let him know where it was? I mean, why didn’t he say
it’s under the mat or poked up the chimney or something, ’stead of
leaving him hunt for it like he was playing button, button, where’s the
button--or something?”
“Because,” said Mr. Twist bitterly, “Soapy and me were both pals of his,
and he wanted us to share. And to make sure we should get together he
told Soapy where the house was and me where the stuff was hidden in the
house.”
“So you’ve only to pool your info’ to bring home the bacon?” cried
Dolly, wide-eyed.
“That’s all.”
“Then why in time haven’t you done it?”
Mr. Twist snorted. It is not easy to classify snorts, but this was one
which would have been recognised immediately by any expert as the snort
despairing, caused by the contemplation of the depths to which human
nature can sink.
“Because,” he said, “Soapy, the pig-headed stiff, thinks he can
double-cross me and get it alone.”
“What?” Mrs. Molloy uttered a cry of wifely pride. “Well, isn’t that
bright of my sweet old pieface! I’d never of thought the dear boy would
have had the sense to think up anything like that.”
Mr. Twist was unable to share her pretty enthusiasm.
“A lot it’s going to get him!” he said sourly.
“Two million smackers it’s going to get him,” retorted Dolly.
“Two million smackers nothing! The stuff’s hidden in a place where he’d
never think of looking in two million years.”
“You can’t bluff me, Chimp Twist,” said Dolly, gazing at him with the
cold disdain of a princess confronted with a boll weevil. “If he keeps
on looking, it stands to reason----”
She broke off. The door had opened and a man was entering. He was a
fine, handsome, open-faced man of early middle age. At the sight of this
person Chimp Twist’s eyes narrowed militantly, but Dolly flung herself
into his arms with a remorseful cry.
“Oh, Soapy, darling! How I misjudged you!”
The new-comer had had the air of a man weighed down with the maximum
amount of sorrow which a human being can bear. This demonstration,
however, seemed to remove something of the burden.
“’S all right, sweetness,” he said, clasping her to his swelling bosom.
“Was I mean to my angel-face?”
“There, there, honey lamb!”
Chimp Twist looked sourly upon this nauseating scene of marital
reconciliation.
“Ah, cut it out!” he growled.
“Chimp’s told me everything, baby doll,” proceeded Mrs. Molloy. “I know
all about that money, and you just keep right along, precious, hunting
for it by yourself. I don’t mind how often you stay out nights or how
late you stay out.”
It was a generous dispensation, for which many husbands would have been
grateful, but Soapy Molloy merely smiled a twisted, tortured smile of
ineffable sadness. He looked like an unsuccessful candidate hearing the
result of a presidential election.
“It’s all off, honey bunch,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s cold,
petty. We’ll have to let Chimp in on it after all, sweetie-pie. I came
here to put my cards on the table and have a show-down.”
A quivering silence fell upon the room. Mrs. Molloy was staring at her
husband, aghast. As for Chimp, he was completely bewildered. The theory
that his old comrade had had a change of heart--that his conscience,
putting in some rapid work after getting off to a bad start, had caused
him to regret his intention of double-crossing a friend, was too bizarre
to be tenable. Soapy Molloy was not the sort of man to have changes of
heart. Chimp, in his studies of the motion-picture drama, had once seen
a film where a tough egg had been converted by hearing a church organ,
but he knew Mr. Molloy well enough to be aware that all the organs in
all the churches in London might play in his ear simultaneously without
causing him to do anything more than grumble at the noise.
“The house has been taken,” said Soapy despondently.
“Taken? What do you mean?”
“Rented.”
“Rented? When?”
“I heard this morning. I was in a saloon down Fleet Street way, and two
fellows come in and one of them was telling the other how he’d just
rented this joint.”
Chimp Twist uttered a discordant laugh.
“So that’s what’s come of your darned smooth double-crossing act!” he
said nastily. “Yes, I guess you better had let Chimp in on it. You want
a man with brains now, not a guy that never thought up anything smarter
than gypping suckers with a phony oil stock.”
Mr. Molloy bowed his head meekly before the blast. His wife was made of
sterner stuff.
“You talk a lot, don’t you?” she said coldly.
“And I can do a lot,” retorted Mr. Twist, fingering his waxed moustache.
“So you’d best come clean, Soapy, and have a show-down, like you say.
Where is this joint?”
“Don’t you dare tell him before he tells you where the stuff is!” cried
Mrs. Molloy.
“Just as you say,” said Chimp carelessly. He scribbled a few words on a
piece of paper and covered them with his hand. “There! Now you write
down your end of it and Dolly can read them both out.”
“Have you really thought up a scheme?” asked Mr. Molloy humbly.
“I’ve thought up a dozen.”
Mr. Molloy wrote in his turn and Dolly picked up the two papers.
“In the cistern!” she read.
“And the rest of it?” inquired Mr. Twist pressingly.
“Mon Repos, Burberry Road,” said Mr. Molloy.
“Ah!” said Chimp. “And if I’d known that a week ago, we’d have been
worth a million dollars apiece by now.”
“Say, listen,” said Dolly, who was pensive and had begun to eye Mr.
Twist in rather an unpleasant manner. “This stuff old Finglass swiped
from the bank, what is it?”
“American bearer securities, sweetie,” said her husband, rolling the
words round his tongue as if they were vintage port. “As good as dollar
bills. What’s the dope you’ve thought up, Chimpie?” he asked,
deferentially removing a piece of fluff from his ally’s coat sleeve.
“Just a minute!” said Dolly sharply. “If that’s so, how can this stuff
be in any cistern? It would have melted, being all that time in the
water.”
“It’s in a waterproof case, of course,” said Chimp.
“Oh, it is, is it?”
“What’s the matter, petty?” inquired Mr. Molloy. “You’re acting
strange.”
“Am I? Well, if you want to know, I’m wondering if this guy is putting
one over on us. How are we to know he’s telling us the right place?”
“Dolly!” said Mr. Twist, deeply pained.
“Dolly!” said Mr. Molloy, not so much pained as apprehensive. He had a
very modest opinion of his own chances of thinking of any way for coping
with the situation which had arisen, and everything, it seemed to him,
depended upon being polite to Chimp Twist, who was admittedly a man of
infinite resource and sagacity.
“If you think that of me----” began Mr. Twist.
“We don’t, Chimpie, we don’t,” interrupted Mr. Molloy hastily. “The
madam is a little upset. Don’t listen to her. What is this scheme of
yours, Chimpie?”
Perhaps Mrs. Molloy’s estimate of her husband’s talents as a strategist
resembled his own. At any rate, she choked down certain words that had
presented themselves to her militant mind and stood eying Chimp
inquiringly.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Chimp. “But first let’s get the business end
straight. How do we divvy?”
“Why, fifty-fifty, Chimp,” stammered Mr. Molloy, stunned at the
suggestion implied in his words that any other arrangement could be
contemplated. “Me and the madam counting as one, of course.”
Chimp laughed sardonically.
“Fifty-fifty nothing! I’m the brains of this concern, and the brains of
a concern always gets paid highest. Look at Henry Ford! Look at the
Archbishop of Canterbury!”
“Do you mean to say,” demanded Dolly, “that if Soapy was sitting in with
the Archbishop of Canterbury on a plan for skinning a sucker the
archbish wouldn’t split Even Stephen?”
“It isn’t like that at all,” retorted Mr. Twist with spirit. “It’s more
as if Soapy went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and asked him to slip
him a scheme for skinning the mug.”
“Well, in that case,” said Mr. Molloy, “I venture to assert that the
archbishop would simply say to me, ‘Molloy,’ he’d say----”
Dolly wearied of a discussion which seemed to her too academic for the
waste of valuable moments.
“Sixty-forty,” she said brusquely.
“Seventy-thirty,” emended Chimp.
“Sixty-five-thirty-five,” said Mr. Molloy.
“Right!” said Chimp. “And now I’ll tell you what to do.” I’ll give you
five minutes first to see if you can think of it for yourself, and if
you can’t, I’ll ask you not to start beefing because it’s so simple and
not worth the money.”
Five minutes’ concentrated meditation produced no brain wave in Mr.
Molloy, who, outside his chosen profession of selling valueless oil
stock to a trusting public, was not a very gifted man.
“Well, then,” said Chimp, “here you are: You go to that fellow who’s
taken the joint and ask him to let you buy it off him.”
“Well, of all the fool propositions!” cried Dolly shrilly, and even Mr.
Molloy came near to sneering.
“Not so good, you don’t think?” continued Chimp, uncrushed. “Well, then,
listen here to the rest of it. Dolly calls on this fellow first. She
acts surprised because her father hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Her what?”
“Her father. Then she starts in vamping this guy all she can. If she
hasn’t lost her pep since she last tried that sort of thing, the guy
ought to be in pretty good shape for Act Two by the time the curtain
rings up. That’s when you blow in, Soapy.”
“Am I her father?” asked Mr. Molloy, a little blankly.
“Sure, you’re her father. Why not?”
Mr. Molloy, who was a little sensitive about the difference in age
between his bride and himself, considered that Chimp was not displaying
his usual tact, but muttered something about greying himself up some at
the temples.
“Then what?” asked Dolly.
“Then,” said Chimp, “Soapy does a spiel.”
Mr. Molloy brightened. He knew himself to be at his best when it came to
a spiel.
“Soapy says he was born in this joint--ages and ages ago.”
“What do you mean--ages and ages ago?” said Mr. Molloy, starting.
“Ages and ages ago,” repeated Chimp firmly, “before he had to emigrate
to America and leave the dear old place to be sold. He has loving
childhood recollections of the lawn where he played as a kiddy and
worships every brick in the place. All his favourite relations pegged
out in the rooms upstairs, and all like that. Well, I’m here to say,”
concluded Chimp emphatically, “that if that guy has any sentiment in him
and if Dolly has done the preliminary work properly, he’ll drop.”
There was a tense silence.
“It’ll work,” said Soapy.
“It might work,” said Dolly, more doubtfully.
“It will work,” said Soapy. “I shall be good. I will have that lobster
weeping into his handkerchief inside three minutes.”
“A lot depends on Dolly,” Chimp reminded him.
“Don’t you worry about that,” said the lady stoutly. “I’ll be good too.
But listen here; I’ve got to dress this act. This is where I have to
have that hat with the bird-of-paradise feather that I see in Regent
Street this morning.”
“How much?” inquired the rest of the syndicate in a single breath.
“Eighteen guineas.”
“Eighteen guineas!” said Chimp.
“Eighteen guineas!” said Soapy.
They looked at each other wanly, while Dolly, unheeded, spoke of ships
and ha’porths of tar.
“And a new dress,” she continued, warming to her work. “And new shoes
and a new parasol and new gloves and new----”
“Have a heart, petty,” pleaded Mr. Molloy. “Exercise a little
discretion, sweetness.”
Dolly was firm.
“A girl,” she said, “can’t do herself justice in a tacky lid. You know
that. And you know as well as I do that the first thing a gentleman does
is to look at a dame’s hoofs. And as for gloves, I simply beg you to
cast an eye on these old things I’ve got on now and ask yourselves----”
“Oh, all right, all right,” said Chimp.
“All right,” echoed Mr. Molloy.
Their faces were set grimly. These men were brave, but they were
suffering.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE CHIRRUP
Mr. Wrenn looked up from his plate with a sudden start, a wild and
febrile glare of horror in his eyes. Old theatregoers, had any such been
present, would have been irresistibly reminded by his demeanour of the
late Sir Henry Irving in _The Bells_.
It was breakfast time at San Rafael; and, as always at this meal, the
air was charged with an electric unrest. It is ever thus at breakfast in
the suburbs. The specter of a fleeting train broods over the feast,
turning normally placid men into temporary neuropaths. Meeting Mr. Wrenn
in Fleet Street after lunch, you would have set him down as a very
pleasant, quiet, elderly gentleman, rather on the mild side. At
breakfast, Bengal tigers could have picked up hints from him.
“Zatawittle?” he gasped, speaking in the early morning patois of
Suburbia, which is the English language filtered through toast and
marmalade.
“Of course, it wasn’t a whistle, darling,” said Kay soothingly. “I keep
telling you you’ve lots of time.”
Partially reassured, Mr. Wrenn went on with his meal. He finished his
toast and reached for his cup.
“Wassatie?”
“Only a quarter-past.”
“Sure your washrah?”
“I put it right yesterday.”
At this moment there came faintly from afar a sweet, musical chiming.
“There’s the college clock striking the quarter,” said Kay.
Mr. Wrenn’s fever subsided. If it was only a quarter-past he was on
velvet. He could linger and chat for a while. He could absolutely dally.
He pushed back his chair and lighted a cigarette with the air of a
leisured man.
“Kay, my dear,” he said, “I’ve been thinking--about this young fellow
Shotter.”
Kay jumped. By an odd coincidence, she had herself been thinking of Sam
at that moment. It annoyed her to think of Sam, but she constantly found
herself doing it.
“I really think we ought to invite him to dinner one night.”
“No!”
“But he seems so anxious to be friendly. Only yesterday he asked me if
he could drop round some time and borrow the garden roller. He said he
understood that that was always the first move in the suburbs toward
establishing good neighbourly relations.”
“If you ask him to dinner I shall go out.”
“I can’t understand why you dislike him so much.”
“Well, I just do.”
“He seems to admire you tremendously.”
“Does he?”
“He keeps talking about you--asking what you were like as a child and
whether you ever did you hair differently and things of that kind.”
“Oh!”
“I rather wish you didn’t object to him so much. I should like to see
something of him out of office hours. I find him a very pleasant fellow
myself, and extremely useful in the office. He has taken that Aunt
Ysobel page off my hands. You remember how I used to hate having to
write that?”
“Is that all he does?”
Mr. Wrenn chuckled.
“By no means,” he said amusedly.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I was thinking,” explained Mr. Wrenn, “of something that happened
yesterday. Cordelia Blair called to see me with one of her usual
grievances----”
“Oh, no!” said Kay sympathetically. Her uncle, she knew, was much
persecuted by female contributors who called with grievances at the
offices of Pyke’s _Home Companion_; and of all these gifted creatures,
Miss Cordelia Blair was the one he feared most. “What was the trouble
this time?”
“Apparently the artist who is illustrating _Hearts Aflame_ had drawn
Leslie Mordyke in a lounge suit instead of dress clothes.”
“Why don’t you bite these women’s heads off when they come bothering
you? You shouldn’t be so nice to them.”
“I can’t, my dear,” said Mr. Wrenn plaintively. “I don’t know why it is,
but the mere sight of a woman novelist who is all upset seems to take
all the heart out of me. I sometimes wish I could edit some paper like
_Tiny Tots_ or _Our Feathered Chums_. I don’t suppose indignant children
come charging in on Mason or outraged canaries on Mortimer.... But I was
telling you--when I heard her voice in the outer office, I acquainted
this young fellow Shotter briefly with the facts, and he most nobly
volunteered to go out and soothe her.”
“I can’t imagine him soothing anyone.”
“Well, he certainly had the most remarkable effect on Miss Blair. He
came back ten minutes later to say that all was well and that she had
gone away quite happy.”
“Did he tell you how he had managed it?”
“No.” Another chuckle escaped Mr. Wrenn. “Kay, it isn’t possible--you
don’t imagine--you don’t suppose he could conceivably, on such a very
slight acquaintance, have kissed her, do you?”
“I should think it very probable.”
“Well, I’m bound to own----”
“Don’t laugh in that horrible, ghoulish way, uncle!”
“I can’t help it. I could see nothing, you understand, as I was in the
inner office; but there were most certainly sounds that suggested----”
Mr. Wrenn broke off. Again that musical chiming had come faintly to his
ears. But this time its effect was the reverse of soothing. He became a
thing of furious activity. He ran to and fro, seizing his hat and
dropping it, picking it up and dropping his brief case, retrieving the
brief case and dropping his stick. By the time he had finally shot out
of the front door with his hat on his head, his brief case in his hand
and his stick dangling from his arm, it was as if a tornado had passed
through the interior of San Rafael, and Kay, having seen him off, went
out into the garden to try to recover.
It was a pleasant, sunny morning, and she made for her favourite spot,
the shade of the large tree that hung over the edge of the lawn, a noble
tree, as spreading as that which once sheltered the Village Blacksmith.
Technically, this belonged to Mon Repos, its roots being in the latter’s
domain; but its branches had grown out over the fence, and San Rafael,
with that injustice which is so marked a feature of human affairs, got
all the benefit of its shade.
Seated under this, with a gentle breeze ruffling her hair, Kay gave
herself up to meditation.
She felt worried and upset and in the grip of one of her rare moods of
despondency. She had schooled herself to pine as little as possible for
the vanished luxury of Midways, but when she did so pine it was always
at this time of the day. For although she had adjusted herself with
almost complete success to the conditions of life at San Rafael, she had
not yet learned to bear up under the suburban breakfast.
At Midways the meal had been so leisurely, so orderly, so spacious, so
redolent of all that is most delightful in the country life of the
wealthy; a meal of soft murmurs and rustling papers, of sunshine falling
on silver in the summer, of crackling fires in winter; a take-your-time
meal; a thing of dignity and comfort. Breakfast at San Rafael was a mere
brutish bolting of food, and it jarred upon her afresh each morning.
The breeze continued to play in her hair. Birds hopped upon the grass.
Someone down the road was using a lawn mower. Gradually the feeling of
having been jolted and shaken by some rude force began to pass from Kay,
and she was just reaching the stage where, re-establishing connection
with her sense of humour, she would be able to look upon the amusing
side of the recent scramble, when from somewhere between earth and
heaven there spoke a voice.
“Oo-oo!” said the voice.
Kay was puzzled. Though no ornithologist, she had become reasonably
familiar with the distinctive notes of such of our feathered chums as
haunted the garden of San Rafael, and this did not appear to be one of
them.
“I see you,” proceeded the voice lovingly. “How’s your pore head,
dearie?”
The solution of the mystery presented itself at last. Kay raised her
eyes and beheld, straddled along a branch almost immediately above her,
a lean, stringy man of ruffianly aspect, his naturally unlovely face
rendered additionally hideous by an arch and sentimental smile. For a
long instant this person goggled at her, and she stared back at him.
Then, with a gasp that sounded confusedly apologetic, he scrambled back
along the branch like an anthropoid ape, and dropping to earth beyond
the fence, galloped blushingly up the garden.
Kay sprang to her feet. She had been feeling soothed, but now a bubbling
fury had her in its grip. It was bad enough that outcasts like Sam
Shotter should come and camp themselves next door to her. It was bad
enough that they should annoy her uncle, a busy man, with foolish
questions about what she had been like as a child and whether she had
ever done her hair differently. But when their vile retainers went to
the length of climbing trees and chirruping at her out of them, the
situation, it seemed to her, passed beyond the limit up to which a
spirited girl may reasonably be expected to endure.
She returned to the house, fermenting, and as she reached the hall the
front doorbell rang.
Technically, when the front doorbell of San Rafael rang, it was Claire
Lippett’s duty to answer it; but Claire was upstairs making beds. Kay
stalked across the hall, and having turned the handle, found confronting
her a young woman of spectacular appearance, clad in gorgeous raiment
and surmounted by a bird-of-paradise-feathered hat so much too good for
her that Kay’s immediate reaction of beholding it was one of simple and
ignoble jealousy. It was the sort of hat she would have liked to be able
to afford herself, and its presence on the dyed hair of another cemented
the prejudice which that other’s face and eyes had aroused within her.
“Does a guy named Shotter live here?” asked the visitor. Then, with the
air of one remembering a part and with almost excessive refinement,
“Could I see Mr. Shotter, if you please?”
“Mr. Shotter lives next door,” said Kay frostily.
“Oh, thank yaw. Thank yaw so much.”
“Not at all,” said Kay.
She shut the door and went into the drawing-room. The feeling of being
in a world bounded north, east, south and west by Sam Shotter had
thoroughly poisoned her day.
She took pen, ink and paper and wrote viciously for a few moments.
“Claire,” she called.
“’Ullo!” replied a distant voice.
“I’m leaving a note on the hall table. Will you take it next door some
time?”
“Right-ho!” bellowed the obliging Miss Lippett.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
VISITORS AT MON REPOS
Sam was preparing to leave for the office when his visitor arrived. He
had, indeed, actually opened the front door.
“Mr. Shottah?”
“Yes,” said Sam. He was surprised to see Mrs. Molloy. He had not
expected visitors at so early a period of his tenancy. This, he
supposed, must be the suburban equivalent of the county calling on the
new-comer. Impressed by the hat, he assumed Dolly to be one of the old
aristocracy of Valley Fields. A certain challenging jauntiness in her
bearing forbade the suspicion that she was collecting funds for charity.
“Won’t you come in?”
“Thank yaw. Thank yaw so much. The house agent told me your name.”
“Cornelius?”
“Gink with a full set of white whiskers. Say, somebody ought to put that
baby wise about the wonderful invention of the safety razor.”
Sam agreed that this might be in the public interest, but he began to
revise his views about the old aristocracy.
“I’m afraid you’ll find the place in rather a mess,” he said
apologetically, leading the way to the drawing-room. “I’ve only just
moved in.”
The visitor replied that, on the contrary, she thought it cute.
“I seem to know this joint by heart,” she said. “I’ve heard so much
about it from old pop.”
“I don’t think I am acquainted with Mr. Popp.”
“My father, I mean. He used to live here when he was a tiny kiddy.”
“Really? I should have taken you for an American.”
“I am American, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“I won’t.”
“One hundred per cent, that’s me,” Sam nodded.
“‘Oh, say, can you see by the dawn’s early light?’” he said reverently.
“‘What so proudly’--I never can remember any more.”
“No one,” Sam reminded her, “knows the words but the Argentines....”
“...And the Portuguese and the Greeks.” The lady beamed. “Say, don’t
tell me you’re American too!”
“My mother was.”
“Why, this is fine! Pop’ll be tickled to death.”
“Is your father coming here too?”
“Well, I should say so! You don’t think I pay calls on strange gentlemen
all by myself, do you?” said the lady archly. “But listen! If you’re
American, we’re sitting pretty, because it’s only us Americans that’s
got real sentiment in them. Ain’t it the truth?”
“I don’t quite understand. Why do you want me to have sentiment?”
“Pop’ll explain all that when he arrives. I’m surprised he hasn’t blown
in yet. I didn’t think I’d get here first.” She looked about her. “It
seems funny to think of pop as a little kiddy in this very room.”
“Your father was English then?”
“Born in England--born here--born in this very house. Just to think of
pop playing all them childish games in this very room!”
Sam began to wish that she would stop. Her conversation was beginning to
give the place a queer feeling. The room had begun to seem haunted by a
peculiar being of middle-aged face and juvenile costume. So much so that
when she suddenly exclaimed, “There’s pop!” he had a momentary
impression that a whiskered elder in Lord Fauntleroy clothes was about
to dance out from behind the sofa.
Then he saw that his visitor was looking out of the window and,
following her gaze, noted upon the front steps a gentleman of majestic
port.
“I’ll go and let him in,” he said.
“Do you live here all alone?” asked the lady, and Sam got the idea that
she spoke eagerly.
“Oh, no, I’ve a man. But he’s busy somewhere.”
“I see,” she said disappointedly.
The glimpse which Sam had caught of the new arrival through the window
had been a sketchy one. It was only as he opened the door that he got a
full view of him. And having done so, he was a little startled. It is
always disconcerting to see a familiar face where one had expected a
strange one. This was the man he had seen in the bar that day when he
had met Hash in Fleet Street.
“Mr. Shotter?”
“Yes.”
It seemed to Sam that the man had aged a good deal since he had seen him
last. The fact was that Mr. Molloy, in greying himself up at the
temples, had rather overdone the treatment. Still, though stricken in
years, he looked a genial, kindly, honest soul.
“My name is Gunn, Mr. Shotter--Thomas G. Gunn.”
It had been Mr. Molloy’s intention--for he was an artist and liked to do
a thing, as he said, properly--to adopt for this interview the pseudonym
of J. Felkin Haggenbakker, that seeming to his critical view the sort of
name a sentimental millionaire who had made a fortune in Pittsburgh and
was now revisiting the home of his boyhood ought to have. The proposal
had been vetoed by Dolly, who protested that she did not intend to spend
hours of her time in unnecessary study.
“Won’t you come in?” said Sam.
He stood aside to let his visitor pass, wondering again where it was
that he had originally seen the man. He hated to forget a face and
personality which should have been unforgettable. He ushered Mr. Gunn
into the drawing-room, still pondering.
“So there you are, pop,” said the lady. “Say, pop, isn’t it dandy? Mr.
Shotter’s an American.”
Mr. Gunn’s frank eyes lit up with gratification.
“Ah! Then you are a man of sentiment, Mr. Shotter. You will understand.
You will not think it odd that a man should cherish all through his life
a wistful yearning for the place where he was born.”
“Not at all,” said Sam politely, and might have reminded his visitor
that the feeling, a highly creditable one, was shared by practically all
America’s most eminent song writers.
“Well, that is how I feel, Mr. Shotter,” said the other bluffly, “and I
am not ashamed to confess it. This house is very dear to me. I was born
in it.”
“So Miss Gunn was telling me.”
“Ah, she has told you? Yes, Mr. Shotter, I am a man who has seen men and
cities. I have lived in the hovels of the poor, I have risen till, if I
may say so, I am welcomed in the palaces of the rich. But never, rich or
poor, have I forgotten this old place and the childhood associations
which hallow it.”
He paused. His voice had trembled and sunk to a whisper in those last
words, and now he turned abruptly and looked out of a window. His
shoulders heaved significantly for an instant and something like a
stifled sob broke the stillness of the room. But when a moment later he
swung round he was himself again, the tough, sturdy old J. Felkin
Haggenbakker--or, rather, Thomas G. Gunn--who was so highly respected,
and perhaps a little feared, at the Rotary Club in Pittsburgh.
“Well, I must not bore you, Mr. Shotter. You are, no doubt, a busy man.
Let me be brief. Mr. Shotter, I want this house.”
“You want what?” said Sam, bewildered. He had had no notion that he was
going to be swept into the maelstrom of a business transaction.
“Yes, sir, I want this house. And let me tell you that money is no
object. I’ve lots of money.” He dismissed money with a gesture. “I have
my whims and I can pay for them. How much for the house, Mr. Shotter?”
Sam felt that it behooved him to keep his head. He had not the remotest
intention of selling for all the gold in Pittsburgh a house which, in
the first place, did not belong to him and, secondly, was next door to
Kay Derrick.
“I’m very sorry----” he began.
Mr. Gunn checked him with an apologetic lift of the hand.
“I was too abrupt,” he said. “I rushed the thing. A bad habit of mine.
When I was prospecting in Nevada, the boys used to call me Hair-Trigger
Gunn. I ought to have stated my position more clearly.”
“Oh, I understand your position.”
“You realise then that this isn’t a house to me; it is a shrine?”
“Yes, yes; but----”
“It contains,” said Mr. Gunn with perfect truth, “something very
precious to me.”
“Yes; but----”
“It is my boyhood that is enshrined here--my innocent, happy, halcyon
boyhood. I have played games at my mother’s knee in this very room. I
have read tales from the Scriptures with her here. It was here that my
mother, seated at the piano, used to sing--sing----”
His voice died away again. He blew his nose and turned once more to the
window. But though he was under the impression that he had achieved a
highly artistic aposiopesis, he could hardly have selected a more
unfortunate word to stammer brokenly. Something resembling an electric
thrill ran through Sam. Memory, dormant, had responded to the code word.
Sing Sing! He knew now where he had seen this man before.
It is the custom of the Welfare League of America’s most famous
penitentiary to alleviate the monotony of the convict’s lot by giving
periodical performances of plays, produced and acted by the personnel of
the prison. When the enterprising burglar isn’t burgling, in fact, he is
probably memorising the words of some popular lyric for rendition on the
next big night.
To one of these performances, some eighteen months back, Sam had been
taken by a newspaper friend. The hit of the evening had been this very
Thomas G. Gunn, then a mere number, in the rôle of a senator.
Mr. Gunn had resumed his address. He was speaking once more of his
mother, and speaking well. But he was not holding his audience. Sam cut
in on his eloquence.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m afraid this house is not for sale.”
“But, Mr. Shotter----”
“No,” said Sam. “I have a very special reason for wishing to stay here,
and I intend to remain. And now I’m afraid I must ask you----”
“Suppose I look in this evening and take the matter up again?” pleaded
Mr. Gunn, finding with some surprise that he had been edged out onto the
steps and making a last stand there.
“It’s no use. Besides, I shan’t be in this evening. I’m dining out.”
“Will anybody be in?” asked Miss Gunn suddenly, breaking a long silence.
“Why, yes,” said Sam, somewhat surprised, “the man who works here. Why?”
“I was only thinking that if we called he might show us over the place.”
“Oh, I see. Well, good-bye.”
“But, say now, listen----”
“Good-bye,” said Sam.
He closed the door and made his way to the kitchen. Hash, his chair
tilted back against the wall, was smoking a thoughtful pipe.
“Who was it, Sam?”
“Somebody wanting to buy the house. Hash, there’s something fishy going
on.”
“Ur?”
“Do you remember me pointing out a man to you in that bar in Fleet
Street?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it was the same fellow. And do you remember me saying that I was
sure I had seen him before somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ve remembered where it was. It was in Sing Sing, and he was
serving a sentence there.”
Mr. Todhunter’s feet came to the floor with a crash.
“There’s something darned peculiar about this house, Hash. I slept in it
the night I landed, and there was a fellow creeping around with an
electric torch. And now this man, whom I know to be a crook, puts up a
fake story to make me let him have it. What do you think, Hash?”
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Mr. Todhunter, alarmed. “I think I’m
going straight out to buy a good watchdog.”
“It’s a good idea.”
“I don’t like these bad characters hanging about. I had a cousin in the
pawnbroking line what was hit on the ’ead by a burglar with a antique
vase. That’s what happened to him, all through hearing a noise in the
night and coming down to see what it was.”
“But what’s at the back of all this? What do you make of it?”
“Ah, there you have me,” said Hash frankly. “But that don’t alter the
fact that I’m going to get a dog.”
“I should. Get something pretty fierce.”
“I’ll get a dog,” said Hash solemnly, “that’ll feed on nails and bite
his own mother.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ASTONISHING STATEMENT OF HASH TODHUNTER
§ 1
The dinner to which Sam had been bidden that night was at the house of
his old friend, Mr. Willoughby Braddock, in John Street, Mayfair, and at
ten minutes to eight Mr. Braddock was fidgeting about the morning-room,
interviewing his housekeeper, Mrs. Martha Lippett. His guests would be
arriving at any moment, and for the last quarter of an hour, a-twitter
with the nervousness of an anxious host, he had been popping about the
place on a series of tours of inspection, as jumpy, to quote the words
of Sleddon, his butler--whom, by leaping suddenly out from the dimly lit
dining-room, he had caused to bite his tongue and nearly drop a tray of
glasses--as an old hen. The general consensus of opinion below stairs
was that Willoughby Braddock, in his capacity of master of the revels,
was making a thorough pest of himself.
“You are absolutely certain that everything is all right, Mrs. Lippett?”
“Everything is quite all right, Master Willie,” replied the housekeeper
equably.
This redoubtable woman differed from her daughter Claire in being tall
and thin and beaked like an eagle. One of the well-known Bromage family
of Marshott-in-the-Dale, she had watched with complacent pride the
Bromage nose developing in her sons and daughters, and it had always
been a secret grief to her that Claire, her favourite, who inherited so
much of her forceful and determined character, should have been the only
one of her children to take nasally after the inferior, or Lippett, side
of the house. Mr. Lippett had been an undistinguished man, hardly fit to
mate with a Bromage and certainly not worthy to be resembled in
appearance by the best of his daughters.
“You’re sure there will be enough to eat?”
“There will be ample to eat.”
“How about drinks?” said Mr. Braddock, and was reminded by the word of a
grievance which had been rankling within his bosom ever since his last
expedition to the dining room. He pulled down the corners of his white
waistcoat and ran his finger round the inside of his collar. “Mrs.
Lippett,” he said, “I--er--I was outside the dining room just now----”
“Were you, Master Willie? You must not fuss so. Everything will be quite
all right.”
“----and I overheard you telling Sleddon not to let me have any
champagne to-night,” said Mr. Braddock, reddening at the outrageous
recollection.
The housekeeper stiffened.
“Yes, I did, Master Willie. And your dear mother, if she were still with
us, would have given the very same instructions--after what my daughter
Claire told me of what occurred the other night and the disgraceful
condition you were in. What your dear mother would have said, I don’t
know!”
Mrs. Lippett’s conversation during the last twenty years of Willoughby
Braddock’s life had dealt largely with speculations as to what his dear
mother would have said of various ventures undertaken or contemplated by
him.
“You must fight against the craving, Master Willie. Remember your Uncle
George!”
Mr. Braddock groaned in spirit. One of the things that make these old
retainers so hard to bear is that they are so often walking editions of
the _chroniques scandaleuses_ of the family. It sometimes seemed to Mr.
Braddock that he could not move a step in any direction without having
the awful example of some erring ancestor flung up against him.
“Well, look here,” he said, with weak defiance, “I want champagne
to-night.”
“You will have cider, Master Willie.”
“But I hate cider.”
“Cider is good for you, Master Willie,” said Mrs. Lippett firmly.
The argument was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. The
housekeeper left the room, and presently Sleddon, the butler, entered,
escorting Lord Tilbury.
“Ha, my dear fellow,” said Lord Tilbury, bustling in.
He beamed upon his host as genially as the Napoleonic cast of his
countenance would permit. He rather liked Willoughby Braddock, as he
rather liked all very rich young men.
“How are you?” said Mr. Braddock. “Awfully good of you to come at such
short notice.”
“My dear fellow!”
He spoke heartily, but he had, as a matter of fact, been a little piqued
at being invited to dinner on the morning of the feast. He considered
that his eminence entitled him to more formal and reverential treatment.
And though he had accepted, having had previous experience of the
excellence of Mr. Braddock’s cook, he felt that something in the nature
of an apology was due to him and was glad that it had been made.
“I asked you at the last moment,” explained Mr. Braddock, “because I
wasn’t sure till this morning that Sam Shotter would be able to come. I
thought it would be jolly for him, meeting you out of the office, don’t
you know.”
Lord Tilbury inclined his head. He quite saw the force of the argument
that it would be jolly for anyone, meeting him.
“So you know young Shotter?”
“Oh, yes. We were at school together.”
“A peculiar young fellow.”
“A great lad.”
“But--er--a little eccentric, don’t you think?”
“Oh, Sam always was a bit of nib,” said Mr. Braddock. “At school there
used to be some iron bars across the passage outside our dormitory, the
idea being to coop us up during the night, don’t you know. Sam used to
shin over these and go downstairs to the house master’s study.”
“With what purpose?”
“Oh, just to sit.”
Lord Tilbury was regarding his host blankly. Not a day passed, he was
ruefully reflecting, but he received some further evidence of the light
and unstable character of this young man of whom he had so rashly taken
charge.
“It sounds a perfectly imbecile proceeding to me,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t know, you know,” said Mr. Braddock, for the defence. “You
see, occasionally there would be a cigar or a plate of biscuits or
something left out, and then Sam would scoop them. So it wasn’t
altogether a waste of time.”
Sleddon was entering with a tray.
“Cocktail?” said Mr. Braddock, taking one himself with a defiant glare
at his faithful servant, who was trying to keep the tray out of his
reach.
“No, I thank you,” said Lord Tilbury. “My doctor has temporarily
forbidden me the use of alcoholic beverages. I have been troubled of
late with a suspicion of gout.”
“Tough luck.”
“No doubt I am better without them. I find cider an excellent
substitute.... Are you expecting many people here to-night?”
“A fairish number. I don’t think you know any of them--except, of
course, old Wrenn.”
“Wrenn? You mean the editor of my _Home Companion_?”
“Yes. He and his niece are coming. She lives with him, you know.”
Lord Tilbury started as if a bradawl had been thrust through the
cushions of his chair; and for an instant, so powerfully did these words
affect him, he had half a mind to bound at the receding Sleddon and,
regardless of medical warnings, snatch from him that rejected cocktail.
A restorative of some kind seemed to him imperative.
The statement by Mr. Wrenn, delivered in his office on the morning of
Sam’s arrival, that he possessed no daughter had had the effect of
relieving Lord Tilbury’s mind completely. Francie, generally so unerring
in these matters, had, he decided, wronged Sam in attributing his
occupancy of Mon Repos to a desire to be next door to some designing
girl. And now it appeared that she had been right all the time.
He was still staring with dismay at his unconscious host when the rest
of the dinner guests began to arrive. They made no impression on his
dazed mind. Through a sort of mist, he was aware of a young man with a
face like a rabbit, another young man with a face like another rabbit;
two small, shingled creatures, one blonde, the other dark, who seemed to
be either wives or sisters of these young men; and an unattached female
whom Mr. Braddock addressed as Aunt Julia. His Lordship remained aloof,
buried in his thoughts and fraternising with none of them.
Then Sam appeared, and a few moments later Sleddon announced Mr. Wrenn
and Miss Derrick; and Lord Tilbury, who had been examining a picture by
the window, swung round with a jerk.
In a less prejudiced frame of mind he might have approved of Kay; for,
like so many other great men, he had a nice eye for feminine beauty, and
she was looking particularly attractive in a gold dress which had
survived the wreck of Midways. But now that very beauty merely increased
his disapproval and alarm. He looked at her with horror. He glared as
the good old father in a film glares at the adventuress from whose
clutches he is trying to save his only son.
At this moment, however, something happened that sent hope and comfort
stealing through his heart. Sam, who had been seized upon by Aunt Julia
and had been talking restively to her for some minutes, now contrived by
an adroit piece of side-stepping to remove himself from her sphere of
influence. He slid swiftly up to Kay, and Lord Tilbury, who was watching
her closely, saw her face freeze. She said a perfunctory word or two,
and then, turning away, began to talk with great animation to one of the
rabbit-faced young men. And Sam, with rather the manner of one who has
bumped into a brick wall in the dark, drifted off and was immediately
gathered in again by Aunt Julia.
A delightful sensation of relief poured over Lord Tilbury. In the days
of his youth when he had attended subscription dances at the Empress
Rooms, West Kensington, he had sometimes seen that look on the faces of
his partners when he had happened to tread on their dresses. He knew its
significance. Such a look could mean but one thing--that Kay, though
living next door to Sam, did not regard him as one of the pleasant
features of the neighbourhood. In short, felt Lord Tilbury, if there was
anything between these two young people, it was something extremely
one-sided; and he went in to dinner with a light heart, prepared to
enjoy the cooking of Mr. Braddock’s admirable chef as it should be
enjoyed.
When, on sitting at the table, he found that Kay was on his right, he
was pleased, for he had now come to entertain a feeling of warm esteem
for this excellent and sensible girl. It was his practice never to talk
while he ate caviare; but when that had been consumed in a holy silence
he turned to her, beaming genially.
“I understand you live at Valley Fields, Miss Derrick.”
“Yes.”
“A charming spot.”
“Very.”
“The college grounds are very attractive.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Have you visited the picture gallery?”
“Yes, several times.”
Fish arrived--_sole meunière_. It was Lord Tilbury’s custom never to
talk during the fish course.
“My young friend Shotter is, I believe, a near neighbour of yours,” he
said, when the _sole meunière_ was no more.
“He lives next door.”
“Indeed? Then you see a great deal of him, no doubt?”
“I never see him.”
“A most delightful young fellow,” said Lord Tilbury, sipping cider.
Kay looked at him stonily.
“Do you think so?” she said.
Lord Tilbury’s last doubts were removed. He felt that all was for the
best in the best of all possible worlds. Like some joyous reveller out
of Rabelais, he raised his glass with a light-hearted flourish. He
looked as if he were about to start a drinking chorus.
“Excellent cider, this, Braddock,” he boomed genially. “Most
excellent.”
Willoughby Braddock, who had been eying his own supply of that wholesome
beverage with sullen dislike, looked at him in pained silence; and Sam,
who had been sitting glumly, listening without interest to the prattle
of one of the shingled girls, took it upon himself to reply. He was
feeling sad and ill used. That incident before dinner had distressed
him. Moreover, only a moment ago he had caught Kay’s eye for an instant
across the table, and it had been cold and disdainful. He welcomed the
opportunity of spoiling somebody’s life, and particularly that of an old
ass like Lord Tilbury, who should have been thinking about the hereafter
instead of being so infernally hearty.
“I read a very interesting thing about cider the other day,” he said in
a loud, compelling voice that stopped one of the rabbit-faced young men
in mid-anecdote as if he had been smitten with an axe. “It appears that
the farmers down in Devonshire put a dead rat in every barrel----”
“My dear Shotter!”
“----to give it body,” went on Sam doggedly. “And the curious thing is
that when the barrels are opened, the rats are always found to have
completely disappeared--showing the power of the juice.”
A wordless exclamation proceeded from Lord Tilbury. He lowered his
glass. Mr. Braddock was looking like one filled with a sudden great
resolution.
“I read it in Pyke’s _Home Companion_,” said Sam. “So it must be true.”
“A little water, please,” said Lord Tilbury stiffly.
“Sleddon,” said Mr. Braddock in a voice of thunder, “give me some
champagne.”
“Sir?” quavered the butler. He cast a swift look over his shoulder, as
if seeking the moral support of Mrs. Lippett. But Mrs. Lippett was in
the housekeeper’s room.
“Sleddon!”
“Yes, sir,” said the butler meekly.
Sam was feeling completely restored to his usual sunny self.
“Talking of Pyke’s _Home Companion_,” he said, “did you take my advice
and read that serial of Cordelia Blair’s, Lord Tilbury?”
“I did not,” replied His Lordship shortly.
“You should. Miss Blair is a very remarkable woman.”
Kay raised her eyes.
“A great friend of yours, isn’t she?” she said.
“I would hardly say that. I’ve only met her once.”
“But you got on very well with her, I heard.”
“I think I endeared myself to her pretty considerably.”
“So I understood.”
“I gave her a plot for a story,” said Sam.
One of the rabbit-faced young men said that he could never understand
how fellows--or women, for that matter--thought up ideas for stories--or
plays, for the matter of that--or, as a matter of fact, any sort of
ideas, for that matter.
“This,” Sam explained, “was something that actually happened--to a
friend of mine.”
The other rabbit-faced young man said that something extremely rummy had
once happened to a pal of his. He had forgotten what it was, but it had
struck him at the time as distinctly rummy.
“This fellow,” said Sam, “was fishing up in Canada. He lived in a sort
of shack.”
“A what?” asked the blonde shingled girl.
“A hut. And tacked up on the wall of the shack was a photograph of a
girl, torn out of an illustrated weekly paper.”
“Pretty?” asked the dark shingled girl.
“You bet she was pretty,” said Sam devoutly. “Well, this man spent weeks
in absolute solitude, with not a soul to talk to--nothing, in fact, to
distract his mind from the photograph. The consequence was that he came
to look on this girl as--well, you might say an old friend.”
“Sleddon,” said Mr. Braddock, “more champagne.”
“Some months later,” proceeded Sam, “the man came over to England. He
met the girl. And still looking on her as an old friend, you understand,
he lost his head and, two minutes after they had met, he kissed her.”
“Must have been rather a soppy kind of a silly sort of idiot,” observed
the blonde shingled girl critically.
“Perhaps you’re right,” agreed Sam. “Still, that’s what happened.”
“I don’t see where the story comes in,” said one of the rabbit-faced
young men.
“Well, naturally, you see, not realising the true state of affairs, the
girl was very sore,” said Sam.
The rabbit-faced young men looked at each other and shook their heads.
The shingled young women raised their eyebrows pityingly.
“No good,” said the blonde shingled girl.
“Dud,” said the dark shingled girl. “Who’s going to believe nowadays
that a girl is such a chump as to mind a man kissing her?”
“Everybody kisses everybody nowadays,” said one of the rabbit-faced
young men profoundly.
“Girl was making a fuss about nothing,” said the other rabbit-faced
young man.
“And how does the story end?” asked Aunt Julia.
“It hasn’t ended,” said Sam. “Not yet.”
“Sleddon!” said Mr. Braddock, in a quiet, dangerous voice.
§ 2
It is possible, if you are young and active and in an exhilarated frame
of mind, to walk from John Street, Mayfair, to Burberry Road, Valley
Fields. Sam did so. His frame of mind was extraordinarily exhilarated.
It seemed to him, reviewing recent events, that he had detected in Kay’s
eyes for an instant a look that resembled the first dawning of spring
after a hard winter; and, though not in the costume for athletic feats,
he covered the seven miles that separated him from home at a pace which
drew derisive comment from the proletariat all along the route. The
Surrey-side Londoner is always intrigued by the spectacle of anyone
hurrying, and when that person is in dress clothes and a tall hat he
expresses himself without reserve.
Sam heard nothing of this ribaldry. Unconscious of the world, he strode
along, brushing through Brixton, hurrying through Herne Hill, and
presently arrived, warm and happy, at the door of Mon Repos.
He let himself in; and, entering, was aware of a note lying on the hall
table.
He opened it absently. The handwriting was strange to him, and feminine:
“DEAR MR. SHOTTER: I should be much obliged if you would ask your
manservant not to chirrup at me out of trees.
“Yours truly,
“KAY DERRICK.”
He had to read this curt communication twice before he was able fully to
grasp its meaning. When he did so a flood of self-pity poured over Sam.
He quivered with commiseration for the hardness of his lot. Here was he,
doing all that a man could to establish pleasant neighbourly relations
with the house next door, and all the while Hash foiling his every
effort by chirruping out of trees from morning till night. It was
bitter, bitter.
He was standing there, feeding his surging wrath by a third perusal of
the letter, when from the direction of the kitchen there suddenly
sounded a long, loud, agonised cry. It was like the wail of a soul in
torment; and without stopping to pick up his hat, which he had dropped
in the sheer shock of this dreadful sound, he raced down the stairs.
“’Ullo,” said Hash, looking up from an evening paper. “Back?”
His placidity amazed Sam. If his ears were any guide, murder had been
done in this room only a few seconds before, and here was this iron man
reading the racing news without having turned a hair.
“What on earth was that?”
“What was what?”
“That noise.”
“Oh, that was Amy,” said Hash.
Sam’s eye was diverted by movement in progress in the shadows behind the
table. A vast shape was rising from the floor, revealing itself as an
enormous dog. It finished rising; and having placed its chin upon the
table, stood looking at him with dreamy eyes and a wrinkled forehead,
like a shortsighted person trying to recall a face.
“Oh, yes,” said Sam, remembering. “So you got him?”
“Her.”
“What is he--she?”
“Gawd knows,” said Hash simply. It was a problem which he himself had
endeavoured idly to solve earlier in the evening. “I’ve named her after
an old aunt of mine. Looks a bit like her.”
“She must be an attractive woman.”
“She’s dead.”
“Perhaps it’s all for the best,” said Sam. He leaned forward and pulled
the animal’s ears in friendly fashion. Amy simpered in a ladylike way,
well pleased. “Would you say she was a bloodhound, Hash?”
“I wouldn’t say she was anything, not to swear to.”
“A kind of canine cocktail,” said Sam. “The sort of thing a Cruft’s Show
judge dreams about when he has a nightmare.”
He observed something lying on the floor; and stooping, found that his
overtures to the animal had caused Kay’s note to slip from his fingers.
He picked it up and eyed Hash sternly. Amy, charmed by his recent
attentions, snuffled like water going down the waste pipe of a bath.
“Hash!” said Sam.
“’Ullo?”
“What the devil,” demanded Sam forcefully, “do you mean by chirruping at
Miss Derrick out of trees?”
“I only said oo-oo, Sam,” pleaded Mr. Todhunter.
“You said what?”
“Oo-oo!”
“What on earth did you want to say oo-oo for?”
Much voyaging on the high seas had given Hash’s cheeks the consistency
of teak, but at this point something resembling a blush played about
them.
“I thought it was the girl.”
“What girl?”
“The maid. Clara, ’er name is.”
“Well, why should you say oo-oo at her?”
Again that faint, fleeting blush coloured Hash’s face. Before Sam’s
revolted eyes he suddenly looked coy.
“Well, it’s like this, Sam: The ’ole thing ’ere is, we’re engaged.”
“What!”
“Engaged to be married.”
“Engaged!”
“Ah!” said Mr. Todhunter. And once more that repellent smirk rendered
his features hideous beyond even Nature’s liberal specifications
concerning them.
Sam sat down. This extraordinary confession had shaken him deeply.
“You’re engaged?”
“Ah!”
“But I thought you disliked women.”
“So I do--most of ’em.”
Another aspect of the matter struck Sam. His astonishment deepened.
“But how did you manage it so soon?”
“Soon?”
“You can’t have seen the girl more than about half a dozen times.”
Still another mysterious point about this romance presented itself to
Sam. He regarded the great lover with frank curiosity.
“And what was the attraction?” he asked. “That’s what I can’t
understand.”
“She’s a nice girl,” argued Hash.
“I don’t mean in her; I mean in you. What is there about you that could
make this misguided female commit such a rash act? If I were a girl, and
you begged me for one little rose from my hair, I wouldn’t give it to
you.”
“But----”
“No,” said Sam firmly, “it’s no use arguing; I just wouldn’t give it to
you. What did she see in you?”
“Oh, well----”
“It couldn’t have been your looks--we’ll dismiss that right away, of
course. It couldn’t have been your conversation or your intellect,
because you haven’t any. Then what was it?”
Mr. Todhunter smirked coyly.
“Oh, well, I’ve got a way with me, Sam--that’s how it is.”
“A way?”
“Ah!”
“What sort of way?”
“Oh, just a way.”
“Have you got it with you now?”
“Naturally I wouldn’t ’ave it with me now,” said Hash.
“You keep it for special occasions, eh? Well, you haven’t yet explained
how it all happened.”
Mr. Todhunter coughed.
“Well, it was like this, Sam: I see ’er in the garden, and I says
‘Ullo!’ and she says ‘Ullo!’ and then she come to the fence and then I
come to the fence, and she says ‘Ullo!’ and I says ‘Ullo!’ and then I
kiss her.”
Sam gaped.
“Didn’t she object?”
“Object? What would she want to object for? No, indeed! It seemed to
break what you might call the ice, and after that everything got kind of
nice and matey. And then one thing led to another--see what I mean?”
An aching sense of the injustice of things afflicted Sam.
“Well, it’s very strange,” he said.
“What’s strange?”
“I mean, I knew a man--a fellow--who--er--kissed a girl when he had only
just met her, and she was furious.”
“Ah,” said Hash, leaping instantly at a plausible solution, “but then ’e
was probably a chap with a face like Gawd-’elpus and hair growing out
of his ears. Naturally, no one wouldn’t like ’aving someone like that
kissing ’em.”
Sam went upstairs to bed. Before retiring, he looked at himself in the
mirror long and earnestly. He turned his head sideways so that the light
shone upon his ears. He was conscious of a strange despondency.
§ 3
Kay lay in bed, thinking. Ever and anon a little chuckle escaped her.
She was feeling curiously happy to-night. The world seemed to have
become all of a sudden interesting and amusing. An odd, uncontrollable
impulse urged her to sing.
She would not in any case have sung for long, for she was a considerate
girl, and the recollection would soon have come to her that there were
people hard by who were trying to get to sleep. But, as a matter of
fact, she sang only a mere bar or two, for even as she began, there came
a muffled banging on the wall--a petulant banging. Hash Todhunter loved
his Claire, but he was not prepared to put up with this sort of thing.
Three doughty buffets he dealt the wall with the heel of a number-eleven
shoe.
Kay sang no more. She turned out the light and lay in the darkness, her
face set.
Silence fell upon San Rafael and Mon Repos. And then, from somewhere in
the recesses of the latter, a strange, bansheelike wailing began. Amy
was homesick.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ACTIVITIES OF THE DOG AMY
The day that followed Mr. Braddock’s dinner party dawned on a world
shrouded in wet white fog. By eight o’clock, however, this had thinned
to a soft, pearly veil that hung clingingly to the tree tops and
lingered about the grass of the lawn in little spiderwebs of moisture.
And when Kay Derrick came out into the garden, a quarter of an hour
later, the September sun was already beginning to pierce the mist with
hints of a wonderful day to come.
It was the sort of morning which should have bred happiness and quiet
content, but Kay had waked in a mood of irritated hostility which fine
weather could not dispel. What had happened overnight had stung her to a
militant resentment, and sleep had not removed this.
Possibly this was because her sleep, like that of everyone else in the
neighbourhood, had been disturbed and intermittent. From midnight until
two in the morning the dog Amy had given a spirited imitation of ten
dogs being torn asunder by red-hot pincers. At two, Hash Todhunter had
risen reluctantly from his bed, and arming himself with the
number-eleven shoe mentioned in the previous chapter, had reasoned with
her. This had produced a brief respite, but by a quarter of three large
numbers of dogs were once more being massacred on the premises of Mon
Repos, that ill-named house.
At three, Sam went down; and being a young man who liked dogs and saw
their point of view, tried diplomacy. This took the shape of the remains
of a leg of mutton and it worked like a charm. Amy finished the leg of
mutton and fell into a surfeited slumber, and peace descended on
Burberry Road.
Kay paced the gravel path with hard feelings, which were not removed by
the appearance a few moments later of Sam, clad in flannels and a
sweater. Sam, his back to her and his face to the sun, began to fling
himself about in a forceful and hygienic manner; and Kay, interested in
spite of herself, came to the fence to watch him. She was angry with
him, for no girl likes to have her singing criticised by bangs upon the
wall; but nevertheless she could not entirely check a faint feeling of
approval as she watched him. A country-bred girl, Kay liked men to be
strong and of the open air; and Sam, whatever his moral defects, was a
fine physical specimen. He looked fit and hard and sinewy.
Presently, in the course of a complicated movement which involved
circular swinging from the waist, his eye fell upon her. He straightened
himself and came over to the fence, flushed and tousled and healthy.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” said Kay coldly. “I want to apologise, Mr. Shotter. I’m
afraid my singing disturbed you last night.”
“Good Lord!” said Sam. “Was that you? I thought it was the dog.”
“I stopped directly you banged on the wall.”
“I didn’t bang on any wall. It must have been Hash.”
“Hash?”
“Hash Todhunter, the man who cooks for me--and, oh, yes, who chirrups at
you out of trees. I got your note and spoke to him about it. He
explained that he had mistaken you for your maid, Claire. It’s rather a
romantic story. He’s engaged to her.”
“Engaged!”
“That’s just what I said when he told me, and in just that tone of
voice. I was surprised. I gather, however, that Hash is what you would
call a quick worker. He tells me he has a way with him. According to his
story, he kissed her, and after that everything was nice and matey.”
Kay flushed faintly.
“Oh!” she said.
“Yes,” said Sam.
There was a silence. The San Rafael kitten, which had been playing in
the grass, approached and rubbed a wet head against Kay’s ankle.
“Well, I must be going in,” said Kay. “Claire is in bed with one of her
neuralgic headaches and I have to cook my uncle’s breakfast.”
“Oh, no, really? Let me lend you Todhunter.”
“No, thanks.”
“Perhaps you’re wise. Apart from dry hash, he’s a rotten cook.”
“So is Claire.”
“Really? What a battle of giants it will be when they start cooking for
each other!”
“Yes.”
Kay stooped and tickled the kitten under the ear, then walked quickly
toward the house. The kitten, having subjected Sam to a long and
critical scrutiny, decided that he promised little entertainment to an
active-minded cat and galloped off in pursuit of a leaf. Sam sighed and
went in to have a bath.
Some little time later, the back door of Mon Repos opened from within as
if urged by some irresistible force, and the dog Amy came out to take
the morning air.
Dogs are creatures of swiftly changing moods. Only a few hours before,
Amy, in the grip of a dreadful depression caused by leaving the public
house where she had spent her girlhood--for, in case the fact is of
interest to anyone, Hash had bought her for five shillings from the
proprietor of the Blue Anchor at Tulse Hill--had been making the night
hideous with her lamentations. Like Rachel, she had mourned and would
not be comforted. But now, to judge from her manner and a certain
jauntiness in her walk, she had completely resigned herself to the life
of exile. She scratched the turf and sniffed the shrubs with the air of
a lady of property taking a stroll round her estates. And when Hash, who
did not easily forgive, flung an egg at her out of the kitchen window so
that it burst before her on the gravel, she ate the remains
lightheartedly, as one who feels that the day is beginning well.
The only flaw in the scheme of things seemed to her to consist in a
lack of society. By nature sociable, she yearned for company, and for
some minutes roamed the garden in quest of it. She found a snail under a
laurel bush, but snails are reserved creatures, self-centred and
occupied with their own affairs, and this one cut Amy dead, retreating
into its shell with a frigid aloofness which made anything in the nature
of camaraderie out of the question.
She returned to the path, and became interested in the wooden structure
that ran along it. Rearing herself up to a majestic height and placing
her paws on this, she looked over and immediately experienced all the
emotions of stout Balboa when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific.
It is not indeed, too much to say that Amy at that moment felt like some
watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken; for not only
was there a complete new world on the other side of this wooden
structure but on the grass in the middle of it was a fascinating kitten
running round in circles after its tail.
Amy had seen enough. She would have preferred another dog to chat with;
but failing that, a kitten made an admirable substitute. She adored
kittens. At the Blue Anchor there had been seven, all intimate friends
of hers, who looked upon her body as a recreation ground and her massive
tail as a perpetual object of the chase. With a heave of her powerful
hind legs, she hoisted herself over the fence and, descending on the
other side like the delivery of half a ton of coal, bounded at the
kitten, full of good feeling. And the kitten, after one brief, shocked
stare, charged madly at the fence and scrambled up it into the branches
of the tree from which Hash Todhunter had done his recent chirruping.
Amy came to the foot of the tree and looked up, perplexed. She could
make nothing of this. It is not given to dogs any more than to men to
see themselves as others see them, and it never occurred to her for an
instant that there was in her appearance anything that might be alarming
to a high-strung young cat. But a dog cannot have a bloodhound-Airedale
father and a Great Dane-Labrador mother without acquiring a certain
physique. The kitten, peering down through the branches, congratulated
itself on a narrow escape from death and climbed higher. And at this
point Kay came out into the garden.
“Hullo, dog,” said Kay. “What are you doing here?”
Amy was glad to see Kay. She was a shortsighted dog and took her for the
daughter of the host of the Blue Boar who had been wont to give her her
meals. She left the tree and galloped toward her. And Kay, who had been
brought up with dogs from childhood and knew the correct procedure to be
observed when meeting a strange one, welcomed her becomingly. Hash,
hurrying out on observing Amy leap the fence, found himself a witness of
what practically amounted to a feast of reason and a flow of soul. That
is to say, Amy was lying restfully on her back with her legs in the air
and Kay was thumping her chest.
“I hope the dog is not annoying you, lady,” said Hash in his best
_preux-chevalier_ manner.
Kay looked up and perceived the man who had chirruped at her from the
tree. Having contracted to marry into San Rafael, he had ceased to be
an alien and had become something in the nature of one of the family; so
she smiled amiably at him, conscious the while of a passing wonder that
Claire’s heart should have been ensnared by one who, whatever his
merits, was notably deficient in conventional good looks.
“Not at all, thank you,” she said. “Is he your dog?”
“She,” corrected Hash. “Yes, miss.”
“She’s a nice dog.”
“Yes, miss,” said Hash, but with little heartiness.
“I hope she won’t frighten my kitten, though. It’s out in the garden
somewhere. I can hear it mewing.”
Amy could hear the mewing too; and still hopeful that an understanding
might be reached, she at once proceeded to the tree and endeavoured to
jump to the top of it. In this enterprise she fell short by some fifty
feet, but she jumped high enough to send the kitten scrambling into the
upper branches.
“Oh!” cried Kay, appreciating the situation.
Hash also appreciated the situation; and being a man of deeds rather
than words, vaulted over the fence and kicked Amy in the lower ribs.
Amy, her womanly feelings wounded, shot back into her own garden, where
she stood looking plaintively on with her forepaws on the fence.
Treatment like this was novel to her, for at the Blue Anchor she had
been something of a popular pet; and it seemed to her that she had
fallen among tough citizens. She expressed a not unnatural pique by
throwing her head back and uttering a loud, moaning cry like an ocean
liner in a fog. Hearing which, the kitten, which had been in two minds
about risking a descent, climbed higher.
“What shall we do?” said Kay.
“Shut up!” bellowed Hash. “Not you, miss,” he hastened to add with a
gallant smirk. “I was speaking to the dog.” He found a clod of earth and
flung it peevishly at Amy, who wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully as it
flew by, but made no move. Amy’s whole attitude now was that of one who
has got a front-row seat and means to keep it. “The ’ole thing ’ere,”
explained Hash, “is that that there cat is scared to come down, bein’
frightened of this ’ere dog.”
And having cleared up what might otherwise have remained a permanent
mystery, he plucked a blade of grass and chewed reflectively.
“I wonder,” said Kay, with an ingratiating smile, “if you would mind
climbing up and getting her.”
Hash stared at her amazedly. Her smile, which was wont to have so much
effect on so many people, left him cold. It was the silliest suggestion
he had ever heard in his life.
“Me?” he said, marvelling. “You mean me?”
“Yes.”
“Climb up this ’ere tree and fetch that there cat?”
“Yes.”
“Lady,” said Hash, “do you think I’m an acrobat or something?”
Kay bit her lips. Then, looking over the fence, she observed Sam
approaching.
“Anything wrong?” said Sam.
Kay regarded him with mixed feelings. She had an uneasy foreboding that
it might be injudicious to put herself under an obligation to a young
man so obviously belonging to the class of those who, given an inch,
take an ell. On the other hand, the kitten, mewing piteously, had
plainly got itself into a situation from which only skilled assistance
could release it. She eyed Sam doubtfully.
“Your dog has frightened my kitten up the tree,” she said.
A wave of emotion poured over Sam. Only yesterday he had been correcting
the proofs of a short story designed for a forthcoming issue of Pyke’s
_Home Companion_--_Celia’s Airman_, by Louise G. Boffin--and had curled
his lip with superior masculine scorn at what had seemed to him the
naïve sentimentality of its central theme. Celia had quarrelled with her
lover, a young wing commander in the air force, and they had become
reconciled owing to the latter saving her canary. In a mad moment in
which his critical faculties must have been completely blurred, Sam had
thought the situation far-fetched; but now he offered up a silent
apology to Miss Boffin, realising that it was from the sheer, stark
facts of life that she had drawn her inspiration.
“You want her brought down?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Leave it to me,” said Sam. “Leave it absolutely to me--leave the whole
thing entirely and completely to me.”
“It’s awfully good of you.”
“Not at all,” said Sam tenderly. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for
you--nothing. I was saying to myself only just now----”
“I shouldn’t,” said Hash heavily. “Only go breaking your neck. What we
ought to do ’ere is to stand under the tree and chirrup.”
Sam frowned.
“You appear to me, Hash,” he said with some severity, “to think that
your mission in life is to chirrup. If you devoted half the time to work
that you do to practicing your chirruping, Mon Repos would be a better
and a sweeter place.”
He hoisted himself into the tree and began to climb rapidly. So much
progress did he make that when, a few moments later, Kay called to him,
he could not distinguish her words. He scrambled down again.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I only said take care,” said Kay.
“Oh!” said Sam.
He resumed his climb. Hash followed him with a pessimistic eye.
“A cousin of mine broke two ribs playing this sort of silly game,” he
said moodily. “Light-haired feller named George Turner. Had a job
pruning the ellums on a gentleman’s place down Chigwell way. Two ribs he
broke, besides a number of contusions.”
He was aggrieved to find that Kay was not giving that attention to the
story which its drama and human interest deserved.
“Two ribs,” he repeated in a louder voice. “Also cuts, scratches and
contusions. Ellums are treacherous things. You think the branches is all
right, but lean your weight on ’em and they snap. That’s an ellum he’s
climbing now.”
“Oh, be quiet!” said Kay nervously. She was following Sam’s movements as
tensely as ever Celia followed her airman’s. It did look horribly
dangerous, what he was doing.
“The proper thing we ought to have done ’ere was to have took a blanket
and a ladder and a pole and to have held the blanket spread out and
climbed the ladder and prodded at that there cat with the pole, same as
they do at fires,” said Hash, casting an unwarrantable slur on the
humane methods of the fire brigade.
“Oh, well done!” cried Kay.
Sam was now operating in the topmost branches, and the kitten, not being
able to retreat farther, had just come within reach of his groping hand.
Having regarded him suspiciously for some moments and registered a
formal protest against the proceedings by making a noise like an
exploding soda-water bottle, it now allowed itself to be picked up and
buttoned into his coat.
“Splendid!” shouted Kay.
“What?” bellowed Sam, peering down.
“I said splendid!” roared Kay.
“The lady said splendid!” yelled Hash, in a voice strengthened by long
practice in announcing dinner in the midst of hurricanes. He turned to
Kay with a mournful shaking of the head, his bearing that of the man who
has tried to put a brave face on the matter, but feels the uselessness
of affecting further optimism. “It’s now that’s the dangerous part,
miss,” he said. “The coming down, what I mean. I don’t say the climbing
up of one of these ’ere ellums is safe--not what you would call safe;
but it’s when you’re coming down that the nasty accidents occur. My
cousin was coming down when he broke his two ribs and got all them
contusions. George Turner his name was--a light-haired feller, and he
broke two ribs and had to have seven stitches sewed in him.”
“Oh!” cried Kay.
“Ah!” said Hash.
He spoke with something of the smug self-satisfaction of the prophet
whose predicted disasters come off as per schedule. Half-way down the
tree, Sam, like Mr. Turner, had found proof of the treachery of ellums.
He had rested his weight on a branch which looked solid, felt solid and
should have been solid, and it had snapped under him. For one breathless
moment he seemed to be about to shoot down like Lucifer, then he
snatched at another bough and checked his fall.
This time the bough held. It was as if the elm, having played its
practical joke and failed, had become discouraged. Hash, with something
of the feelings of a spectator in the gallery at a melodrama who sees
the big scene fall flat, watched his friend and employer reach the
lowest branch and drop safely to the ground. The record of George Turner
still remained a mark for other climbers to shoot at.
Kay was not a girl who wept easily, but she felt strangely close to
tears. She removed the agitated kitten from Sam’s coat and put it on the
grass, where it immediately made another spirited attempt to climb the
tree. Foiled in this, it raced for the coal cellar and disappeared from
the social life of San Rafael until late in the afternoon.
“Your poor hands!” said Kay.
Sam regarded his palms with some surprise. In the excitement of the
recent passage he had been unaware of injury.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Only skinned a little.”
Hash would have none of this airy indifference.
“Ah,” he said, “and the next thing you know you’ll be getting dirt into
’em and going down with lockjaw. I had an uncle what got dirt into a cut
’and, and three days later we were buying our blacks for him.”
“Oh!” gasped Kay.
“Two and a half, really,” said Hash. “Because he expired toward
evening.”
“I’ll run and get a sponge and a basin,” said Kay in agitation.
“That’s awfully good of you,” said Sam. Oh, woman, he felt, in our hours
of ease uncertain, coy and hard to please; when pain and anguish rack
the brow, a ministering angel thou. And he nearly said as much.
“You don’t want to do that, miss,” said Hash. “Much simpler for him to
come indoors and put ’em under the tap.”
“Perhaps that would be better,” agreed Kay.
Sam regarded his practical-minded subordinate with something of the
injured loathing which his cooking had occasionally caused to appear on
the faces of dainty feeders in the fo’c’sle of the _Araminta_.
“This isn’t your busy day, Hash, I take it?” he said coldly.
“Pardon?”
“I said, you seem to be taking life pretty easily. Why don’t you do a
little work sometimes? If you imagine you’re a lily of the field, look
in the glass and adjust that impression.”
Hash drew himself up, wounded.
“I’m only stayin’ ’ere to ’elp and encourage,” he said stiffly. “Now
that what I might call the peril is over, there’s nothing to keep me.”
“Nothing,” agreed Sam cordially.
“I’ll be going.”
“You know your way,” said Sam. He turned to Kay. “Hash is an ass,” he
said. “Put them under the tap, indeed! These hands need careful
dressing.”
“Perhaps they do,” Kay agreed.
“They most certainly do.”
“Shall we go in then?”
“Without delay,” said Sam.
“There,” said Kay, some ten minutes later. “I think that will be all
right.”
The finest efforts of the most skilful surgeon could not have evoked
more enthusiasm from her patient. Sam regarded his bathed and
sticking-plastered hands with an admiration that was almost ecstatic.
“You’ve had training in this sort of thing,” he said.
“No.”
“You’ve never been a nurse?”
“Never.”
“Then,” said Sam, “it is pure genius. It is just one of those cases of
an amazing natural gift. You’ve probably saved my life. Oh, yes, you
have! Remember what Hash said about lockjaw.”
“But I thought you thought Hash was an ass.”
“In many ways, yes,” said Sam. “But on some points he has a certain
rugged common sense. He----”
“Won’t you be awfully late for the office?”
“For the what? Oh! Well, yes, I suppose I ought to be going there. But
I’ve got to have breakfast first.”
“Well, hurry then. My uncle will be wondering what has become of you.”
“Yes. What a delightful man your uncle is!”
“Yes, isn’t he! Good-bye.”
“I don’t know when I’ve met a man I respected more.”
“This will be wonderful news for him.”
“So kind.”
“Yes.”
“So patient with me.”
“I expect he needs to be.”
“The sort of man it’s a treat to work with.”
“If you hurry you’ll be able to work with him all the sooner.”
“Yes,” said Sam; “yes. Er--is there any message I can give him?”
“No, thanks.”
“Ah? Well, then look here,” said Sam, “would you care to come and have
lunch somewhere to-day?”
Kay hesitated. Then her eyes fell on those sticking-plastered hands and
she melted. After all, when a young man has been displaying great
heroism in her service, a girl must do the decent thing.
“I should like to,” she said.
“The Savoy Grill at 1:30?”
“All right. Are you going to bring my uncle along?”
Sam started.
“Why--er--that would be splendid, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, I forgot. He’s lunching with a man to-day at the Press Club.”
“Is he?” said Sam. “Is he really?”
His affection and respect for Mr. Matthew Wrenn increased to an almost
overwhelming degree. He went back to Mon Repos feeling that it was the
presence in the world of men like Matthew Wrenn that gave the lie to
pessimism concerning the future of the human race.
Kay, meanwhile, in her rôle of understudy to Claire Lippett, who had
just issued a bulletin to the effect that the neuralgic pains were
diminishing and that she hoped to be up and about by midday, proceeded
to an energetic dusting of the house. As a rule, she hated this sort of
work, but to-day a strange feeling of gaiety stimulated her. She found
herself looking forward to the lunch at the Savoy with something of the
eagerness which, as a child, she had felt at the approach of a party.
Reluctant to attribute this to the charms of a young man whom less than
twenty-four hours ago she had heartily disliked, she decided that it
must be the prospect of once more enjoying good cooking in pleasant
surroundings that was causing her excitement. Until recently she had
taken her midday meal at the home of Mrs. Winnington-Bates, and, as with
a celebrated chewing gum, the taste lingered.
She finished her operations in the dining room and made her way to the
drawing-room. Here the photograph of herself on the mantelpiece
attracted her attention. She picked it up and stood gazing at it
earnestly.
A sharp double rap on the front door broke in on her reflections. It
was the postman with the second delivery, and he had rapped because
among his letters for San Rafael was one addressed to Kay on which the
writer had omitted to place a stamp. Kay paid the twopence and took the
letter back with her to the drawing-room, hoping that the interest of
its contents would justify the financial outlay.
Inspecting them, she decided that they did. The letter was from
Willoughby Braddock; and Mr. Braddock, both writing and expressing
himself rather badly, desired to know if Kay could see her way to
marrying him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DISCUSSION AT A LUNCHEON TABLE
The little lobby of the Savoy grill-room that opens on to Savoy Court is
a restful place for meditation; and Kay, arriving there at twenty
minutes past one, was glad that she was early. She needed solitude, and
regretted that in another ten minutes Sam would come in and deprive her
of it. Ever since she had received his letter she had been pondering
deeply on the matter of Willoughby Braddock, but had not yet succeeded
in reaching a definite conclusion either in his favour or against him.
In his favour stood the fact that he had been a pleasant factor in her
life as far back as she could remember. She had bird’s-nested with him
on spring afternoons, she had played the mild card games of childhood
with him on winter evenings, and--as has been stated--she had sat in
trees and criticised with incisive power his habit of wearing bed socks.
These things count. Marrying Willoughby would undeniably impart a sort
of restful continuity to life. On the other hand----
“Hullo!”
A young man, entering the lobby, had halted before her. For a moment she
supposed that it was Sam, come to bid her to the feast; then, emerging
from her thoughts, she looked up and perceived that blot on the body
politic, Claude Winnington-Bates.
He was looking down at her with a sort of sheepish impudence, as a man
will when he encounters unexpectedly a girl who in the not distant past
has blacked his eye with a heavy volume of theological speculation. He
was a slim young man, dressed in the height of fashion. His mouth was
small and furtive, his eyes flickered with a kind of stupid slyness, and
his hair, which mounted his head in a series of ridges or terraces,
shone with the unguent affected by the young lads of the town. A messy
spectacle.
“Hullo,” he said. “Waiting for someone?”
For a brief, wistful instant Kay wished that the years could roll back,
making her young enough to be permitted to say some of the things she
had said to Willoughby Braddock on that summer morning long ago when the
topic of bed socks had come up between them. Being now of an age of
discretion and so debarred from that rich eloquence, she contented
herself with looking through him and saying nothing.
The treatment was not effective. Claude sat down on the lounge beside
her.
“I say, you know,” he urged, “there’s no need to be ratty. I mean to
say----”
Kay abandoned her policy of silence.
“Mr. Bates,” she said, “do you remember a boy who was at school with you
named Shotter?”
“Sam Shotter?” said Claude, delighted at her chattiness. “Oh, yes,
rather. I remember Sam Shotter. Rather a bad show, that. I saw him the
other night and he was absolutely----”
“He’s coming here in a minute or two. And if he finds you sitting on
this lounge and I explain to him that you have been annoying me, he will
probably tear you into little bits. I should go, if I were you.”
Claude Bates went. Indeed, the verb but feebly expresses the celerity of
his movement. One moment he was lolling on the lounge; the next he had
ceased to be and the lobby was absolutely free from him. Kay, looking
over her shoulder into the grill-room, observed him drop into a chair
and mop his forehead with a handkerchief.
She returned to her thoughts.
The advent of Claude had given them a new turn; or, rather, it had
brought prominently before her mind what until then had only lurked at
the back of it--the matter of Willoughby Braddock’s financial status.
Willoughby Braddock was a very rich man; the girl who became Mrs.
Willoughby Braddock would be a very rich woman. She would, that is to
say, step automatically into a position in life where the prowling
Claude Bateses of the world would cease to be an annoyance. And this was
beyond a doubt another point in Mr. Braddock’s favour.
Willoughby, moreover, was rich in the right way, in the Midways fashion,
with the richness that went with old greystone houses and old green
parks and all the comfortable joy of the English country. He could give
her the kind of life she had grown up in and loved. But on the other
hand----
Kay stared thoughtfully before her; and, staring, was aware of Sam
hurrying through the swing door.
“I’m not late, am I?” said Sam anxiously.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then come along. Golly, what a corking day!”
He shepherded her solicitously into the grill-room and made for a table
by the large window that looks out onto the court. A cloakroom waiter,
who had padded silently upon their trail, collected his hat and stick
and withdrew with the air of a leopard that has made a good kill.
“Nice-looking chap,” said Sam, following him with an appreciative eye.
“You seem to be approving of everything and everybody this morning.”
“I am. This is the maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year, and
you can quote me as saying so. Now then, what is it to be?”
Having finished his ordering, a task which he approached on a lavish
scale, Sam leaned forward and gazed fondly at his guest.
“Gosh!” he said rapturously. “I never thought, when I was sitting in
that fishing hut staring at your photograph, that only a month or two
later I’d be having lunch with you at the Savoy.”
Kay was a little startled. Her brief acquaintance with him had taught
her that Sam was a man of what might be called direct methods, but she
had never expected that he would be quite so direct as this. In his
lexicon there appeared to be no such words as “reticence” and “finesse.”
“What fishing hut was that?” she asked, feeling rather like a fireman
turning a leaky hose on a briskly burning warehouse full of explosives.
“You wouldn’t know it. It’s the third on the left as you enter Canada.”
“Are you fond of fishing?”
“Yes. But we won’t talk about that, if you don’t mind. Let’s stick to
the photograph.”
“You keep talking about a photograph and I don’t in the least know what
you mean.”
“The photograph I was speaking of at the dinner last night.”
“Oh, the one your friend found--of some girl.”
“It wasn’t a friend; it was me. And it wasn’t some girl; it was you.”
Here the waiter intruded, bearing _hors d’œuvres_. Kay lingered over her
selection, but the passage of time had not the effect of diverting her
host from his chosen topic. Kay began to feel that nothing short of an
earthquake would do that, and probably not even an earthquake unless it
completely wrecked the grill-room.
“I remember the first time I saw that photograph.”
“I wonder which it was,” said Kay casually.
“It was----”
“So long as it wasn’t the one of me sitting in a sea shell at the age of
two, I don’t mind.”
“It was----”
“They told me that if I was very good and sat very still, I should see a
bird come out of the camera. I don’t believe it ever did. And why they
let me appear in a costume like that, even at the age of two, I can’t
imagine.”
“It was the one of you in a riding habit, standing by your horse.”
“Oh, that one?... I think I will take eggs after all.”
“Eggs? What eggs?”
“I don’t know. _Œufs à la_ something, weren’t they?”
“Wait!” said Sam. He spoke as one groping his way through a maze.
“Somehow or other we seem to have got onto the subject of eggs. I don’t
want to talk about eggs.”
“Though I’m not positive it was à la something. I believe it was _œufs
Marseillaises_ or some word like that. Anyhow, just call the waiter and
say eggs.”
Sam called the waiter and said eggs. The waiter appeared not only to
understand but to be gratified.
“The first time I saw that photograph----” he resumed.
“I wonder why they call those eggs _œufs Marseillaises_,” said Kay
pensively. “Do you think it’s a special sort of egg they have in
Marseilles.”
“I couldn’t say. You know,” said Sam, “I’m not really frightfully
interested in eggs.”
“Have you ever been in Marseilles?”
“Yes, I went there once with the _Araminta_.”
“Who is _Araminta_?”
“The _Araminta_. A tramp steamer I’ve made one or two trips on.”
“What fun! Tell me all about your trips on the _Araminta_.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Was that where you met the man you call Hash?”
“Yes. He was the cook. Weren’t you surprised,” said Sam, beginning to
see his way, “when you heard that he was engaged to Claire?”
“Yes,” said Kay, regretting that she had shown interest in tramp
steamers.
“It just shows----”
“I suppose the drawback to going about on small boats like that is the
food. It’s difficult to get fresh vegetables, I should think--and eggs.”
“Life isn’t all eggs,” said Sam desperately.
The head waiter, a paternal man, halted at the table and inquired if
everything was to the satisfaction of the lady and gentleman. The lady
replied brightly that everything was perfect. The gentleman grunted.
“They’re very nice here,” said Kay. “They make you feel as if they were
fond of you.”
“If they weren’t nice to you,” said Sam vehemently, “they ought to be
shot. And I’d like to see the fellow who wouldn’t be fond of you.”
Kay began to have a sense of defeat, not unlike that which comes to a
scientific boxer who has held off a rushing opponent for several rounds
and feels himself weakening.
“The first time I saw that photograph,” said Sam, “was one night when I
had come in tired out after a day’s fishing.”
“Talking about fish----”
“It was pretty dark in the hut, with only an oil lamp on the table, and
I didn’t notice it at first. Then, when I was having a smoke after
dinner, my eye caught something tacked up on the wall. I went across to
have a look, and, by Jove, I nearly dropped the lamp!”
“Why?”
“Why? Because it was such a shock.”
“So hideous?”
“So lovely, so radiant, so beautiful, so marvellous.”
“I see.”
“So heavenly, so----”
“Yes? There’s Claude Bates over at that table.”
The effect of these words on her companion was so electrical that it
seemed to Kay that she had at last discovered a theme which would take
his mind off other and disconcerting topics. Sam turned a dull crimson;
his eyes hardened; his jaw protruded; he struggled for speech.
“The tick! The blister! The blighter! The worm! The pest! The hound! The
bounder!” he cried. “Where is he?”
He twisted round in his chair, and having located the companion of his
boyhood, gazed at the back of his ridged and shining head with a
malevolent scowl. Then, taking up a hard and nobby roll, he poised it
lovingly.
“You mustn’t.”
“Just this one!”
“No!”
“Very well.”
Sam threw down the roll with a gesture of resignation. Kay looked at him
in alarm.
“I had no idea you disliked him so much as that!”
“He ought to have his neck broken.”
“Haven’t you forgiven him yet for stealing jam sandwiches at school?”
“It has nothing whatever to do with jam sandwiches. If you really want
to know why I loathe and detest the little beast, it is because he had
the nerve--the audacity--the insolence--the immortal rind
to--to--er”--he choked--“to kiss you. Blast him!” said Sam, wholly
forgetting the dictates of all good etiquette books respecting the kind
of language suitable in the presence of the other sex.
Kay gasped. It is embarrassing for a girl to find what she had supposed
to be her most intimate private affairs suddenly become, to all
appearance, public property.
“How do you know that?” she exclaimed.
“Your uncle told me this morning.”
“He had no business to.”
“Well, he did. And what it all boils down to,” said Sam, “is this--will
you marry me?”
“Will I--what?”
“Marry me.”
For a moment Kay stared speechlessly; then, throwing her head back, she
gave out a short, sharp scream of laughter which made a luncher at the
next table stab himself in the cheek with an oyster fork. The luncher
looked at her reproachfully. So did Sam.
“You seem amused,” he said coldly.
“Of course I’m amused,” said Kay.
Her eyes were sparkling, and that little dimple on her chin which had so
excited Sam’s admiration when seen in photographic reproduction had
become a large dimple. Sam tickled her sense of humour. He appealed to
her in precisely the same way as the dog Amy had appealed to her in the
garden that morning.
“I don’t see why,” said Sam. “There’s nothing funny about it. It’s
monstrous that you should be going about at the mercy of every bounder
who takes it into his head to insult you. The idea of a fellow with
marcelled hair having the crust to----”
He paused. He simply could not mention that awful word again.
“----kiss me?” said Kay. “Well, you did.”
“That,” said Sam with dignity, “was different. That was--er--well, in
short, different. The fact remains that you need somebody to look after
you, to protect you.”
“And you chivalrously offer to do it? I call that awfully nice of you,
but--well, don’t you think it’s rather absurd?”
“I see nothing absurd in it at all.”
“How many times have you seen me in your life?”
“Thousands!”
“What? Oh, I was forgetting the photograph. But do photographs really
count?”
“Yes.”
“Mine can’t have counted much, if the first thing you did was to tell
your friend Cordelia Blair about it and say she might use it as a
story.”
“I didn’t. I only said that at dinner to--to introduce the subject. As
if I would have dreamed of talking about you to anybody! And she isn’t a
friend of mine.”
“But you kissed her.”
“I did not kiss her.”
“My uncle insists that you did. He says he heard horrible sounds of
Bohemian revelry going on in the outer office and then you came in and
said the lady was soothed.”
“Your uncle talks too much,” said Sam severely.
“Just what I was thinking a little while ago. But still, if he tells you
my secrets, it’s only fair that he should tell me yours.”
Sam swallowed somewhat convulsively.
“If you really want to know what happened, I’ll tell you. I did not kiss
that ghastly Blair pipsqueak. She kissed me.”
“What?”
“She kissed me,” repeated Sam doggedly. “I had been laying it on pretty
thick about how much I admired her work, and suddenly she said, ‘Oh, you
dear boy!’ and flung her loathsome arms round my neck. What could I do?
I might have uppercut her as she bored in, but, short of that, there
wasn’t any way of stopping her.”
A look of shocked sympathy came into Kay’s face.
“It’s monstrous,” she said, “that you should be going about at the mercy
of every female novelist who takes it into her head to insult you. You
need somebody to look after you, to protect you----”
Sam’s dignity, never a very durable article, collapsed.
“You’re quite right,” he said. “Well then----”
Kay shook her head.
“No, I’m not going to volunteer. Whatever your friend Cordelia Blair may
say in her stories, girls don’t marry men they’ve only seen twice in
their lives.”
“This is the fourth time you’ve seen me.”
“Or even four times.”
“I knew a man in America who met a girl at a party one night and married
her next morning.”
“And they were divorced the week after, I should think. No, Mr.
Shotter----”
“You may call me Sam.”
“I suppose I ought to after this. No, Sam, I will not marry you. Thanks
ever so much for asking me, of course.”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t know you well enough.”
“I feel as if I had known you all my life.”
“Do you?”
“I feel as if we had been destined for each other from the beginning of
time.”
“Perhaps you were a king in Babylon and I was a Christian slave.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. And what is more, I’ll tell you something. When I
was in America, before I had ever dreamed of coming over to England, a
palmist told me that I was shortly about to take a long journey, at the
end of which I should meet a fair girl.”
“You can’t believe what those palmists say.”
“Ah, but everything else that this one told me was absolutely true.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. She said I had a rare, spiritual nature and a sterling character
and was beloved by all; but that people meeting me for the first time
sometimes failed to appreciate me----”
“I certainly did.”
“----because I had such hidden depths.”
“Oh, was that the reason?”
“Well, that shows you.”
“Did she tell you anything else?”
“Something about bewaring of a dark man, but nothing of importance.
Still, I don’t call it a bad fifty cents’ worth.”
“Did she say that you were going to marry this girl?”
“She did--explicitly.”
“Then the idea, as I understand it, is that you want me to marry you so
that you won’t feel you wasted your fifty cents. Is that it?”
“Not precisely. You are overlooking the fact that I love you.” He looked
at her reproachfully. “Don’t laugh.”
“Was I laughing?”
“You were.”
“I’m sorry. I oughtn’t to mock a strong man’s love, ought I?”
“You oughtn’t to mock anybody’s love. Love’s a very wonderful thing. It
even made Hash look almost beautiful for a moment, and that’s going
some.”
“When is it going to make you look beautiful?”
“Hasn’t it?”
“Not yet.”
“You must be patient.”
“I’ll try to be, and in the meantime let us face this situation. Do you
know what a girl in a Cordelia Blair story would do if she were in my
place?”
“Something darned silly, I expect.”
“Not at all. She would do something very pretty and touching. She would
look at the man and smile tremulously and say, ‘I’m sorry, so--so sorry.
You have paid me the greatest compliment a man can pay a woman. But it
cannot be. So shall we be pals--just real pals?’”
“And he would redden and go to Africa, I suppose.
“No. I should think he would just hang about and hope that some day she
might change her mind. Girls often do, you know.”
She smiled and put out her hand. Sam, with a cold glance at the head
waiter, whom he considered to be standing much too near and looking much
too paternal, took it. He did more--he squeezed it. And an elderly
gentleman of Napoleonic presence, who had been lunching with a cabinet
minister in the main dining-room and was now walking through the court
on his way back to his office, saw the proceedings through the large
window and halted, spellbound.
For a long instant he stood there, gaping. He saw Kay smile. He saw Sam
take her hand. He saw Sam smile. He saw Sam hold her hand. And then it
seemed to him that he had seen enough. Abandoning his intention of
walking down Fleet Street, he hailed a cab.
“There’s Lord Tilbury,” said Kay, looking out.
“Yes?” said Sam. He was not interested in Lord Tilbury.
“Going back to work, I suppose. Isn’t it about time you were?”
“Perhaps it is. You wouldn’t care to come along and have a chat with
your uncle?”
“I may look in later. Just now I want to go to that messenger-boy office
in Northumberland Avenue and send off a note.”
“Important?”
“It is, rather,” said Kay. “Willoughby Braddock wanted me to do
something, and now I find that I shan’t be able to.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LORD TILBURY ENGAGES AN ALLY
§ 1
Although Lord Tilbury had not seen much of what had passed between Kay
and Sam at the luncheon table, he had seen quite enough; and as he drove
back to Tilbury House in his cab he was thinking hard and bitter
thoughts of the duplicity of the modern girl. Here, he reflected, was
one who, encountered at dinner on a given night, had as good as stated
in set terms that she thoroughly disliked Sam Shotter. And on the very
next afternoon, there she was, lunching with this same Sam Shotter,
smiling at this same Sam Shotter and allowing this same Shotter to press
her hand. It all looked very black to Lord Tilbury, and the only
solution that presented itself to him was that the girl’s apparent
dislike of Sam on the previous night had been caused by a lovers’
quarrel. He knew all about lovers’ quarrels, for his papers were full of
stories, both short and in serial form, that dealt with nothing else.
Oh, woman, woman! about summed up Lord Tilbury’s view of the affair.
He was, he perceived, in an extraordinarily difficult position. As he
had explained to his sister Frances on the occasion of Sam’s first visit
to the Mammoth Publishing Company, a certain tactfulness and diplomacy
in the handling of that disturbing young man were essential. He had not
been able, during his visit to America, to ascertain exactly how Sam
stood in the estimation of his uncle. The impression Lord Tilbury had
got was that Mr. Pynsent was fond of him. If, therefore, any
unpleasantness should occur which might lead to a breach between Sam and
the Mammoth Publishing Company, Mr. Pynsent might be expected to take
his nephew’s side, and this would be disastrous. Any steps, accordingly,
which were to be taken in connection with foiling the young man’s love
affair must be taken subtly and with stealth.
That such steps were necessary it never occurred to Lord Tilbury for an
instant to doubt. His only standard when it came to judging his fellow
creatures was the money standard, and it would have seemed ridiculous to
him to suppose that any charm or moral worth that Kay might possess
could neutralise the fact that she had not a penny in the world. He took
it for granted that Mr. Pynsent would see eye to eye with him in this
matter.
In these circumstances the helplessness of his position tormented him.
He paced the room in an agony of spirit. The very first move in his
campaign must obviously be to keep a watchful eye on Sam and note what
progress this deplorable affair of his was having. But Sam was in Valley
Fields and he was in London. What he required, felt Lord Tilbury, as he
ploughed to and fro over the carpet, his thumbs tucked into the armholes
of his waistcoat, his habit when in thought, was an ally. But what ally?
A secret-service man. But what secret-service man? A properly
accredited spy, who, introduced by some means into the young man’s
house, could look, listen and make daily reports on his behaviour.
But what spy?
And then, suddenly, as he continued to perambulate, inspiration came to
Lord Tilbury. It seemed to him that the job in hand might have been
created to order for young Pilbeam.
Among the numerous publications which had their being in Tilbury House
was that popular weekly, _Society Spice_, a paper devoted to the
exploitation of the shadier side of London life and edited by one whom
the proprietor of the Mammoth had long looked on as the brightest and
most promising of his young men--Percy Pilbeam, to wit, as enterprising
a human ferret as ever wrote a Things-We-Want-to-Know-Don’t-You-Know
paragraph. Young Pilbeam would handle this business as it should be
handled.
It was the sort of commission which he had undertaken before and carried
through with complete success, reflected Lord Tilbury, recalling how
only a few months back Percy Pilbeam, in order to obtain material for
his paper, had gone for three weeks as valet to one of the smart
set--the happy conclusion of the venture being that admirable
Country-House Cesspools series which had done so much for the rural
circulation of _Society Spice_.
His hand was on the buzzer to summon this eager young spirit, when a
disturbing thought occurred to him, and instead of sending for Pilbeam,
he sent for Sam Shotter.
“Ah, Shotter, I--ah---- Do you happen to know young Pilbeam?” said His
Lordship.
“The editor of _Society Spice_?”
“Exactly.”
“I know him by sight.”
“You know him by sight, eh? Ah? You know him, eh? Exactly. Quite so. I
was only wondering. A charming young fellow. You should cultivate his
acquaintance. That is all, Shotter.”
Sam, with a passing suspicion that the strain of conducting a great
business had been too much for his employer, returned to his work; and
Lord Tilbury, walking with bent brows to the window, stood looking out,
once more deep in thought.
The fact that Sam was acquainted with Pilbeam was just one of those
little accidents which so often upset the brilliantly conceived plans of
great generals, and it left His Lordship at something of a loss. Pilbeam
was a man he could have trusted in a delicate affair like this, and now
that he was ruled out, where else was an adequate agent to be found?
It was at this point in his meditations that his eyes, roving
restlessly, were suddenly attracted by a sign on a window immediately
opposite:
THE TILBURY DETECTIVE AGENCY, LTD.
J. Sheringham Adair, Mgr.
Large and Efficient Staff
Such was the sign, and Lord Tilbury read and re-read it with bulging
eyes. It thrilled him like a direct answer to prayer.
A moment later he had seized his hat, and without pausing to wait for
the lift, was leaping down the stairs like some chamois of the Alps that
bounds from crag to crag. He reached the lobby and, at a rate of speed
almost dangerous in a man of his build and sedentary habits, whizzed
across the street.
§ 2
Although, with the single exception of a woman who had lost her
Pekingese dog, there had never yet been a client on the premises of the
Tilbury Detective Agency, it was Chimp Twist’s practice to repair daily
to his office and remain there for an hour or two every afternoon. If
questioned, he would have replied that he might just as well be there as
anywhere; and he felt, moreover, that it looked well for him to be seen
going in and out--a theory which was supported by the fact that only a
couple of days back the policeman on the beat had touched his helmet to
him. To have policemen touching themselves on the helmet instead of him
on the shoulder was a novel and agreeable experience to Chimp.
This afternoon he was sitting, as usual, with the solitaire pack laid
out on the table before him, but his mind was not on the game. He was
musing on Soapy Molloy’s story of his failure to persuade Sam to
evacuate Mon Repos.
To an extent, this failure had complicated matters; and yet there was a
bright side. To have walked in and collected the late Edward Finglass’
legacy without let or hindrance would have been agreeable; but, on the
other hand, it would have involved sharing with Soapy and his bride;
and Chimp was by nature one of those men who, when there is money about,
instinctively dislike seeing even a portion of it get away from them. It
seemed to him that a man of his admitted ingenuity might very well
evolve some scheme by which the Molloy family could be successfully
excluded from all participation in the treasure.
It only required a little thought, felt Chimp; and he was still thinking
when a confused noise without announced the arrival of Lord Tilbury.
The opening of the door was followed by a silence. Lord Tilbury was not
built for speed, and the rapidity with which he had crossed the street
and mounted four flights of stairs had left him in a condition where he
was able only to sink into a chair and pant like a spent seal. As for
Chimp, he was too deeply moved to speak. Even when lying back in a chair
and saying “Woof!” Lord Tilbury still retained the unmistakable look of
one to whom bank managers grovel, and the sudden apparition of such a
man affected him like a miracle. He felt as if he had been fishing idly
for minnows and landed a tarpon.
Being, however, a man of resource, he soon recovered himself. Placing a
foot on a button beneath the table, he caused a sharp ringing to pervade
the office.
“Excuse me,” he said, politely but with a busy man’s curtness, as he
took up the telephone. “Yes? Yes? Yes, this is the Tilbury Detective
Agency.... Scotland Yard? Right, I’ll hold the wire.”
He placed a hand over the transmitter and turned to Lord Tilbury with a
little rueful grimace.
“Always bothering me,” he said.
“Woof!” said Lord Tilbury.
Mr. Twist renewed his attention to the telephone.
“Hullo!... Sir John? Good afternoon.... Yes.... Yes.... We are doing our
best, Sir John. We are always anxious to oblige headquarters.... Yes....
Yes.... Very well, Sir John. Good-bye.”
He replaced the receiver and was at Lord Tilbury’s disposal.
“If the Yard would get rid of their antiquated system and give more
scope to men of brains,” he said, not bitterly but with a touch of
annoyance, “they would not always have to be appealing to us to help
them out. Did you know that a man cannot be a detective at Scotland Yard
unless he is over a certain height?”
“You surprise me,” said Lord Tilbury, who was now feeling better.
“Five-foot-nine, I believe it is. Could there be an absurder
regulation?”
“It sounds ridiculous.”
“And is,” said Chimp severely. “I am five-foot-seven myself. Wilbraham
and Donahue, the best men on my staff, are an inch and half an inch
shorter. You cannot gauge brains by height.”
“No, indeed,” said Lord Tilbury, who was five-feet-six. “Look at
Napoleon! And Nelson!”
“Exactly,” said Chimp. “Battling Nelson. A very good case in point. And
Tom Sharkey was a short man too.... Well, what was it you wished to
consult me about, Mr.---- I have not your name.”
Lord Tilbury hesitated.
“I take it that I may rely on your complete discretion, Mr. Adair?”
“Nothing that you tell me in this room will go any farther,” said Chimp,
with dignity.
“I am Lord Tilbury,” said His Lordship, looking like a man unveiling a
statue of himself.
“The proprietor of the joint across the way?”
“Exactly,” said Lord Tilbury a little shortly.
He had expected his name to cause more emotion, and he did not like
hearing the Mammoth Publishing Company described as “the joint across
the way.”
He would have been gratified had he known that his companion had
experienced considerable emotion and that it was only by a strong effort
that he had contrived to conceal it. He might have been less pleased if
he had been aware that Chimp was confidently expecting him to reveal
some disgraceful secret which would act as the foundation for future
blackmail. For although, in establishing his detective agency, Chimp
Twist had been animated chiefly by the desire to conceal his more
important movements, he had never lost sight of the fact that there are
possibilities in such an institution.
“And what can I do for you, Lord Tilbury?” he asked, putting his finger
tips together.
His Lordship bent closer.
“I want a man watched.”
Once again his companion was barely able to conceal his elation. This
sounded exceptionally promising. Though only an imitation private
detective, Chimp Twist had a genuine private detective’s soul. He could
imagine but one reason why men should want men watched.
“A boy on the staff of Tilbury House.”
“Ah!” said Chimp, more convinced than ever. “Good-looking fellow, I
suppose?”
Lord Tilbury considered. He had never had occasion to form an opinion of
Sam’s looks.
“Yes,” he said.
“One of these lounge lizards, eh? One of these parlour tarantulas? I
know the sort--know ’em well. One of these slithery young-feller-me-lads
with educated feet and shiny hair. And when did the dirty work start?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When did you first suspect this young man of alienating Lady Tilbury’s
affections?”
“Lady Tilbury? I don’t understand you. I am a widower.”
“Eh? Then what’s this fellow done?” said Chimp, feeling at sea again.
Lord Tilbury coughed.
“I had better tell you the whole position. This boy is the nephew of a
business acquaintance of mine in America, with whom I am in the process
of conducting some very delicate negotiations. He, the boy, is over here
at the moment, working on my staff, and I am, you will understand,
practically responsible to his uncle for his behaviour. That is to say,
should he do anything of which his uncle might disapprove, the blame
will fall on me, and these negotiations--these very delicate
negotiations--will undoubtedly be broken off. My American acquaintance
is a peculiar man, you understand.”
“Well?”
“Well, I have just discovered that the boy is conducting a clandestine
love affair with a girl of humble circumstances who resides in the
suburb.”
“A tooting tooti-frooti,” translated Chimp, nodding. “I see.”
“A what?” asked Lord Tilbury, a little blankly.
“A belle of Balham--Bertha from Brixton.”
“She lives at Valley Fields. And this boy Shotter has taken the house
next door to her. I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing,” said Chimp in a thick voice.
“I thought you spoke.”
“No.” Chimp swallowed feverishly. “Did you say Shotter?”
“Shotter.”
“Taken a house in Valley Fields?”
“Yes. In Burberry Road. Mon Repos is the name.”
“Ah!” said Chimp, expelling a deep breath.
“You see the position? All that can be done at present is to institute a
close watch on the boy. It may be that I have allowed myself to become
unduly alarmed. Possibly he does not contemplate so serious a step as
marriage with this young woman. Nevertheless, I should be decidedly
relieved if I felt that there was someone in his house watching his
movements and making daily reports to me.”
“I’ll take this case,” said Chimp.
“Good! You will put a competent man on it?”
“I wouldn’t trust it to one of my staff, not even Wilbraham or Donahue.
I’ll take it on myself.”
“That is very good of you, Mr. Adair.”
“A pleasure,” said Chimp.
“And now arises a difficult point. How do you propose to make your entry
into young Shotter’s household?”
“Easy as pie. Odd-job man.”
“Odd-job man?”
“They always want odd-job men down in the suburbs. Fellows who’ll do the
dirty work that the help kick at. Listen here, you tell this young man
that I’m a fellow that once worked for you and ask him to engage me as a
personal favour. That’ll cinch it. He won’t like to refuse the
boss--what I mean.”
“True,” said Lord Tilbury. “True. But it will necessitate something in
the nature of a change of costumes,” he went on, looking at the other’s
shining tweeds.
“Don’t you fret. I’ll dress the part.”
“And what name would you suggest taking? Not your own, of course?”
“I’ve always called myself Twist before.”
“Twist? Excellent! Then suppose you come to my office in half an hour’s
time.”
“Sure!”
“I am much obliged, Mr. Adair.”
“Not at all,” said Chimp handsomely. “Not a-tall! Don’t mention it. Only
too pleased.”
§ 3
Sam, when the summons came for him to go to his employer’s office, was
reading with no small complacency a little thing of his own in the issue
of Pyke’s _Home Companion_ which would be on the bookstalls next
morning. It was signed Aunt Ysobel, and it gave some most admirable
counsel to Worried (Upper Sydenham) who had noticed of late a growing
coldness toward her on the part of her betrothed.
He had just finished reading this, marvelling, as authors will when they
see their work in print, at the purity of his style and the soundness of
his reasoning, when the telephone rang and he learned that Lord Tilbury
desired his presence. He hastened to the holy of holies and found there
not only His Lordship but a little man with a waxed moustache, to which
he took an instant dislike.
“Ah, Shotter,” said Lord Tilbury.
There was a pause. Lord Tilbury, one hand resting on the back of his
chair, the fingers of the other in the fold of his waistcoat, stood
looking like a Victorian uncle being photographed. The little man
fingered the waxed moustache. And Sam glanced from Lord Tilbury to the
moustache inquiringly and with distaste. He had never seen a moustache
he disliked more.
“Ah, Shotter,” said Lord Tilbury, “this is a man named Twist, who was at
one time in my employment.”
“Odd-job man,” interpolated the waxed-moustached one.
“As odd-job man,” said Lord Tilbury.
“Ah?” said Sam.
“He is now out of work.”
Sam, looking at Mr. Twist, considered that this spoke well for the
rugged good sense of the employers of London.
“I have nothing to offer him myself,” continued Lord Tilbury, “so it
occurred to me that you might possibly have room for him in your new
house.”
“Me?” said Sam.
“I should take it as a personal favour to myself if you would engage
Twist. I naturally dislike the idea of an old and--er--faithful employee
of mine being out of work.”
Mr. Twist’s foresight was justified. Put in this way, the request was
one that Sam found it difficult to refuse.
“Oh, well, in that case----”
“Excellent! No doubt you will find plenty of little things for him to do
about your house and garden.”
“He can wash the dog,” said Sam, inspired. The question of the bathing
of Amy was rapidly thrusting itself into the forefront of the domestic
politics of Mon Repos.
“Exactly! And chop wood and run errands and what not.”
“There’s just one thing,” said Sam, who had been eying his new assistant
with growing aversion. “That moustache must come off.”
“What?” cried Chimp, stricken to the core.
“Right off at the roots,” said Sam sternly. “I will not have a thing
like that about the place, attracting the moths.”
Lord Tilbury sighed. He found this young man’s eccentricities
increasingly hard to bear. With that sad wistfulness which the Greeks
called _pathos_ and the Romans _desiderium_, he thought of the happy
days, only a few weeks back, when he had been a peaceful, care-free man,
ignorant of Sam’s very existence. He had had his troubles then, no
doubt; but how small and trivial they seemed now.
“I suppose Twist will shave off his moustache if you wish it,” he said
wearily.
Chancing to catch that eminent private investigator’s eye, he was
surprised to note its glazed and despairing expression. The man had the
air of one who has received a death sentence.
“Shave it?” quavered Chimp, fondling the growth tenderly. “Shave my
moustache?”
“Shave it,” said Sam firmly. “Hew it down. Raze it to the soil and sow
salt upon the foundations.”
“Very good, sir,” said Chimp lugubriously.
“That is settled then,” said Lord Tilbury, relieved. “So you will enter
Mr. Shotter’s employment immediately, Twist.”
Chimp nodded a mournful nod.
“You will find Twist thoroughly satisfactory, I am sure. He is quiet,
sober, respectful and hard-working.”
“Ah, that’s bad,” said Sam.
Lord Tilbury heaved another sigh.
CHAPTER TWENTY
TROUBLE IN THE SYNDICATE
When Chimp Twist left Tilbury House, he turned westward along the
Embankment, for he had an appointment to meet his colleagues of the
syndicate at the Lyons tea shop in Green Street, Leicester Square. The
depression which had swept over him on hearing Sam’s dreadful edict had
not lasted long. Men of Mr. Twist’s mode of life are generally
resilient. They have to be.
After all, he felt, it would be churlish of him, in the face of this
almost supernatural slice of luck, to grumble at the one crumpled rose
leaf. Besides, it would only take him about a couple of days to get away
with the treasure of Mon Repos, and then he could go into retirement and
grow his moustache again. For there is this about moustaches, as about
whiskers--though of these Mr. Twist, to do him justice, had never been
guilty--that, like truth, though crushed to the earth, they will rise. A
little patience and his moustache will rise on stepping-stones of its
dead self to higher things. Yes, when the fields were white with daisies
it would return. Pondering thus, Chimp Twist walked briskly to the end
of the Embankment, turned up Northumberland Avenue, and reaching his
destination, found Mr. and Mrs. Molloy waiting for him at a table in a
far corner.
It was quiet in the tea shop at this hour, and the tryst had been
arranged with that fact in mind. For this was in all essentials a board
meeting of the syndicate, and business men and women do not like to have
their talk interrupted by noisy strangers clamorous for food. With the
exception of a woman in a black silk dress with bugles who, incredible
as it may seem, had ordered cocoa and sparkling limado simultaneously
and was washing down a meal of Cambridge sausages and pastry with
alternate draughts of both liquids, the place was empty.
Soapy and his bride, Chimp perceived, were looking grave, even gloomy;
and in the process of crossing the room he forced his own face into an
expression in sympathy with theirs. It would not do, he realised, to
allow his joyous excitement to become manifest at what was practically a
post-mortem. For the meeting had been convened to sit upon the failure
of his recent scheme and he suspected the possibility of a vote of
censure. He therefore sat down with a heavy seriousness befitting the
occasion; and having ordered a cup of coffee, replied to his companions’
questioning glances with a sorrowful shake of the head.
“Nothing stirring,” he said.
“You haven’t doped out another scheme,” said Dolly, bending her shapely
brows in a frown.
“Not yet.”
“Then,” demanded the lady heatedly, “where does this
sixty-five-thirty-five stuff come in? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Me, too,” said Mr. Molloy with spirit. It occurred to Chimp that a
little informal discussion must have been indulged in by his colleagues
of the board previous to his arrival, for their unanimity was wonderful.
“You threw a lot of bull about being the brains of the concern,” said
Dolly accusingly, “and said that, being the brains of the concern, you
had ought to be paid highest. And now you blow in and admit that you
haven’t any more ideas than a rabbit.”
“Not so many,” said Mr. Molloy, who liked rabbits and had kept them as a
child.
Chimp stirred his coffee thoughtfully. He was meditating on what a
difference a very brief time can make in the fortunes of man. But for
that amazing incursion of Lord Tilbury, he would have been approaching
this interview in an extremely less happy frame of mind. For it was
plain that the temper of the shareholders was stormy.
“You’re quite right, Dolly,” he said humbly, “quite right. I’m not so
good as I thought I was.”
This handsome admission should have had the effect proverbially
attributed to soft words, but it served only to fan the flame.
“Then where do you get off with this sixty-five-thirty-five?”
“I don’t,” said Chimp. “I don’t, Dolly.” The man’s humility was
touching. “That’s all cold. We split fifty-fifty, that’s what we do.”
Soft words may fail, but figures never. Dolly uttered a cry that caused
the woman in the bugles to spill her cocoa, and Mr. Molloy shook as with
a palsy.
“Now you’re talking,” said Dolly.
“Now,” said Mr. Molloy, “you are talking.”
“Well, that’s that,” said Chimp. “Now let’s get down to it and see what
we can do.”
“I might go to the joint again and have another talk with that guy,”
suggested Mr. Molloy.
“No sense in that,” said Chimp, somewhat perturbed. It did not at all
suit his plans to have his old friend roaming about in the neighbourhood
of Mon Repos while he was in residence.
“I don’t know so much,” said Mr. Molloy thoughtfully. “I didn’t seem to
get going quite good that last time. The fellow had me out on the
sidewalk before I could pull a real spiel. If I tried again----”
“It wouldn’t be any use,” said Chimp. “This guy Shotter told you himself
he had a special reason for staying on.”
“You don’t think he’s wise to the stuff being there?” said Dolly,
alarmed.
“No, no,” said Chimp. “Nothing like that. There’s a dame next door he’s
kind of stuck on.”
“How do you know?”
Chimp gulped. He felt like a man who discovers himself on the brink of a
precipice.
“I--I was snooping around down there and I saw ’em,” he said.
“What were you doing down there?” asked Dolly suspiciously.
“Just looking around, Dolly, just looking around.”
“Oh?”
The silence which followed was so embarrassing to a sensitive man that
Chimp swallowed his coffee hastily and rose.
“Going?” said Mr. Molloy coldly.
“Just remembered I’ve got a date.”
“When do we meet again?”
“No sense in meeting for the next day or two.”
“Why not?”
“Well, a fellow wants time to think. I’ll give you a ring.”
“You’ll be at your office to-morrow?”
“Not to-morrow.”
“Day after?”
“Maybe not the day after. I’m moving around some.”
“Where?”
“Oh, all around.”
“Doing what?”
Chimp’s self-control gave way.
“Say, what’s eating you?” he demanded. “Where do you get this stuff of
prying and poking into a man’s affairs? Can’t a fellow have a little
privacy sometimes?”
“Sure!” said Mr. Molloy. “Sure!”
“Sure!” said Mrs. Molloy. “Sure!”
“Well, good-bye,” said Chimp.
“Good-bye,” said Mr. Molloy.
“God bless you,” said Mrs. Molloy, with a little click of her teeth.
Chimp left the tea shop. It was not a dignified exit, and he was aware
of it with every step that he took. He was also aware of the eyes of his
two colleagues boring into his retreating back. Still, what did it
matter, argued Chimp Twist, even if that stiff, Soapy, and his wife had
suspicions of him? They could not know. And all he needed was a clear
day or two and they could suspect all they pleased. Nevertheless, he
regretted that unfortunate slip.
The door had hardly closed behind him when Dolly put her suspicions into
words.
“Soapy!”
“Yes, petty?”
“That bird is aiming to double-cross us.”
“You said it!”
“I wondered why he switched to that fifty-fifty proposition so smooth.
And when he let it out that he’d been snooping around down there, I
knew. He’s got some little game of his own on, that’s what he’s got.
He’s planning to try and scoop that stuff by himself and leave us flat.”
“The low hound!” said Mr. Molloy virtuously.
“We got to get action, Soapy, or we’ll be left. To think of that little
Chimp doing us dirt just goes against my better nature. How would it be
if you was to go down to-night and do some more porch climbing? Once you
were in, you could get the stuff easily. It wouldn’t be a case of
hunting around same as last time.”
“Well, sweetie,” said Mr. Molloy frankly, “I’ll tell you. I’m not so
strong for that burgling stuff. It’s not my line and I don’t like it.
It’s awful dark and lonesome in that joint at three o’clock in the
morning. All the time I was there I kep’ looking over my shoulder,
expecting old Finky’s ghost to sneak up on me and breathe down the back
of my neck.”
“Be a man, honey!”
“I’m a man all right, petty, but I’m temperamental.”
“Well, then----” said Dolly, and breaking off abruptly, plunged into
thought.
Mr. Molloy watched her fondly and hopefully. He had a great respect for
her woman’s resourcefulness, and it seemed to him from the occasional
gleam in her vivid eyes that something was doing.
“I’ve got it!”
“You have?”
“Yes, sir!”
“There is none like her, none,” Mr. Molloy’s glistening eye seemed to
say. “Give us an earful, baby,” he begged emotionally.
Dolly bent closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. The woman in the
bugles, torpid with much limado, was out of ear-shot, but a waitress was
hovering not far away.
“Listen! We got to wait till the guy Shotter is out of the house.”
“But he’s got a man. You told me that yourself.”
“Sure he’s got a man, but if you’ll only listen I’ll tell you. We wait
till this fellow Shotter is out----”
“How do we know he’s out?”
“We ask at the front door, of course. Say, listen, Soapy, for the love
of Pete don’t keep interrupting! We go to the house. You go round to the
back door.”
“Why?”
“I’ll soak you one in a minute,” exclaimed Dolly despairingly.
“All right, sweetness. Sorry. Didn’t mean to butt in. Keep talking. You
have the floor.”
“You go round to the back door and wait, keeping your eye on the front
steps, where I’ll be. I ring the bell and the hired man comes. I say,
‘Is Mr. Shotter at home?’ If he says yes, I’ll go in and make some sort
of spiel about something. But if he’s not, I’ll give you the high sign
and you slip in at the back door; and then when the man comes down into
the kitchen again you’re waiting and you bean him one with a sandbag.
Then you tie him up and come along to the front door and let me in and
we go up and grab that stuff. How about it?”
“I bean him one?” said Mr. Molloy doubtfully.
“Cert’nly you bean him one.”
“I couldn’t do it, petty,” said Mr. Molloy. “I’ve never beaned anyone in
my life.”
Dolly exhibited the impatience which all wives, from Lady Macbeth
downward through the ages, have felt when their schemes appear in danger
of being thwarted by the pusillanimity of a husband.
The words, “Infirm of purpose, give me the sandbag!” seemed to be
trembling on her lips.
“You poor cake eater!” she cried with justifiable vigour. “You talk as
if it needed a college education to lean a stuffed eelskin on a guy’s
head. Of course you can do it. You’re behind the kitchen door, see?--and
he comes in, see?--and you sim’ly bust him one, see? A feller with one
arm and no legs could do it. And, say, if you want something to brace
you up, think of all that money lying in the cistern, just waiting for
us to come and dip for it!”
“Ah!” said Mr. Molloy, brightening.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AUNT YSOBEL POINTS THE WAY
§ 1
Claire Lippett sat in the kitchen of San Rafael, reading Pyke’s _Home
Companion_. It was Mr. Wrenn’s kindly custom to bring back a copy for
her each week on the day of publication, thus saving her an outlay of
twopence. She was alone in the house, for Kay was up in London doing
some shopping, and Mr. Wrenn, having come in and handed over the current
number, had gone off for a game of chess with his friend, Cornelius.
She was not expecting to be alone long. Muffins lay on the table, all
ready to be toasted; a cake which she had made herself stood beside
them; and there was also a new tin of anchovy paste--all of which
dainties were designed for the delectation of Hash Todhunter, her
fiancé, who would shortly be coming to tea.
As a rule, Pyke’s _Home Companion_ absorbed Claire’s undivided
attention, for she was one of its most devoted supporters; but this
evening she found her mind wandering, for there was that upon it which
not even Cordelia Blair’s _Hearts Aflame_ could conjure away.
Claire was worried. On the previous day a cloud had fallen on her life,
not exactly blotting out the sunshine, but seeming to threaten some such
eclipse in the near future. She had taken Hash to John Street for a
formal presentation to her mother, and it was on the way home that she
had first observed the approach of the cloud.
Hash’s manner had seemed to her peculiar. A girl who has just become
romantically betrothed to a man does not expect that man, when they are
sitting close together on the top of an omnibus, to talk moodily of the
unwisdom of hasty marriages.
It pains and surprises her when he mentions friends of his who, plunging
hot-heatedly into matrimony, spent years of subsequent regret. And when,
staring woodenly before him, he bids her look at Samson, Doctor Crippen
and other celebrities who were not fortunate in their domestic lives,
she feels a certain alarm.
And such had been the trend of Hash Todhunter’s conversation, coming
home from John Street. Claire, recalling the more outstanding of his
dicta, felt puzzled and unhappy, and not even the fact that Cordelia
Blair had got her hero into a ruined mill with villains lurking on the
ground floor and dynamite stored in the basement could enchain her
interest. She turned the page listlessly and found herself confronted by
Aunt Ysobel’s Chats With My Girls.
In spite of herself, Claire’s spirits rose a little. She never failed to
read every word that Aunt Ysobel wrote, for she considered that lady a
complete guide to all mundane difficulties. Nor was this an unduly
flattering opinion, for Aunt Ysobel was indeed like a wise pilot,
gently steering the storm-tossed barks of her fellow men and women
through the shoals and sunken rocks of the ocean of life. If you wanted
to know whether to blow on your tea or allow it to cool of itself in
God’s good time, Aunt Ysobel would tell you. If, approaching her on a
deeper subject, you desired to ascertain the true significance of the
dark young man’s offer of flowers, she could tell you that too--even
attributing to each individual bloom a hidden and esoteric meaning which
it would have been astonished to find that it possessed.
Should a lady shake hands or bow on parting with a gentleman whom she
has met only once? Could a gentleman present a lady with a pound of
chocolates without committing himself to anything unduly definite? Must
mother always come along? Did you say “Miss Jones--Mr. Smith” or “Mr.
Smith--Miss Jones,” when introducing friends? And arising from this
question, did Mr. Smith on such an occasion say, “Pleased to meet you”
or “Happy, I’m sure”?
Aunt Ysobel was right there every time with the correct answer. And
everything she wrote had a universal message.
It was so to-day. Scarcely had Claire begun to read, when her eye was
caught by a paragraph headed Worried (Upper Sydenham).
“Coo!” said Claire.
The passage ran as follows:
“WORRIED (Upper Sydenham). You tell me, dear, that the man to whom
you are betrothed seems to you to be growing cold, and you ask me
what you had better do. Well, dear, there is only one thing you
can do, and I give this advice to all my girl friends who come to
me with this trouble. You must test this man. You see, he may not
really be growing cold; he may merely have some private business
worry on his mind which causes him to seem distrait. If you test
him you will soon learn the truth. What I suggest may seem to you
at first a wee bit unladylike, but try it all the same. Pretend to
show a liking for some other gentleman friend of yours. Even flirt
with him a teeny-weeny bit.
“You will soon discover then if this young man really cares for you
still. If he does he will exhibit agitation. He may even go to the
length of becoming violent. In the olden days, you know, knights
used to joust for the love of their lady. Try Herbert or George, or
whatever his name is, out for a week, and see if you can work him
up to the jousting stage.”
Claire laid down the paper with trembling hands. The thing might have
been written for her personal benefit. There was no getting away from
Aunt Ysobel. She touched the spot every time.
Of course, there were difficulties. It was all very well for Aunt Ysobel
to recommend flirting with some other male member of your circle, but
suppose your circle was so restricted that there were no available
victims. From the standpoint of dashing male society, Burberry Road was
at the moment passing through rather a lean time. The postman was an
elderly man who, if he stopped to exchange a word, talked only of his
son in Canada. The baker’s representative, on the other hand, was a
mere boy, and so was the butcher’s. Besides, she might smile upon these
by the hour and Hash would never see her. It was all very complex, and
she was still pondering upon the problem when a whistle from without
announced the arrival of her guest.
The chill of yesterday still hung over Mr. Todhunter’s demeanour. He was
not precisely cold, but he was most certainly not warm. He managed
somehow to achieve a kind of intermediate temperature. He was rather
like a broiled fish that has been lying too long on a plate.
He kissed Claire. That is to say, technically the thing was a kiss. But
it was not the kiss of other days.
“What’s up?” asked Claire, hurt.
“Nothing’s up.”
“Yes, there is something up.”
“No, there ain’t anything up.”
“Yes, there is.”
“No, there ain’t.”
“Well, then,” said Claire, “what’s up?”
These intellectual exchanges seemed to have the effect of cementing Mr.
Todhunter’s gloom. He relapsed into a dark silence, and Claire, her chin
dangerously elevated, prepared tea.
Tea did not thaw the guest. He ate a muffin, sampled the cake and drank
deeply; but he still remained that strange, moody figure who rather
reminded Claire of the old earl in _Hearts Aflame_. But then the old
earl had had good reason for looking like a man who has drained the wine
of life and is now unwillingly facing the lees, because he had driven
his only daughter from his door, and though mistaken in this view,
supposed that she had died of consumption in Australia. (It was really
another girl.) But why Hash should look like one who has drained the
four ale of life and found a dead mouse at the bottom of the pewter,
Claire did not know, and she quivered with a sense of injury.
However, she was a hostess. (“A hostess, dears, must never, never permit
her private feelings to get the better of her”--Aunt Ysobel.)
“Would you like a nice fresh lettuce?” she asked. It might be, she felt,
that this would just make the difference.
“Ah!” said Hash. He had a weakness for lettuces.
“I’ll go down the garden and cut you one.”
He did not offer to accompany her, and that in itself was significant.
It was with a heart bowed down that Claire took her knife and made her
way along the gravel path. So preoccupied was she that she did not cast
even a glance over the fence till she was aware suddenly of a strange
moaning sound proceeding from the domain of Mon Repos. This excited her
curiosity. She stopped, listened, and finally looked.
The garden of Mon Repos presented an animated spectacle. Sam was
watering a flower bed, and not far away the dog Amy, knee-deep in a tub,
was being bathed by a small, clean-shaven man who was a stranger to
Claire.
Both of them seemed to be having a rough passage. Amy, as is the habit
of her species on these occasions, was conveying the impression of being
at death’s door and far from resigned. Her mournful eyes stared
hopelessly at the sky, her brow was wrinkled with a perplexed sorrow,
and at intervals she uttered a stricken wail. On these occasions she in
addition shook herself petulantly, and Chimp Twist--for, as Miss Blair
would have said, it was he--was always well within range.
Claire stopped, transfixed. She had had no notion that the staff of Mon
Repos had been augmented, and it seemed to her that Chimp had been sent
from heaven. Here, right on the spot, in daily association with Hash,
was the desired male. She smiled dazzlingly upon Chimp.
“Hullo,” she said.
“Hullo,” said Chimp.
He spoke moodily, for he was feeling moody. There might be golden
rewards at the end of this venture of his, but he perceived already that
they would have to be earned. Last night Hash Todhunter had won six
shilling from him at stud poker, and Chimp was a thrifty man. Moreover,
Hash slept in the top back room, and when not in it, locked the door.
This latter fact may seem to offer little material for gloom on Chimp’s
part, but it was, indeed, the root of all his troubles. In informing Mr.
and Mrs. Molloy that the plunder of the late Edward Finglass was hidden
in the cistern of Mon Repos, Chimp Twist had been guilty of
subterfuge--pardonable, perhaps, for your man of affairs must take these
little business precautions, but nevertheless subterfuge. In the letter
which, after carefully memorising, he had just as carefully destroyed,
Mr. Finglass had revealed that the proceeds of his flutter with the New
Asiatic Bank might be found not in the cistern but rather by anyone who
procured a chisel and raised the third board from the window in the top
back room. Chimp had not foreseen that this top back room would be
occupied by a short-tempered cook who, should he discover people prying
up his floor with chisels, would scarcely fail to make himself
unpleasant. That was why Mr. Twist spoke moodily to Claire, and who
shall blame him?
Claire was not discouraged. She had cast Chimp for the rôle of stalking
horse and he was going to be it.
“Is the doggie having his bath?” she asked archly.
“I think they’re splitting it about fifty-fifty,” said Sam, adding
himself to the conversation.
Claire perceived that this was, indeed, so.
“Oh, you are wet,” she cried. “You’ll catch cold. Would you like a nice
cup of hot tea?”
Something approaching gratitude appeared in Chimp’s mournful face.
“Thank you, miss,” he said. “I would.”
“We’re spoiling you,” said Sam.
He sauntered down the garden, plying his hose, and Claire hurried back
to her kitchen.
“Where’s my nice lettuce?” demanded Hash.
“Haven’t got it yet. I’ve come in to get a cup of hot tea and a slice of
cake for that young man next door. He’s got so wet washing that big
dog.”
It was some little time before she returned.
“I’ve been having a talk with that young man,” she said. “He liked his
tea very much.”
“Did he?” said Hash shortly. “Ho, did he? Where’s my lettuce?”
Claire uttered an exclamation.
“There! If I haven’t gone and forgotten it!”
Hash rose, a set look on his face.
“Never mind,” he said. “Never mind.”
“You aren’t going?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What, already?”
“Yes, already.”
“Well, if you must,” said Claire. “I like Mr. Twist,” she went on
pensively. “He’s what I call a perfect gentleman.”
“He’s what I call a perisher,” said Hash sourly.
“Nice way he’s got of speaking. His Christian name’s Alexander. Do you
call him that or Aleck?”
“If you care to ’ear what I call him,” replied Hash with frigid
politeness, “you can come and listen at our kitchen door.”
“Why, you surely aren’t jealous!” cried Claire, wide-eyed.
“Who, me?” said Hash bitterly.
It was some few minutes later that Sam, watering his garden like a good
householder, heard sounds of tumult from within. Turning off his hose,
he hastened toward the house and reached it in time to observe the back
door open with some violence and his new odd-job man emerge at a high
rate of speed. A crockery implement of the kind used in kitchens
followed the odd-job man, bursting like a shell against the brick wall
which bounded the estate of Mon Repos. The odd-job man himself, heading
for the street, disappeared, and Sam, going into the kitchen, found Mr.
Todhunter fuming.
“Little tiff?” inquired Sam.
Hash gave vent to a few sailorly oaths.
“He’s been flirting with my girl and I’ve been telling him off.”
Sam clicked his tongue.
“Boys will be boys,” he said. “But, Hash, didn’t I gather from certain
words you let fall when you came home last night that your ardour was
beginning to wane a trifle?”
“Ur?”
“I say, from the way you spoke last night about the folly of hasty
marriages, I imagined that you had begun to experience certain regrets.
In other words, you gave me the impression of a man who would be glad to
be free from sentimental entanglements. Yet here you are
positively--yes, by Jove, positively jousting!”
“What say?”
“I was quoting from a little thing I dashed off up at the office
recently. Have you changed your mind about hasty marriages then?”
Hash frowned perplexedly at the stove. He was not a man who found it
easy to put his thoughts into words.
“Well, it’s like this: I saw her mother yesterday.”
“Ah! That is a treat I have not had.”
“Do you think girls get like their mothers, Sam?”
“Sometimes.”
Hash shivered.
“Well, the ’ole thing is, when I’m away from the girl, I get to thinking
about her.”
“Very properly,” said Sam. “Absence, it has been well said, makes the
heart grow fonder.”
“Thinking of her mother, I mean.”
“Oh, of her mother?”
“And then I wish I was well out of it all, you understand. But then
again, when I’m settin’ with ’er with my arm round ’er little waist----”
“You are still speaking of the mother?”
“No, the girl.”
“Oh, the girl?”
“And when I’m lookin’ at her and she’s lookin’ at me, it’s different.
It’s--well, it’s what I may call different. She’s got a way of tossing
her chin up, Sam, and waggling of ’er ’air----”
Sam nodded.
“I know,” he said, “I know. They have, haven’t they? Confirmed hair
wagglers, all of them. Well, Hash, if you will listen to the advice of
an old lady with girl friends in every part of England--and Scotland,
too, for that matter; you will find a communication from Bonnie Lassie
(Glasgow) in this very issue--I would say, Risk the mother. And
meanwhile, Hash, refrain, if possible, from slaying our odd-job man. He
may not be much to look at, but he is uncommonly useful. Never forget
that in a few days we may want Amy washed again.”
He bestowed an encouraging nod upon his companion and went out into the
garden. He was just picking up his hose when a scuffling sound from the
other side of the fence attracted his attention. It was followed by a
sharp exclamation, and he recognised Kay’s voice.
It was growing dark now, but it was not too dark for Sam to see, if only
sketchily, what was in progress in the garden of San Rafael. Shrouded
though the whole scene was in an evening mist, he perceived a male
figure. He also perceived the figure of Kay. The male figure appeared
either to be giving Kay a lesson in jiujitsu or else embracing her
against her will. From the sound of her voice, he put the latter
construction on the affair, and it seemed to him that, in the inspired
words of the typewriter, now was the time for all good men to come to
the aid of the party.
Sam was a man of action. Several policies were open to him. He could
ignore the affair altogether; he could shout reproof at the aggressor
from a distance; he could climb the fence and run to the rescue. None of
these operations appealed to him. It was his rule in life to act swiftly
and to think, if at all, later. In his simple, direct fashion,
therefore, he lifted the hose and sent a stream of water shooting at the
now closely entangled pair.
§ 2
The treatment was instantaneously effective. The male member of the
combination, receiving several gallons of the Valley Fields Water
Company’s best stuff on the side of his head and then distributed at
random over his person, seemed to understand with a lightning quickness
that something in the nature of reinforcements had arrived. Hastily
picking up his hat, which had fallen off, he stood not upon the order of
his going, but ran. The darkness closed upon him, and Sam, with a
certain smug complacency inevitable in your knight errant who has borne
himself notably well in a difficult situation, turned off the hose and
stood waiting while Kay crossed the lawn.
“Who was our guest?” he asked.
Kay seemed a little shaken. She was breathing quickly.
“It was Claude Bates,” she said, and her voice quivered. So did Sam’s.
“Claude Bates!” he cried distractedly. “If I had known that, I would
have chased him all the way back to London, kicking him violently.”
“I wish you had.”
“How on earth did that fellow come to be here?”
“I met him outside Victoria Station. I suppose he got into the train and
followed me.”
“The hound!”
“I suddenly found him out here in the garden.”
“The blister!”
“Do you think somebody will kill him some day?” asked Kay wistfully.
“I shall have a very poor opinion of the public spirit of the modern
Englishman,” Sam assured her, “if that loathsome leprous growth is
permitted to infest London for long. But in the meantime,” he said,
lowering his voice tenderly, “doesn’t it occur to you that this thing
has been sent for a purpose? Surely it is intended as a proof of the
truth of what I was saying at lunch, that you need----”
“Yes,” said Kay; “but we’ll talk about that some other time, if you
don’t mind. I suppose you know you’ve soaked me to the skin.”
“You?” said Sam incredulously.
“Yes, me.”
“You don’t mean Bates?”
“No, I do not mean Bates. Feel my arm if you don’t believe me.”
Sam extended a reverent hand.
“What an extraordinarily beautiful arm you have,” he said.
“An extraordinarily wet arm.”
“Yes, you are wet,” Sam acknowledged. “Well, all I can say is that I am
extremely sorry. I acted for the best; impulsively, let us
say--mistakenly, it may be--but still with the best intentions.”
“I should hate to be anywhere near when you are doing your worst. Well,
things like this, I suppose, must be----”
“----after a famous victory. Exactly!”
“I must run in and change.”
“Wait!” said Sam. “We must get this thing straight. You will admit now,
I imagine, that you need a strong man’s protection?”
“I don’t admit anything of the kind.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“But surely, with Claude Bateses surging around you on every side,
dogging your footsteps, forcing their way into your very garden, you
must acknowledge----”
“I shall catch cold.”
“Of course! What am I thinking of? You must run in at once.”
“Yes.”
“But wait!” said Sam. “I want to get to the bottom of this. What makes
you think that you and I were not designed for each other from the
beginning of time? I’ve been thinking very deeply about the whole thing,
and it beats me why you can’t see it. To start with, we are so much
alike, we have the same tastes----”
“Have we?”
“Most certainly. To take a single instance, we both dislike Claude
Bates. Then there is your love, which I share, for a life in the
country. The birds, the breezes, the trees, the bees--you love them and
so do I. It is my one ambition to amass enough money to enable me to buy
a farm and settle down. You would like that.”
“You seem to know a lot about me.”
“I have my information from your uncle.”
“Don’t you and uncle ever do any work at the office? You seem to spend
your whole time talking.”
“In the process of getting together a paper like Pyke’s _Home
Companion_, there come times when a little rest, a little folding of the
hands, is essential. Otherwise the machine would break down. On these
occasions we chat, and when we chat we naturally talk about you.”
“Why?”
“Because there is no other subject in which I am in the least
interested. Well, then, returning to what I was saying, we are so much
alike----”
“They say that people should marry their opposites.”
“Pyke’s _Home Companion_ has exploded that view. Replying to Anxious
(Wigan) in this very issue, Aunt Ysobel says just the contrary.”
“I’ve often wondered who Aunt Ysobel was.”
“It would be foreign to the policy of Pyke’s _Home Companion_ to reveal
office secrets. You may take it from me that Aunt Ysobel is the goods.
She knows. You might say she knows everything.”
“I wonder if she knows I’m getting pneumonia.”
“Good heavens! I was forgetting. I mustn’t keep you standing here for
another instant.”
“No. Good-bye.”
“Wait!” said Sam. “While we are on the subject of Aunt Ysobel, I wonder
if you have seen her ruling this week in the case of Romeo
(Middlesbrough)?”
“I haven’t read this week’s number.”
“Ah! Well, the gist of what she says--I quote from memory--is that there
is nothing wrong in a young man taking a girl to the theatre, provided
that it is a matinée performance. On the contrary, the girl will
consider it a pretty and delicate attention. Now to-morrow will be
Saturday, and I have in my possession two seats for the Winter Garden.
Will you come?”
“Does Aunt Ysobel say what the significance is if the girl accepts?”
“It implies that she is beginning to return--slightly, it may be, but
nevertheless perceptibly--the gentleman’s esteem.”
“I see. Rather serious. I must think this over.”
“Certainly. And now, if I may suggest it, you really ought to be going
in and changing your dress. You are very wet.”
“So I am. You seem to know everything--like Aunt Ysobel.”
“There is a resemblance, perhaps,” said Sam.
Hash Todhunter met Sam as he re-entered Mon Repos.
“Oh, there you are,” said Hash. “There was some people calling, wanting
to see you, a minute ago.”
“Really? Who?”
“Well, it was a young female party that come to the door, but I thought
I saw a kind of thickset feller hanging about down on the drive.”
“My old friends, Thomas G. and Miss Gunn, no doubt. A persistent couple.
Did they leave any message?”
“No. She asked if you was in, and when I told her you was around
somewhere she said it didn’t matter.”
§ 3
That night. The apartments of Lord Tilbury.
“Yes? Yes? This is Lord Tilbury speaking.... Ah, is that you, Twist?
Have you anything to report?”
“The young woman’s cook has just been round with a message. The young
woman is going with Mr. Shotter to the theatre to-morrow afternoon.”
“Cor!” said Lord Tilbury.
He replaced the receiver. He remained for a moment in the deepest
thought. Then, swiftly reaching a decision, he went to the desk and took
out a cable form.
The wording of the cable gave him some little trouble. The first version
was so condensed that he could not understand it himself. He destroyed
the form and decided that this was no time for that economy which is
instinctive even to the richest men when writing cables. Taking another
form and recklessly dashing the expense, he informed Mr. Pynsent that,
in spite of the writer’s almost fatherly care, his nephew Samuel had
most unfortunately sneaked off surreptitiously and become entangled with
a young woman residing in the suburbs. He desired Mr. Pynsent to
instruct him in this matter.
The composition satisfied him. It was a good piece of work. He rang for
an underling and sent him with it to the cable office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
STORMY TIMES AT MON REPOS
§ 1
There are few pleasanter things in life than to sit under one’s own
rooftree and smoke the first pipe of the morning which so sets the seal
on the charms of breakfast. Sam, as he watched Hash clearing away the
remains of as goodly a dish of bacon and eggs and as fragrant a pot of
coffee as ever man had consumed, felt an uplifted thrill of well-being.
It was Saturday morning, and a darned good Saturday morning at
that--mild enough to permit of an open window, yet crisp enough to
justify a glowing fire.
“Hash,” said Sam, “have you ever felt an almost overwhelming desire to
break into song?”
“No,” said Hash, after consideration.
“You have never found yourself irresistibly compelled to render some old
Provençal _chansonnette_ breathing of love and youth and romance?”
“No, I ain’t.”
“Perhaps it’s as well. You wouldn’t be good at it, and one must consider
the neighbours. But I may tell you that I am feeling the urge to-day.
What’s that thing of Browning’s that you’re always quoting? Ah, yes!
‘The morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled.
God’s in his heaven;
All’s right with the world.’
That is how I feel.”
“How’d you like this bacon?” inquired Hash, picking up a derelict slice
and holding it against the light as if it were some rare _objet d’art_.
Sam perceived that his audience was not attuned to the lyrical note.
“I am too spiritual to be much of a judge of these things,” he said,
“but as far as I could gather it seemed all right.”
“Ha’penny a pound cheaper than the last,” said Hash with sober triumph.
“Indeed? Well, as I was saying, life seems decidedly tolerable to-day. I
am taking Miss Derrick to the theatre this afternoon, so I shall not be
back until lateish. Before I go, therefore, I have something to say to
you, Hash. I noticed a disposition on your part yesterday to try to
disintegrate our odd-job man. This must not be allowed to grow upon you.
When I return this evening I shall expect to find him all in one piece.”
“That’s all right, Sam,” replied Mr. Todhunter cordially. “All that
’appened there was that I let myself get what I might call rather ’asty.
I been thinking it over, and I’ve got nothing against the feller.”
This was true. Sleep, which knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, had
done much to soothe the troubled spirit of Hash Todhunter. The healing
effect of a night’s slumber had been to convince him that he had
wronged Claire. He proceeded to get Sam’s expert views on this.
“Suppose it was this way, Sam: Suppose a feller’s young lady went and
give another feller a cup of hot tea and cut him a slice of cake. That
wouldn’t ’ave to mean that she was flirting with ’im, would it?”
“Not at all,” said Sam warmly. “Far from it. I would call it evidence of
the kind heart rather than the frivolous mind.”
“Ah!”
“I may be dangerously modern,” said Sam, “but my view--and I give it
fearlessly--is that a girl may cut many a slice of cake and still remain
a good, sweet, womanly woman.”
“You see,” argued Hash, “he was wet.”
“Who was wet?”
“This feller Twist. Along of washing the dog. And Claire, she took and
give him a nice cup of hot tea and a slice of cake. Upset me at the
time, I’ll own, but I see where maybe I done ’er an injustice.”
“You certainly did, Hash. That girl is always doing that sort of thing
out of pure nobility of nature. Why, the first morning I was here she
gave me a complete breakfast--eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, marmalade and
everything.”
“No, did she?”
“You bet she did. She’s a jewel, and you’re lucky to get her.”
“Ah!” said Hash with fervour.
He gathered up the tray alertly and bore it downstairs to the kitchen,
where Chimp Twist eyed him warily. Although on his return to the house
on the previous night Chimp had suffered no injury at Hash’s hands, he
attributed this solely to the intervention of Sam, who had insisted on a
formal reconciliation; and he had just heard the front door bang behind
Sam. A nervous man who shrank from personal violence, particularly when
it promised to be so one-sided as in his present society, Chimp felt
apprehensive.
He was reassured by the geniality of his companion’s manner.
“Nice day,” said Hash.
“Lovely,” said Chimp, relieved.
“’As that dog ’ad ’er breakfast?”
“She was eating a shoe when I saw her last.”
“Ah, well, maybe that’ll do her till dinnertime. Nice dog.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Nice weather.”
“Yes, yes.”
“If the rain ’olds off, it’ll be a regular nice day.”
“It certainly will.”
“And if it rains,” continued Hash, sunnily optimistic, “I see by the
paper that the farmers need it.”
It was a scene which would have rejoiced the heart of Henry Ford or any
other confirmed peacemaker; and Chimp, swift, in his canny fashion, to
take advantage of his companion’s miraculous cordiality, put a tentative
question.
“Sleep well last night?”
“Like a top.”
“So did I. Say,” said Chimp enthusiastically, “that’s a swell bed I’ve
got.”
“Ah?”
“Yes, sir, that’s one swell bed. And a dandy room too. And I been
thinking it over, and it don’t seem right that I should have that dandy
room and that swell bed, seeing that I came here after you. So what say
we exchange?”
“Change rooms?”
“Yes, sir; you have my swell big front room and I have your poky little
back room.”
The one fault which undoes diplomatists more than any other is the
temptation to be too elaborate. If it had been merely a case of
exchanging rooms, as two medieval monarchs, celebrating a truce, might
have exchanged chargers and suits of armour, Hash would probably have
consented. He would have thought it silly, but he would have done it by
way of a gesture indicating his opinion of the world’s excellence this
morning and of his desire to show Mr. Twist that he had forgiven him and
wished him well. But the way the other put it made it impossible for any
man feeling as generous and amiable as he did to become a party to a
scheme for turning this charming fellow out of a swell front room and
putting him in a poky back one.
“Couldn’t do it,” he said.
“I cert’nly wish you would.”
“No,” said Hash. “No; couldn’t do it.”
Chimp sighed and returned to his solitaire. Hash, full of the milk of
human kindness, went out into the garden. It had occurred to him that at
about this time of day Claire generally took a breather in the open
after the rough work of making the beds. She was strolling up and down
the gravel path.
“Hullo,” she said.
“Hullo,” said Hash. “Nice day.”
A considerable proportion of the pathos of life comes from the
misunderstandings that arise between male and female through the
inability of a man with an untrained voice to convey the emotions
underlying his words. Hash supposed that he had spoken in a way that
would show Claire that he considered her an angel of light and a credit
to her sex. If he was slightly more formal than usual, that was because
he was feeling embarrassed at the thought of the injustice he had done
her at their last meeting.
Claire, however, noting the formality--for it was customary with him to
couch his morning’s greeting in some such phrase as “Hullo, ugly!” or
“What cheer, face!”--attributed it to that growing coldness of which she
had recently become aware. Her heart sank. She became provocative.
“How’s Mr. Twist this morning?”
“Oh, he’s fine.”
“Not been quarrelling with him, have you?”
“Who, me?” cried Hash, shocked. “Why, him and me is the best of
friends!”
“Oh?”
“We just been having a chat.”
“About me?”
“No; about the weather and the dog and how well we slept last night.”
Claire scraped at the gravel with the toe of her shoe.
“Oh! Well, I’ve got to go and wash the dishes,” she said. “Goo’
mornin’.”
§ 2
Hash Todhunter was not a swift-thinking man. Nor was he one of those
practised amateurs of the sex who can read volumes in a woman’s glance
and see in a flash exactly what she means when she scrapes arabesques on
a gravel path with the toe of her shoe. For some three hours and more,
therefore, he remained in a state of perfect content. And then suddenly,
while smoking a placid after-luncheon pipe, his mood changed and there
began to seep into the hinterlands of his mind the idea that in Claire’s
manner at their recent meeting there had been something decidedly
peculiar.
He brooded over this; and as the lunch which he had cooked and eaten
fought what was for the moment a winning battle with his organs of
digestion, there crept over him a sombre alarm. Slowly, but with a
persistence not to be denied, the jealousy of which sleep had cured him
began to return. He blew out a cloud of tobacco smoke and through it
stared bleakly at Chimp Twist, who was in a reverie on the other side of
the kitchen table.
It came to him, not for the first time, that he did not like Chimp’s
looks. Handsome not even his mother could have called Chimp Twist; and
yet there was about him a certain something calculated to inspire
uneasiness in an engaged man. He had that expression in his eyes which
home wreckers wear in the movies. A human snake, if ever there was one,
felt Hash, as his interior mechanism strove vainly to overcome that
which he had thrust upon it.
Nor did his recollection of Claire’s conversation bring any reassurance.
So brief it had been that he could remember everything she had said.
And it had all been about that black-hearted little object across the
table.
“How’s Mr. Twist this morning?” A significant question. “Not been
quarrelling with him, have you?” A fishy remark. And then he had said
that they had been having a chat, and she had asked, “About me?”
So moved was Hash by the recollection of this that he took the pipe out
of his mouth and addressed his companion with an abruptness that was
almost violent:
“Hey!”
Chimp looked up with a start. He had been pondering whether it might not
possibly come within the scope of an odd-job man’s duties to put a
ladder against the back of the house and climb up it and slap a coat of
paint on the window frame of the top back room. Then, when Hash was
cooking dinner----
“Hullo?” he said, blinking. He was surprised to see that the other, who
had been geniality itself during lunch, was regarding him with a cold
and suspicious hostility.
“Want to ask you something,” said Hash.
“Spill it,” said Chimp, and smiled nervously.
It was an unfortunate thing for him to have done, for he did not look
his best when smiling. It seemed to Hash that his smile was furtive and
cunning.
“Want to know,” said Hash, “if there are any larks on?”
“Eh?”
“You and my young lady next door--there’s nothing what you might call
between you, is there?”
“’Course not!” cried Chimp in agitation.
“Well,” said Hash weightily, “there better hadn’t be. See?”
He rose, feeling a little better, and, his suspicions momentarily
quieted, he proceeded to the garden, where he chirruped for a while over
the fence. This producing no response, he climbed the fence and peeped
in through the kitchen window of San Rafael. The kitchen was empty.
“Gone for a walk,” diagnosed Hash, and felt a sense of injury. If Claire
wanted to go for a walk, why hadn’t she asked him to come too? He did
not like it. It seemed to him that love must have grown cold. He
returned to Mon Repos and embarrassed the sensitive Mr. Twist by staring
at him for twenty minutes almost without a blink.
Claire had not gone for a walk. She had taken the 12:10 train to
Victoria and had proceeded thence to Mr. Braddock’s house in John
Street. It was her intention to put the facts before her mother and from
that experienced woman to seek advice in this momentous crisis of her
life. Her faith in Aunt Ysobel had not weakened, but there is never any
harm done by getting the opinion of a second specialist. For Claire’s
uneasiness had been growing ever since that talk with Hash across the
fence that morning. His manner had seemed to her peculiar. Nor did her
recollection of his conversation bring any reassurance.
“How’s Mr. Twist this morning?” she had asked. And instead of looking
like one about to joust, he had replied heartily, “Oh, he’s fine.” A
disturbing remark.
And then he had gone on to say that he and Chimp were the best of
friends. It was with tight lips and hard eyes that Claire, replying
absently to the paternal badinage of Sleddon, the butler, made her way
into her mother’s presence. Mrs. Lippett, consulted, proved
uncompromisingly pro-Aunt Ysobel.
“That’s what I call a sensible woman, Clara.”
“Claire,” corrected her daughter mechanically.
“She knows.”
“That’s what I think.”
“Ah, she’s suffered, that woman has,” said Mrs. Lippett. “You can see
that. Stands to reason she couldn’t know so much about life if she
hadn’t suffered.”
“Then you’d go on testing him?” said Claire anxiously.
“Test him more and more,” said Mrs. Lippett. “There’s no other way.
You’ve got to remember, dearie, that your Clarence is a sailor, and
sailors has to be handled firm. They say sailors don’t care. I say they
must be made to care. That’s what I say.”
Claire made the return journey on an omnibus. For purposes of thought
there is nothing like a ride on the top of an omnibus. By four o’clock,
when the vehicle put her down at the corner of Burberry Road, her
resolution was as chilled steel and she had got her next move all
planned out. She went into the kitchen for a few moments, and coming out
into the garden, perceived Hash roaming the lawn of Mon Repos.
“Hi!” she called, and into her voice managed to project a note of
care-free liveliness.
“Where you been?” inquired Hash.
“I been up seeing mother.... Is Mr. Twist indoors?”
“What do you want with Mr. Twist?”
“Just wanted to give him this--something I promised him.”
This was an envelope, lilac in colour and scent, and Hash, taking it and
gazing upon it as he might have gazed upon an adder nestling in his
palm, made a disturbing discovery.
“There’s something inside this.”
“Of course there is. If there wasn’t, what ’ud I be giving it him for?”
Hash’s fingers kneaded the envelope restlessly.
“What you writing to him about?”
“Never mind.”
“There’s something else inside this ’ere envelope besides a letter.
There’s something that sort of crinkles when you squeeze it.”
“Just a little present I promised to give him.”
A monstrous suspicion flamed in Hash Todhunter’s mind. It seemed
inconceivable, and yet---- He tore open the envelope and found his
suspicion fulfilled. Between his fingers there dangled a lock of
tow-coloured hair.
“When you’ve finished opening other people’s letters----” said Claire.
She looked at him, hopefully at first, and then with a growing despair.
For Hash’s face was wooden and expressionless.
“I’m glad,” said Hash huskily at length. “I been worried, but now I’m
not worried. I been worried because I been worrying about you and me not
being suited to one another and ’aving acted ’asty; but now I’m not
worried, because I see there’s another feller you’re fond of, so the
worry about what was to be done and everything don’t worry me no more.
He’s in the kitchen,” said Hash in a gentle rumble. “I’ll give him this
and explain ’ow it come to be opened in error.”
Nothing could have exceeded the dignity of his manner, but there are
moments when women chafe at masculine dignity.
“Aren’t you going to knock his head off?” demanded Claire distractedly.
“Me?” said Hash, looking as nearly as he could like the picture of Saint
Sebastian in the Louvre. “Me? Why should I knock the pore feller’s ’ead
off? I’m glad. Because I was worried, and now I’m not worried--see what
I mean?”
Before Claire’s horrified eyes and through a world that rocked and
danced, he strode toward the kitchen of Mon Repos, bearing the envelope
daintily between finger and thumb. He seemed calm and at peace. He
looked as if he might be humming.
Inside the kitchen, however, his manner changed. Chimp Twist, glancing
up from his solitaire, observed in the doorway, staring down at him, a
face that seemed to his excited imagination to have been equipped with
searchlights instead of eyes. Beneath these searchlights was a mouth
that appeared to be gnashing its teeth. And from this mouth, in a brief
interval of gnashing, proceeded dreadful words.
The first that can be printed were the words “Put ’em up!”
Mr. Twist, rising, slid like an eel to the other side of the table.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded in considerable agitation.
“I’ll show you what’s the matter,” said Hash, after another verbal
interlude which no compositor would be allowed by his union to set up.
“Come out from behind that table like a man and put your ’ands up!”
Mr. Twist rejected this invitation.
“I’m going to take your ’ead,” continued Hash, sketching out his plans,
“and I’m going to pull it off, and then----”
What he proposed to do after this did not intrigue Chimp. He foiled a
sudden dash with an inspired leap.
“Come ’ere,” said Hash coaxingly.
His mind clearing a little, he perceived that the root of the trouble,
the obstacle which was standing in the way of his aims, was the table.
It was a heavy table, but with a sharp heave he tilted it on its side
and pushed it toward the stove. Chimp, his first line of defense thus
demolished, shot into the open, and Hash was about to make another
offensive movement when the dog Amy, who had been out in the garden
making a connoisseur’s inspection of the dustbin, strolled in and
observed with pleasure that a romp was in progress.
Amy was by nature a thoughtful dog. Most of her time, when she was not
eating or sleeping, she spent in wandering about with wrinkled forehead,
puzzling over the cosmos. But she could unbend. Like so many
philosophers, she loved an occasional frolic, and this one appeared to
be of exceptional promise.
The next moment Hash, leaping forward, found his movements impeded by
what seemed like several yards of dog. It was hard for him to tell
without sorting the tangle out whether she was between his legs or
leaning on his shoulder. Certainly she was licking his face; but on the
other hand, he had just kicked her with a good deal of violence, which
seemed to indicate that she was on a lower level.
“Get out!” cried Hash.
The remark was addressed to Amy, but the advice it contained was so
admirable that Chimp Twist acted on it without hesitation. In the swirl
of events he had found himself with a clear path to the door, and along
this path he shot without delay. And not until he had put the entire
length of Burberry Road between him and his apparently insane aggressor
did he pause.
Then he mopped his forehead and said, “Gee!”
It seemed to Chimp Twist that a long walk was indicated--a walk so long
that by the time he reached Mon Repos again, Sam, his preserver, would
have returned and would be on the spot to protect him.
Hash, meanwhile, raged, baffled. He had extricated himself from Amy and
had rushed out into the road, but long ere that his victim had
disappeared. He went back to try to find Amy and rebuke her, but Amy had
disappeared too. In spite of her general dreaminess, there was sterling
common sense in Amy. She knew when and when not to be among those
present.
Hash returned to his kitchen and remained there, seething. He had been
seething for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when the front doorbell rang.
He climbed the stairs gloomily; and such was his disturbed frame of
mind that not even the undeniable good looks of the visitor who had rung
could soothe him.
“Mr. Shotter in?”
He recognised her now. It was the young party that had called on the
previous evening, asking for Sam. And, as on that occasion, he seemed to
see through the growing darkness the same sturdy male person hovering
about in the shadows.
“No, miss, he ain’t.”
“Expecting him back soon?”
“No, miss, I ain’t. He’s gone to the theatre, to a mat-i-nay.”
“Ah,” said the lady, “is that so?” And she made a sudden, curious
gesture with her parasol.
“Sorry,” said Hash, melting a little, for her eyes were very bright.
“Can’t be helped. You all alone here then?”
“Yes.”
“Tough luck.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, miss,” said Hash, pleased by her sympathy.
“Well, I won’t keep you. ’Devening.”
“’Evening, miss.”
Hash closed the door. Whistling a little, for his visitor had lightened
somehow the depression which was gnawing at him, he descended the stairs
and entered the kitchen.
Something which appeared at first acquaintance to be the ceiling, the
upper part of the house and a ton of bricks thrown in for good measure
hit Hash on the head and he subsided gently on the floor.
§ 3
Soapy Molloy came to the front door and opened it. He was a little pale,
and he breathed heavily.
“All right?” said his wife eagerly.
“All right.”
“Tied him up?”
“With a clothesline.”
“How about if he hollers?”
“I’ve put a duster in his mouth.”
“At-a-boy!” said Mrs. Molloy. “Then let’s get action.”
They climbed the stairs to where the cistern stood, and Mr. Molloy,
removing his coat, rolled up his sleeves.
Some minutes passed, and then Mr. Molloy, red in the face and wet in the
arm, made a remark.
“But it must be there!” cried his wife.
“It isn’t.”
“You haven’t looked.”
“I’ve looked everywhere. There couldn’t be a toothpick in that thing
without I’d have found it.” He expelled a long breath and his face grew
bleak. “Know what I think?”
“What?”
“That little oil can, Chimp, has slipped one over on us--told us the
wrong place.”
The plausibility of this theory was so obvious that Mrs. Molloy made no
attempt to refute it. She bit her lip in silence.
“Then let’s you and me get busy and find the right place,” she said at
length, with the splendid fortitude of a great woman. “We know the
stuff’s in the house somewheres, and we got the place to ourselves.”
“It’s taking a chance,” said Mr. Molloy doubtfully. “Suppose somebody
was to come and find us here.”
“Well, then, all you would do would be to just simply haul off and bust
them one, same as you did the hired man.”
“’M, yes,” said Mr. Molloy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SOAPY MOLLOY’S BUSY AFTERNOON
§ 1
The unwelcome discovery of the perfidy of Chimp Twist had been made by
Mr. Molloy and his bride at about twenty minutes past four. At 4:30 a
natty two-seater car drew up at the gate of San Rafael and Willoughby
Braddock alighted. Driving aimlessly about the streets of London some
forty minutes earlier, and feeling rather at a loose end, it had
occurred to him that a pleasant way of passing the evening would be to
go down to Valley Fields and get Kay to give him a cup of tea.
Mr. Braddock was in a mood of the serenest happiness. And if this seems
strange, seeing that only recently he had had a proposal of marriage
rejected, it should be explained that he had regretted that hasty
proposal within two seconds of dropping the letter in the letter box.
And he had come to the conclusion that, much as he liked Kay, what had
induced him to offer her his hand and heart had been the fact that he
had had a good deal of champagne at dinner and that its after effects
had consisted of a sort of wistful melancholy which had removed for the
time his fundamental distaste for matrimony. He did not want matrimony;
he wanted adventure. He had not yet entirely abandoned hope that some
miracle might occur to remove Mrs. Lippett from the scheme of things;
and when that happened, he wished to be free.
Yes, felt Willoughby Braddock, everything had turned out extremely well.
He pushed open the gate of San Rafael with the debonair flourish of a
man without entanglements. As he did so, the front door opened and Mr.
Wrenn came out.
“Oh, hullo,” said Mr. Braddock. “Kay in?”
“I am afraid not,” said Mr. Wrenn. “She has gone to the theatre.”
Politeness to a visitor wrestled with the itch to be away. “I fear I
have an engagement also, for which I am already a little late. I
promised Cornelius----”
“That’s all right. I’ll go in next door and have a chat with Sam
Shotter.”
“He has gone to the theatre with Kay.”
“A washout, in short,” said Mr. Braddock with undiminished cheerfulness.
“Right-ho! Then I’ll pop.”
“But, my dear fellow, you mustn’t run away like this,” said Mr. Wrenn
with remorse. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea and wait for
Kay? Claire will bring you some if you ring.”
“Something in that,” agreed Mr. Braddock. “Sound, very sound.”
He spoke a few genial words of farewell and proceeded to the
drawing-room, where he rang the bell. Nothing ensuing, he went to the
top of the kitchen stairs and called down.
“I say!” Silence from below. “I say!” fluted Mr. Braddock once more, and
now it seemed to him that the silence had been broken by a sound--a
rummy sound--a sound that was like somebody sobbing.
He went down the stairs. It was somebody sobbing. Bunched up on a chair,
with her face buried in her arms, that weird girl Claire was crying like
the dickens.
“I say!” said Mr. Braddock.
There is this peculiar quality about tears--that they can wash away in a
moment the animosity of a lifetime. For years Willoughby Braddock had
been on terms of distant hostility with this girl. Even apart from the
fact that that affair of the onion had not ceased to rankle in his
bosom, there had been other causes of war between them. Mr. Braddock
still suspected that it was Claire who, when on the occasion of his
eighteenth birthday he had called at Midways in a top hat, had flung a
stone at that treasured object from the recesses of a shrubbery. One of
those things impossible of proof, the outrage had been allowed to become
a historic mystery; but Willoughby Braddock had always believed the
hidden hand to be Claire’s, and his attitude toward her from that day
had been one of stiff disapproval.
But now, seeing her weeping and broken before him, with all the infernal
cheek which he so deprecated swept away on a wave of woe, his heart
softened. It has been a matter of much speculation among historians what
Wellington would have done if Napoleon had cried at Waterloo.
“I say,” said Mr. Braddock, “what’s the matter? Anything up?”
The sound of his voice seemed to penetrate Claire’s grief. She sat up
and looked at him damply.
“Oh, Mr. Braddock,” she moaned, “I’m so wretched! I am so miserable, Mr.
Braddock!”
“There, there!” said Willoughby Braddock.
“How was I to know?”
“Know what?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Tell which?”
“I never had a notion he would act like that.”
“Who would like what?”
“Hash.”
“You’ve spoiled the hash?” said Mr. Braddock, still out of his depth.
“My Hash--Clarence. He took it the wrong way.”
At last Mr. Braddock began to see daylight. She had cooked hash for this
Clarence, whoever he might be, and he had swallowed it in so erratic a
manner that it had choked him.
“Is he dead?” he asked in a hushed voice.
A piercing scream rang through the kitchen.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“My dear old soul!”
“He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“Do what?”
“Oh, Mr. Braddock, do say he wouldn’t do that!”
“What do you mean by ‘that’?”
“Go and kill himself.”
“Who?”
“Hash.”
Mr. Braddock removed the perfectly folded silk handkerchief from his
breast pocket and passed it across his forehead.
“Look here,” he said limply, “you couldn’t tell me the whole thing from
the beginning in a few simple words, could you?”
He listened with interest as Claire related the events of the day.
“Then Clarence is Hash?” he said.
“Yes.”
“And Hash is Clarence?”
“Yes; everyone calls him Hash.”
“That was what was puzzling me,” said Mr. Braddock, relieved. “That was
the snag that I got up against all the time. Now that is clear, we can
begin to examine this thing in a calm and judicial spirit. Let’s see if
I’ve got it straight. You read this stuff in the paper and started
testing him--is that right?”
“Yes. And instead of jousting, he just turned all cold-like and broke
off the engagement.”
“I see. Well, dash it, the thing’s simple. All you want is for some
polished man of the world to take the blighter aside and apprise him of
the facts. Shall I pop round and see him now?”
Claire’s tear-stained face lit up as if a light had been switched on
behind her eyes. She eyed Mr. Braddock devotedly.
“Oh, if you only would!”
“Of course I will--like a shot.”
“Oh, you are good! I’m sorry I threw that onion at you, Mr. Braddock.”
“Fault’s on both sides,” said Mr. Braddock magnanimously. “Now you stop
crying, like a good girl, and powder your nose and all that, and I’ll
have the lad round all pleasant and correct in a couple of minutes.”
He patted Claire’s head in a brotherly fashion and trotted out through
the back door.
A few minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Molloy, searching feverishly in the
drawing-room of Mon Repos, heard a distant tinkle and looked at each
other with a wild surmise.
“It’s the back doorbell,” said Dolly.
“I told you,” said Mr. Molloy sombrely. “I knew this would happen.
What’ll we do?”
Mrs. Molloy was not the woman to be shaken for long.
“Why, go downstairs and answer it,” she said. “It’s prob’ly only a
tradesman come with a loaf of bread or something. He’ll think you’re the
help.”
“And if he doesn’t,” replied Mr. Molloy with some bitterness, “I suppose
I bust him one with the meat ax. Looks to me as if I shall have to lay
out the whole darned population of this blamed place before I’m
through.”
“Sweetie mustn’t be cross.”
“Sweetie’s about fed up,” said Mr. Molloy sombrely.
§ 2
Expecting, when he opened the back door, to see a tradesman with a
basket on his arm, Soapy Molloy found no balm to his nervous system in
the apparition of a young man of the leisured classes in a faultlessly
cut grey suit. He gaped at Mr. Braddock.
“Hullo,” said Mr. Braddock.
“Hullo,” said Soapy.
“Are you Hash?” inquired the ambassador.
“Pardon?”
“Is your name Clarence?”
In happier circumstances Soapy would have denied the charge indignantly;
but now he decided that it was politic to be whatever anyone wished him
to be.
“That’s me, brother,” he said.
Mr. Braddock greatly disliked being called brother, but he made no
comment.
“Well, I just buzzed round,” he said, “to tell you that everything’s all
right.”
Soapy was far from agreeing with him. He was almost equally far from
understanding a word that this inexplicable visitor was saying. He
coughed loudly, to drown a strangled sound that had proceeded from the
gagged and bound Hash, whom he had deposited in a corner by the range.
“That’s good,” he said.
“About the girl, I mean. Claire, you know. I was in the kitchen next
door a moment ago, and she was crying and howling and all that because
she thought you didn’t love her any more.”
“Too bad,” said Mr. Molloy.
“It seems,” went on Mr. Braddock, “that she read something in a paper,
written by some silly ass, which said that she ought to test your
affection by pretending to flirt with some other cove. And when she did,
you broke off the engagement. And the gist, if you understand me, of
what I buzzed round to say is that she loves you still and was only
fooling when she sent that other bloke the lock of hair.”
“Ah?” said Mr. Molloy.
“So it’s all right, isn’t it?”
“It’s all right by me,” said Mr. Molloy, wishing--for it sounded
interesting--that he knew what all this was about.
“Then that’s that, what?”
“You said it, brother.”
Mr. Braddock paused. He seemed disappointed at a certain lack of emotion
on his companion’s part.
“She’s rather expecting you to dash round right away, you know--fold her
in your arms, and all that.”
This was a complication which Soapy had not foreseen.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “I’ve a lot of work to do around this
house and I don’t quite see how I can get away. Say, listen, brother,
you tell her I’ll be round later on in the evening.”
“All right. I’m glad everything’s satisfactory. She’s a nice girl
really.”
“None better,” said Mr. Molloy generously.
“I still think she threw a stone at my top hat that day, but dash it,”
said Mr. Braddock warmly, “let the dead past bury its dead, what?”
“Couldn’t do a wiser thing,” said Mr. Molloy.
* * * * *
He closed the door; and having breathed a little stertorously, mounted
the stairs.
“Who was it?” called Dolly from the first landing.
“Some nut babbling about a girl.”
“Oh? Well, I’m having a hunt round in the best bedroom. You go on
looking in the drawing-room.”
Soapy turned his steps towards the drawing-room, but he did not reach
it. For as he was preparing to cross the threshold, the front doorbell
rang.
It seemed to Soapy that he was being called upon to endure more than man
was ever intended to bear. That, at least, was his view as he dragged
his reluctant feet to the door. It was only when he opened it that he
realised that he had underestimated the malevolence of fate. Standing on
the top step was a policeman.
“Hell!” cried Soapy. And while we blame him for the intemperate
ejaculation, we must in fairness admit that the situation seemed to call
for some such remark. He stood goggling, a chill like the stroke of an
icy finger running down his spine.
“’Evening, sir,” said the policeman. “Mr. Shotter?”
Soapy’s breath returned.
“That’s me,” he said huskily. This thing, coming so soon after his
unrehearsed impersonation of Hash Todhunter, made him feel the sort of
dizzy feeling which a small-part actor must experience who has to open a
play as Jervis, a footman, and then rush up to his dressing room, make a
complete change and return five minutes later as Lord George Spelvin,
one of Lady Hemmingway’s guests at The Towers.
The policeman fumbled in the recesses of his costume.
“Noo resident, sir, I think?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will doubtless be glad,” said the policeman, shutting
his eyes and beginning to speak with great rapidity, as if he
were giving evidence in court, “of the opportunity to support a
charitibulorganization which is not only most deserving in itself but
is connected with a body of men to ’oom you as a house-’older will be
the first to admit that you owe the safety of your person and the
tranquillity of your home--the police,” explained the officer, opening
his eyes.
Mr. Molloy did not look on the force in quite this light, but he could
not hurt the man’s feelings by saying so.
“This charitibulorganizationtowhichIallude,” resumed the constable,
shutting his eyes again, “is the Policeman’s Orphanage, for which I have
been told of--one of several others--to sell tickets for the annual
concert of, to be ’eld at the Oddfellows ‘All in Ogilvy Street on the
coming sixteenth prox. Tickets, which may be purchased in any quantity
or number, consist of the five-shilling ticket, the half-crown ticket,
the two-shilling ticket, the shilling ticket and the sixpenny ticket.”
He opened his eyes. “May I have the pleasure of selling you and your
good lady a couple of the five-shilling?”
“If I may add such weight as I possess to the request, I should
certainly advocate the purchase, Mr. Shotter. It is a most excellent and
deserving charity.”
The speaker was a gentleman in clerical dress who had appeared from
nowhere and was standing at the constable’s side. His voice caused Soapy
a certain relief; for when, a moment before, a second dark figure had
suddenly manifested itself on the top step, he had feared that the
strain of the larger life was causing him to see double.
“I take it that I am addressing Mr. Shotter?” continued the new-comer.
He was a hatchet-faced man with penetrating eyes and for one awful
moment he had looked to Soapy exactly like Sherlock Holmes. “I have just
taken up my duties as vicar of this parish, and I am making a little
preliminary round of visits so that I may become acquainted with my
parishioners. Mr. Cornelius, the house agent, very kindly gave me a list
of names. May I introduce myself?--the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham.”
It has been well said that the world knows little of its greatest men.
This name, which would have thrilled Kay Derrick, made no impression
upon Soapy Molloy. He was not a great reader; and when he did read, it
was something a little lighter and more on the zippy side than _Is There
a Hell?_
“How do?” he said gruffly.
“And ’ow many of the five-shilling may I sell you and your good lady?”
inquired the constable. His respect for the cloth had kept him silent
through the recent conversation, but now he seemed to imply that
business is business.
“It is a most excellent charity,” said the Rev. Aubrey, edging past
Soapy in spite of that sufferer’s feeble effort to block the way. “And I
understand that several highly competent performers will appear on the
platform. I am right, am I not, officer?”
“Yes, sir, you are quite right. In the first part of the program
Constable Purvis will render the ’Oly City--no, I’m a liar, Asleep on
the Deep; Constable Jukes will render imitations of well-known footlight
celebrities ’oo are familiartoyouall; Inspector Oakshott will render
conjuring tricks; Constable----”
“An excellent evening’s entertainment, in fact,” said the Rev. Aubrey.
“I am taking the chair, I may mention.”
“And the vicar is taking the chair,” said the policeman, swift to seize
upon this added attraction. “So ’ow many of the five-shilling may I sell
you and your good lady, sir?”
Soapy, like Chimp, was a thrifty man; and apart from the expense, his
whole soul shrank from doing anything even remotely calculated to
encourage the force. Nevertheless, he perceived that there was no escape
and decided that it remained only to save as much as possible from the
wreck.
“Gimme one,” he said, and the words seemed to be torn from him.
“One only?” said the constable disappointedly. “’Ow about your good
lady?”
“I’m not married.”
“’Ow about your sister?”
“I haven’t a sister.”
“Then ’ow about if you ’appen to meet one of your gentlemen friends at
the club and he expresses a wish to come along?”
“Gimme one!” said Soapy.
The policeman gave him one, received the money, returned a few genial
words of thanks and withdrew. Soapy, going back into the house, was
acutely disturbed to find that the vicar had come too.
“A most deserving charity,” said the vicar.
Soapy eyed him bleakly. How did one get rid of vicars? Short of
employing his bride’s universal panacea and hauling off and busting him
one, Soapy could not imagine.
“Have you been a resident of Valley Fields long, Mr. Shotter?”
“No.”
“I hope we shall see much of each other.”
“Do you?” said Soapy wanly.
“The first duty of a clergyman, in my opinion----”
Mr. Molloy had no notion of what constituted the first duty of a
clergyman, and he was destined never to find out. For at this moment
there came from the regions above the clear, musical voice of a woman.
“Sweet-ee!”
Mr. Molloy started violently. So did the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham.
“I’m in the bedroom, honey bunch. Come right on up.”
A dull flush reddened the Rev. Aubrey’s ascetic face.
“I understood you to say that you were not married, Mr. Shotter,” he
said in a metallic voice.
“No--er--ah----”
He caught the Rev. Aubrey’s eye. He was looking as Sherlock Holmes might
have looked had he discovered Doctor Watson stealing his watch.
“No--I--er--ah----”
It is not given to every man always to do the right thing in trying
circumstances. Mr. Molloy may be said at this point definitely to have
committed a social blunder. Winking a hideous, distorted wink, he raised
the forefinger of his right hand and with a gruesome archness drove it
smartly in between his visitor’s third and fourth ribs.
“Oh, well, you know how it is,” he said thickly.
The Rev. Aubrey Jerningham quivered from head to heel. He drew himself
up and looked at Soapy. The finger had given him considerable physical
pain, but it was the spiritual anguish that hurt the more.
“I do, indeed, know how it is,” he said.
“Man of the world,” said Soapy, relieved.
“I will wish you good evening, Mr. Shotter,” said the Rev. Aubrey.
The front door banged. Dolly appeared on the landing.
“Why don’t you come up?” she said.
“Because I’m going to lie down,” said Soapy, breathing heavily.
“What do you mean?”
“I want a rest. I need a rest, and I’m going to have it.” Dolly
descended to the hall.
“Why, you’re looking all in, precious!”
“‘All in’ is right. If I don’t ease off for a coupla minutes, you’ll
have to send for an ambulance.”
“Well, I don’t know as I won’t take a spell myself. It’s kinda dusty
work, hunting around. I’ll go take a breath of air outside at the
back.... Was that somebody else calling just now?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Gee! These people round these parts don’t seem to have any homes of
their own, do they? Well, I’ll be back in a moment, honey. There’s a
sort of greenhouse place by the back door. Quite likely old Finglass may
have buried the stuff there.”
§ 3
The Rev. Aubrey Jerningham crossed the little strip of gravel that
served both Mon Repos and San Rafael as a drive and mounted the steps
to Mr. Wrenn’s front door. He was still quivering.
“Mr. Wrenn?” he asked of the well-dressed young man who answered the
ring.
Mr. Braddock shook his head. This was the second time in the last five
minutes that he had been taken for the owner of San Rafael; for while
the vicar had worked down Burberry Road from the top, the policeman had
started at the bottom and worked up.
“Sorry,” he said, “Mr. Wrenn’s out.”
“I will come in and wait,” said the Rev. Aubrey.
“Absolutely,” said Mr. Braddock.
He led the way to the drawing-room, feeling something of the
embarrassment, though in a slighter degree, which this holy man had
inspired in Soapy Molloy. He did not know much about vicars, and rather
wondered how he was to keep the conversation going.
“Offer you a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’m afraid,” said Mr. Braddock apologetically, “I don’t know where they
keep the whisky.”
“I never touch spirits.”
Conversation languished. Willoughby Braddock began to find his companion
a little damping. Not matey. Seemed to be brooding on something, or Mr.
Braddock was very much mistaken.
“You’re a clergyman, aren’t you, and all that?” he said, after a pause
of some moments.
“I am. My name is the Rev. Aubrey Jerningham. I have just taken up my
duties as vicar of this parish.”
“Ah? Jolly spot.”
“Where every prospect pleases,” said the Rev. Aubrey, “and only man is
vile.”
Silence fell once more. Mr. Braddock searched in his mind for genial
chatter, and found that he was rather short on clerical small talk.
He thought for a moment of asking his visitor why it was that bishops
wore those rummy bootlace-looking things on their hats--a problem that
had always perplexed him; but decided that the other might take offence
at being urged to give away professional secrets.
“How’s the choir coming along?” he asked.
“The choir is quite satisfactory.”
“That’s good. Organ all right?”
“Quite, thank you.”
“Fine!” said Mr. Braddock, feeling that things were beginning to move.
“You know, down where I live, in Wiltshire, the local padres always seem
to have the deuce of a lot of trouble with their organs. Their church
organs, I mean, of course. I’m always getting touched for contributions
to organ funds. Why is that? I’ve often wondered.”
The Rev. Aubrey Jerningham forbore to follow him into this field of
speculation.
“Then you do not live here, Mr.----”
“Braddock’s my name--Willoughby Braddock. Oh, no, I don’t live here.
Just calling. Friend of the family.”
“Ah? Then you are not acquainted with the--gentleman who lives next
door--Mr. Shotter?”
“Oh, yes, I am! Sam Shotter? He’s one of my best pals. Known him for
years and years and years.”
“Indeed? I cannot compliment you upon your choice of associates.”
“Why, what’s wrong with Sam?”
“Only this, Mr. Braddock,” said the Rev. Aubrey, his suppressed wrath
boiling over like a kettle: “He is living a life of open sin.”
“Open which?”
“Open sin. In the heart of my parish.”
“I don’t get this. How do you mean--open sin?”
“I have it from this man Shotter’s own lips that he is a bachelor.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And yet a few minutes ago I called at his house and found that there
was a woman residing there.”
“A woman?”
“A woman.”
“But there can’t be. Sam’s not that sort of chap. Did you see her?”
“I did not wait to see her. I heard her voice.”
“I’ve got it,” said Mr. Braddock acutely. “She must have been a caller;
some casual popper-in, you know.”
“In that case, what would she be doing in his bedroom?”
“In his bedroom?”
“In--his--bedroom! I came here to warn Mr. Wrenn, who, I understand from
Mr. Cornelius, has a young niece, to be most careful to allow nothing in
the shape of neighbourly relations between the two houses. Do you think
that Mr. Wrenn will be returning shortly?”
“I couldn’t say. But look here,” said Mr. Braddock, troubled, “there
must be some mistake.”
“You do not know where he is, by any chance?”
“No--yes, I do, though. He said something about going to see Cornelius.
I think they play chess together or something. A game,” said Mr.
Braddock, “which I have never been able to get the hang of. But then I’m
not awfully good at those brainy games.”
“I will go to Mr. Cornelius’ house,” said the Rev. Aubrey, rising.
“You don’t play mah-jongg, do you?” asked Mr. Braddock. “Now, there’s a
game that I----”
“If he is not there, I will return.”
Left alone, Willoughby Braddock found that his appetite for tea had
deserted him. Claire, grateful for his services, had rather extended
herself over the buttered toast, but it had no appeal for him. He
lighted a cigarette and went out to fiddle with the machinery of his
two-seater, always an assistance to thought.
But even the carburettor, which had one of those fascinating ailments to
which carburettors are subject, yielded him no balm. He was thoroughly
upset and worried.
He climbed into the car and gave himself up to gloomy meditation, and
presently voices down the road announced the return of Kay and Sam. They
were chatting away in the friendliest possible fashion--from where he
sat, Willoughby Braddock could hear Kay’s clear laugh ringing out
happily--and it seemed to Mr. Braddock, though he was no austerer
moralist than the rest of his generation, that things were in a position
only to be described as a bit thick. He climbed down and waited on the
pavement.
“Why, hullo, Willoughby,” said Kay. “This is fine. Have you just
arrived? Come in and have some tea.”
“I’ve had tea, thanks. That girl Claire gave me some, thanks.... I say,
Sam, could I have a word with you?”
“Say on,” said Sam.
“In private, I mean. You don’t mind, Kay?”
“Not a bit. I’ll go in and order tea.”
Kay disappeared into the house; and Sam, looking at Mr. Braddock,
observed with some surprise that his face had turned a vivid red and
that his eyes were fastened upon him in a reproachful stare.
“What’s up?” he asked, concerned.
Willoughby Braddock cleared his throat.
“You know, Sam----”
“But I don’t,” said Sam, as he paused.
“----you know, Sam, I’m not a--nobody would call me a---- Dash it, now
I’ve forgotten the word!”
“Beauty?” hazarded Sam.
“It’s on the tip of my tongue--Puritan. That’s the word I want. I’m not
a Puritan. Not strait-laced, you know. But, really, honestly, Sam, old
man--I mean, dash it all!”
Sam stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“I still don’t quite get it, Bradder,” he said. “What exactly is the
trouble?”
“Well, I mean, on the premises, old boy, absolutely on the premises--is
it playing the game? I mean, next door to people who are pals of mine
and taking Kay to the theatre and generally going on as if nothing was
wrong.”
“Well, what is wrong?” asked Sam patiently.
“Well, when it comes to the vicar beetling in and complaining about
women in your bedroom----”
“What?”
“He said he heard her.”
“Heard a woman in my bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“He must be crazy. When?”
“Just now.”
“This beats me.”
“Well, that was what he said, anyway. Dashed unpleasant he was about it
too. Oh, and there’s another thing, Sam. I wish you’d ask that man of
yours not to call me brother. He----”
“Great Cæsar!” said Sam.
He took Willoughby Braddock by the arm and urged him toward the steps.
His face wore a purposeful look.
“You go in, like a good chap, and talk to Kay,” he said. “Tell her I’ll
be in in a minute. There’s something I’ve got to look into.”
“Yes, but listen----”
“Run along!”
“But I don’t understand.”
“Push off!”
Yielding to superior force, Willoughby Braddock entered San Rafael,
walking pensively. And Sam, stepping off the gravel onto the grass,
moved with a stealthy tread toward his home. Vague but lively suspicions
were filling his mind.
He had reached the foot of the steps and paused to listen, when the
evening air was suddenly split by a sharp feminine scream. This was
followed by a joyous barking. And this in its turn was followed by the
abrupt appearance of a flying figure, racing toward the gate. It was
moving swiftly and the light was dim, but Sam had no difficulty in
recognising his old acquaintance Miss Gunn, of Pittsburgh. She fled
rapidly through the gate and out into Burberry Road, while Amy, looking
in the dusk like a small elephant, gambolled about her, uttering strange
canine noises. Dolly slammed the gate, but gates meant nothing to Amy.
She poured herself over it and the two passed into the darkness.
Sam’s jaw set grimly. He moved with noiseless steps to the door of Mon
Repos and took out his key.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MAINLY ABOUT TROUSERS
§ 1
The meeting between Amy and Mrs. Molloy had taken place owing to the
resolve of the latter to search the small conservatory which stood
outside the back door. She had told Soapy that she thought the missing
bonds might be hidden there. They were not, but Amy was. The
conservatory was a favourite sleeping porch of Amy’s, and thither she
had repaired on discovering that her frolicsome overtures to Hash had
been taken in the wrong spirit.
Mrs. Molloy’s feelings, on groping about in the dark and suddenly poking
her hand into the cavernous mouth of the largest dog she had ever
encountered, have perhaps been sufficiently indicated by the description
of her subsequent movements. Iron-nerved woman though she was, this was
too much for her.
The single scream which she emitted, previous to saving her breath for
the race for life, penetrated only faintly to where Mr. Molloy sat
taking a rest on the sofa in the drawing-room. He heard it, but it had
no message for him. He was feeling a little better now, and his
ganglions, though not having ceased to vibrate with uncomfortable
rapidity, were beginning to simmer down. He decided that he would give
himself another couple of minutes of repose.
It was toward the middle of the second minute that the door opened
quietly and Sam came in. He stood looking at the recumbent Mr. Molloy
for a moment.
“Comfortable?” he said.
Soapy shot off the sofa with a sort of gurgling whoop. Of all the
disturbing events of that afternoon, this one had got more surely in
amongst his nerve centres than any other. He had not heard the door
open, and Sam’s voice had been the first intimation that he was no
longer alone.
“I’m afraid I startled you,” said Sam.
The exigencies of a difficult profession had made Soapy Molloy a quick
thinker. Frequently in the course of a busy life he had found himself in
positions where a split second was all that was allowed him for forming
a complete plan of action. His trained mind answered to the present
emergency like a machine.
“You certainly did startle me,” he said bluffly, in his best Thomas G.
Gunn manner. “You startled the daylights out of me. So here you are at
last, Mr. Shotter.”
“Yes, here I am.”
“I have been waiting quite some little time. I’m afraid you caught me on
the point of going to sleep.”
He chuckled, as a man will when the laugh is on him.
“I should imagine,” said Sam, “that it would take a smart man to catch
you asleep.”
Mr. Molloy chuckled again.
“Just what the boys used to say of me in Denver City.” He paused and
looked at Sam a little anxiously. “Say, you do remember me, Mr.
Shotter?”
“I certainly do.”
“You remember my calling here the other day to see my old home?”
“I remember you before that--when you were in Sing Sing.”
He turned away to light the gas, and Mr. Molloy was glad of the interval
for thought afforded by this action.
“Sing Sing?”
“Yes.”
“You were never there.”
“I went there to see a show, in which you took an important part. I
forget what your number was.”
“And what of it?”
“Eh?”
Mr. Molloy drew himself up with considerable dignity.
“What of it?” he repeated. “What if I was for a brief period--owing to a
prejudiced judge and a packed jury--in the place you mention? I decline
to have the fact taken as a slur on my character. You are an American,
Mr. Shotter, and you know that there is unfortunately a dark side to
American politics. My fearless efforts on behalf of the party of reform
and progress brought me into open hostility with a gang of unscrupulous
men, who did not hesitate to have me arrested on a trumped-up charge
and----”
“All this,” said Sam, “would go a lot stronger with me if I hadn’t found
you burgling my house.”
It would have been difficult to say whether the expression that swept
over Mr. Molloy’s fine face was more largely indignation or amazement.
“Burgling your house? Are you insane? I called here in the hope of
seeing you, was informed that you were not at home, and was invited by
your manservant, a most civil fellow, to await your return. Burgling
your house, indeed! If I were, would you have found me lying on the
sofa?”
“Hash let you in?”
Such was the magnetic quality of the personality of one who had often
sold large blocks of shares in nonexistent oil wells to Scotchmen, that
Sam was beginning in spite of himself to be doubtful.
“If Hash is the name of your manservant, most certainly he let me in. He
admitted me by the front door in the perfectly normal and conventional
manner customary when gentlemen pay calls.”
“Where is Hash?”
“Why ask me?”
Sam went to the door. The generous indignation of his visitor had caused
him to waver, but it had not altogether convinced him.
“Hash!” he called.
“He appears to be out.”
“Hash!”
“Gone for a walk, no doubt.”
“Hash!” shouted Sam.
From the regions below there came an answering cry.
“Hi! Help!”
It had been a long and arduous task for Hash Todhunter to expel from his
mouth the duster which Soapy Molloy had rammed into it with such
earnest care, but he had accomplished it at last, and his voice sounded
to Mr. Molloy like a knell.
“He appears to be in, after all,” he said feebly.
Sam had turned and was regarding him fixedly, and Soapy noted with a
sinking heart the athletic set of his shoulders and the large
muscularity of his hands. “Haul off and bust him one!” his wife’s gentle
voice seemed to whisper in his ear; but eying Sam, he knew that any such
project was but a Utopian dream. Sam had the unmistakable look of one
who, if busted, would infallibly bust in return and bust
disintegratingly.
“You tied him up, I suppose,” said Sam, with a menacing calm.
Soapy said nothing. There is a time for words and a time for silence.
Sam looked at him in some perplexity. He had begun to see that he was
faced with the rather delicate problem of how to be in two places at the
same time. He must, of course, at once go down to the kitchen and
release Hash. But if he did that, would not this marauder immediately
escape by the front door? And if he took him down with him to the
kitchen, the probability was that he would escape by the back door.
While if he merely left him in this room and locked the door, he would
proceed at once to depart by the window.
It was a nice problem, but all problems are capable of solution. Sam
solved this one in a spasm of pure inspiration. He pointed a menacing
finger at Soapy.
“Take off those trousers!” he said.
Soapy gaped. The intellectual pressure of the conversation had become
too much for him.
“Trousers?” he faltered.
“Trousers. You know perfectly well what trousers are,” said Sam, “and
it’s no good pretending you don’t. Take them off!”
“Take off my trousers?”
“Good Lord!” said Sam with sudden petulance. “What’s the matter with the
man. You do it every night, don’t you? You do it when you take a Turkish
bath, don’t you? Where’s the difficulty? Peel them off and don’t waste
time.”
“But----”
“Listen!” said Sam. “If those trousers are not delivered to me f. o. b.
in thirty seconds, I’ll bust you one!”
He had them in eighteen.
“Now,” said Sam, “I think you’ll find it a little difficult to get
away.”
He gathered up the garments, draped them over his arm and went down to
the kitchen.
§ 2
Love is the master passion. It had come to Hash Todhunter late, but,
like measles, the more violent for the delay. A natural inclination to
go upstairs and rend his recent aggressor limb from limb faded before
the more imperious urge to dash across to San Rafael and see Claire. It
was the first thing of which he spoke when Sam, with the aid of a
carving knife, had cut his bonds.
“I got to see ’er!”
“Are you hurt, Hash?”
“No, ’e only ’it me on the ’ead. I got to see ’er, Sam.”
“Claire?”
“Ah! The pore little angel, crying ’er ruddy eyes out. The gentleman was
saying all about it.”
“What gentleman?”
“A gentleman come to the back door and told that perisher all about how
the pore little thing was howling and weeping and all, thinking ’e was
me.”
“Have you had a quarrel with Claire?”
“We ’ad words. I got to see ’er.”
“You shall. Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk. Why shouldn’t I walk?”
“Come along then.”
In spite of his assurance, however, Hash found his cramped limbs hard to
steer. Sam had to lend an arm, and their progress was slow.
“Sam,” said Hash, after a pause which had been intended primarily for
massage, but which had plainly been accompanied by thought, “do you know
anything about getting married?”
“Only that it is an excellent thing to do.”
“I mean, ’ow quick can a feller get married?”
“Like a flash, I believe. At any rate, if he goes to a registrar’s.”
“I’m going to a registrar’s then. I’ve ’ad enough of these what I might
call misunderstandings.”
“Brave words, Hash! How are the legs?”
“The legs are all right. It’s her mother I’m thinking of.”
“You always seem to be thinking of her mother. Are you quite sure
you’ve picked the right one of the family?”
Hash had halted again, and his face was that of a man whose soul was a
battlefield.
“Sam, ’er mother wants to come and live with us when we’re married.”
“Well, why not?”
“Ah, you ain’t seen her, Sam! She’s got a hooked nose and an eye like
one of these animal trainers. Still----”
The battle appeared to be resumed once more.
“Oh, well!” said Hash. He mused for a while. “You’ve got to look at it
all round, you know.”
“Exactly.”
“And there’s this to think of: She says she’ll buy a pub for us.”
“Pubs are pubs,” agreed Sam.
“I’ve always wanted to have a pub of my own.”
“Then I shouldn’t hesitate.”
Hash suddenly saw the poetic side of the vision.
“Won’t my little Clara look a treat standing behind a bar, serving the
drinks and singing out, ‘Time, gentlemen, please!’ Can’t you see her
scraping the froth off the mugs?”
He fell into a rapt silence, and said no more while Sam escorted him
through the back door of San Rafael and led him into the kitchen.
There, rightly considering that the sacred scene of re-union was not for
his eyes, Sam turned away. Gently depositing the nether garments of Mr.
Molloy on the table, he left them together and made his way to the
drawing-room.
§ 3
The first thing he heard as he opened the door was Kay’s voice.
“I don’t care,” she was saying. “I simply don’t believe it.”
He went in and discovered that she was addressing her uncle, Mr. Wrenn,
and the white-bearded Mr. Cornelius. They were standing together by the
mantelpiece, their attitude the sheepish and browbeaten one of men who
have been rash enough to argue with a woman. Mr. Wrenn was fiddling with
his tie, and Mr. Cornelius looked like a druid who is having a little
unpleasantness with the widow of the deceased.
Sam’s entrance was the signal for an awkward silence.
“Hullo, Mr. Wrenn,” said Sam. “Good evening, Mr. Cornelius.”
Mr. Wrenn looked at Mr. Cornelius. Mr. Cornelius looked at Mr. Wrenn.
“Say something,” said Mr. Cornelius’ eye to Mr. Wrenn. “You are her
uncle.”
“You say something,” retorted Mr. Wrenn’s eye to Mr. Cornelius. “You
have a white beard.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a time,” said Sam to Kay. “I have had a little
domestic trouble. I found a gentleman burgling my house.”
“What?”
“There had been a lady there, too, but she was leaving as I arrived.”
“A lady!”
“Well, let us call her a young female party.”
Kay swung round on Mr. Wrenn, her eyes gleaming with the light that
shines only in the eyes of girls who are entitled to say “I told you
so!” to elderly relatives. Mr. Wrenn avoided her gaze. Mr. Cornelius
plucked at his beard and registered astonishment.
“Burgling your house? What for?”
“That’s what’s puzzling me. These two people seem extraordinarily
interested in Mon Repos. They called some days ago and wanted to buy the
place, and now I find them burgling it.”
“Good heavens!” cried Mr. Cornelius. “I wonder! Can it be possible?”
“I shouldn’t wonder. It might,” said Sam. “What?”
“Do you remember my telling you, Mr. Shotter, when you came to me about
the lease of the house that a well-known criminal had once lived there?”
“Yes.”
“A man named Finglass. Do you remember Finglass, Wrenn?”
“No; he must have been before my time.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About three years and a half.”
“Ah, then it was before your time. This man robbed the New Asiatic Bank
of something like four hundred thousand pounds’ worth of securities. He
was never caught, and presumably fled the country. You will find the
whole story in my history of Valley Fields. Can it be possible that
Finglass hid the bonds in Mon Repos and was unable to get back there and
remove them?”
“You said it!” cried Sam enthusiastically.
“It would account for the anxiety of these people to obtain access to
the house.”
“Why, of course!” said Kay.
“It sounds extremely likely,” said Mr. Wrenn.
“Was the man tall and thin, with a strong cast in the left eye?”
“No; a square-faced sort of fellow.”
“Then it would not be Finglass himself. No doubt some other criminal,
some associate of his, who had learned from him that the bonds were
hidden in the house. I wish I had my history here,” said Mr. Cornelius.
“Several pages of it are devoted to Finglass.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Sam, “go and get it.”
“Shall I?”
“Yes, do.”
“Very well. Will you come with me, Wrenn?”
“Certainly he will,” said Sam warmly. “Mr. Wrenn would like a breath of
fresh air.”
With considerable satisfaction he heard the front door close on the
non-essential members of the party.
“What an extraordinary thing!” said Kay.
“Yes,” said Sam, drawing his chair closer. “The aspect of the affair
that strikes me----”
“What became of the man?”
“He’s all right. I left him in the drawing-room.”
“But he’ll escape.”
“Oh, no.”
“Why not?”
“Well, he won’t.”
“But all he’s got to do is walk out of the door.”
“Yes, but he won’t do it.” Sam drew his chair still closer. “I was
saying that the aspect of the affair that strikes me most forcibly is
that now I shall be in a position to marry and do it properly.”
“Are you thinking of marrying someone?”
“I think of nothing else. Well, now, to look into this. The bank will
probably give a ten per cent reward for the return of the stuff. Even
five per cent would be a nice little sum. That fixes the financial end
of the thing. So now----”
“You seem very certain that you will find this money.”
“Oh, I shall find it, have no fear. If it’s there----”
“Yes, but perhaps it isn’t.”
“I feel sure that it is. So now let’s make our plans. We will buy a farm
somewhere, don’t you think?”
“I have no objection to your buying a farm.”
“I said we. We will buy a farm, and there settle down and live to a ripe
old age on milk, honey and the produce of the soil. You will wear a
gingham gown, I shall grow a beard. We will keep dogs, pigeons, cats,
sheep, fowls, horses, cows, and a tortoise to keep in the garden. Good
for the snails,” explained Sam.
“Bad for them, I should think. Are you fond of tortoises?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Not very.”
“Then,” said Sam magnanimously, “we will waive the tortoise.”
“It sounds like a forgotten sport of the past--Waving the Tortoise.”
“To resume. We decide on the farm. Right! Now where is it to be? You are
a Wiltshire girl, so no doubt will prefer that county. I can’t afford
to buy back Midways for you, I’m afraid, unless on second thoughts I
decide to stick to the entire proceeds instead of handing them back to
the bank--we shall have to talk that over later--but isn’t there some
old greystone, honeysuckle-covered place in the famous Braddock
estates?”
“Good heavens!”
“What’s the matter?”
“You said you had left that man in your drawing-room.”
“Well?”
“I’ve suddenly remembered that I sent Willoughby over to Mon Repos ten
minutes ago to find out why you were so long. He’s probably being
murdered.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so. To go back to what I was saying----”
“You must go and see at once.”
“Do you really think it’s necessary?”
“Of course it is.”
“Oh, very well.”
Sam rose reluctantly. Life, he felt with considerable peevishness, was
one long round of interruptions. He went round to the door of Mon Repos
and let himself in with his key. A rumble of voices proceeding from the
drawing-room greeted him as he entered. He banged the door, and a moment
later Mr. Braddock came out, looking a little flustered.
“Oh, there you are, Sam! I was just coming round to fetch you.”
“Anything wrong?”
“It depends on what you call wrong.” Mr. Braddock closed the
drawing-room door carefully. “You know Lord Tilbury?”
“Of course I know Lord Tilbury.”
“Well, he’s in there,” said Willoughby Braddock, jerking an awed thumb
toward the drawing-room, “and he hasn’t got any trousers on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SAM HEARS BAD NEWS
Sam uttered a cry of exceeding bitterness. Nothing is more galling to
your strategist than to find that some small, unforeseen accident has
occurred and undone all his schemes. The one thing for which he had
omitted to allow was the possibility of some trousered caller wandering
in during his absence and supplying Mr. Molloy with the means of escape.
“So he’s gone, I suppose?” he said morosely.
“No, he’s still here,” said Mr. Braddock. “In the drawing-room.”
“The man, I mean.”
“What man?”
“The other man.”
“What other man?” asked Mr. Braddock, whose exacting afternoon had begun
to sap his mental powers.
“Oh, never mind,” said Sam impatiently. “What did Lord Tilbury want,
coming down here, confound him?”
“Came to see you about something, I should think,” surmised Mr.
Braddock.
“Didn’t he tell you what it was?”
“No. As a matter of fact, we’ve been chatting mostly about trousers. You
haven’t got a spare pair in the house by any chance, have you?”
“Of course I have--upstairs.”
“Then I wish,” said Mr. Braddock earnestly, “that you would dig them out
and give them to the old boy. He’s been trying for the last ten minutes
to get me to lend him mine, and it simply can’t be done. I’ve got to be
getting back to town soon to dress for dinner, and you can say what you
like, a fellow buzzing along in a two-seater without any trousers on
looks conspicuous.”
“Darn that fool, coming down here at just this time!” said Sam, still
aggrieved. “What exactly happened?”
“Well, he’s a bit on the incoherent side; but as far as I can make out,
that man of yours, the chap who called me brother, seems to have gone
completely off his onion. Old Tilbury rang the front doorbell, and there
was a bit of a pause, and then this chap opened the door and old Tilbury
went in, and then he happened to look at him and saw that he hadn’t any
trousers on.”
“That struck him as strange, of course.”
“Apparently he hadn’t much time to think about it, for the bloke
immediately proceeded to hold him up with a gun.”
“He hadn’t got a gun.”
“Well, old Tilbury asserts that he was shoving something against his
pocket from inside.”
“His finger, or a pipe.”
“No, I say, really!” Mr. Braddock’s voice betrayed the utmost
astonishment and admiration. “Would that be it? I call that clever.”
“Well, he hadn’t a gun when I caught him or he would have used it on me.
What happened then?”
“How do you mean--caught him?”
“I found him burgling the house.”
“Was that chap who called me brother a burglar?” cried Mr. Braddock,
amazed. “I thought he was your man.”
“Well, he wasn’t. What happened next?”
“The bloke proceeded to de-bag old Tilbury. Then shoving on the
trousers, he started to leg it. Old Tilbury at this juncture appears to
have said ‘Hi! What about me?’ or words to that effect; upon which the
bloke replied, ‘Use your own judgment!’ and passed into the night. When
I came in, old Tilbury was in the drawing-room, wearing the evening
paper as a sort of kilt and not looking too dashed pleased with things
in general.”
“Well, come along and see him.”
“Not me,” said Mr. Braddock. “I’ve had ten minutes of him and it has
sufficed. Also, I’ve got to be buzzing up to town. I’m dining out.
Besides, it’s you he wants to see, not me.”
“I wonder what he wants to see me about.”
“Must be something important to bring him charging down here. Well, I’ll
be moving, old boy. Mustn’t keep you. Thanks for a very pleasant
afternoon.”
Willoughby Braddock took his departure; and Sam, having gone to his
bedroom and found a pair of grey flannel trousers, returned to the lower
regions and went into the drawing-room.
* * * * *
He had not expected to find his visitor in anything approaching a mood
of sunniness, but he was unprepared for the red glare of hate and
hostility in the eyes which seared their way through him as he entered.
It almost seemed as if Lord Tilbury imagined the distressing happenings
of the last quarter of an hour to be Sam’s fault.
“So there you are!” said Lord Tilbury.
He had been standing with an air of coyness behind the sofa; but now, as
he observed the trousers over Sam’s arm, he swooped forward feverishly
and wrenched them from him. He pulled them on, muttering thickly to
himself; and this done, drew himself up and glared at his host once more
with that same militant expression of loathing in his eyes.
He seemed keenly alive to the fact that he was not looking his best. Sam
was a long-legged man, and in the case of Lord Tilbury, Nature, having
equipped him with an outsize in brains, had not bothered much about his
lower limbs. The borrowed trousers fell in loose folds about his ankles,
brushing the floor. Nor did they harmonise very satisfactorily with the
upper portion of a morning suit. Seeing him, Sam could not check a faint
smile of appreciation.
Lord Tilbury saw the smile, and it had the effect of increasing his fury
to the point where bubbling rage becomes a sort of frozen calm.
“You are amused,” he said tensely.
Sam repudiated the dreadful charge.
“No, no! Just thinking of something.”
“Cor!” said Lord Tilbury.
Sam perceived that a frank and soothing explanation must be his first
step. After that, and only after that, could he begin to institute
inquiries as to why His Lordship had honoured him with this visit.
“That fellow who stole your trousers----”
“I have no wish to discuss him,” said Lord Tilbury with hauteur. “The
fact that you employ a lunatic manservant causes me no surprise.”
“He wasn’t my manservant. He was a burglar.”
“A burglar? Roaming at large about the house? Did you know he was here?”
“Oh, yes. I caught him and I made him take his trousers off, and then I
went next door to tea.”
Lord Tilbury expelled a long breath.
“Indeed? You went next door to tea?”
“Yes.”
“Leaving this--this criminal----”
“Well, I knew he couldn’t get away. Oh, I had reasoned it all out. Your
happening to turn up was just a bit of bad luck. Was there anything you
wanted to see me about?” asked Sam, feeling that the sooner this
interview terminated the pleasanter it would be.
Lord Tilbury puffed out his cheeks and stood smouldering for a moment.
In the agitation of the recent occurrences, he had almost forgotten the
tragedy which had sent him hurrying down to Mon Repos.
“Yes, there was,” he said. He sizzled for another brief instant. “I may
begin by telling you,” he said, “that your uncle, Mr. Pynsent, when he
sent you over here to join my staff, practically placed me _in loco
parentis_ with respect to you.”
“An excellent idea,” said Sam courteously.
“An abominable idea! It was an iniquitous thing to demand of a busy man
that he should take charge of a person of a character so erratic, so
undisciplined, so--er--eccentric as to border closely upon the insane.”
“Insane?” said Sam. He was wounded to the quick by the injustice of
these harsh words. From first to last, he could think of no action of
his that had not been inspired and guided throughout by the dictates of
pure reason. “Who, me?”
“Yes, you! It was a monstrous responsibility to give any man, and I
consented to undertake it only because--er----”
“I know. My uncle told me,” said Sam, to help him out. “You had some
business deal on, and you wanted to keep in with him.”
Lord Tilbury showed no gratitude for this kindly prompting.
“Well,” he said bitterly, “it may interest you to know that the deal to
which you refer has fallen through.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” said Sam sympathetically. “That’s tough
luck. I’m afraid my uncle is a queer sort of fellow to do business
with.”
“I received a cable from him this afternoon, informing me that he had
changed his mind and would be unable to meet me in the matter.”
“Too bad,” said Sam. “I really am sorry.”
“And it is entirely owing to you, you may be pleased to learn.”
“Me? Why, what have I done?”
“I will tell you what you have done. Mr. Pynsent’s cable was in answer
to one from me, in which I informed him that you were in the process of
becoming entangled with a girl.”
“What?”
“You need not trouble to deny it. I saw you with my own eyes lunching
together at the Savoy, and I happen to know that this afternoon you took
her to the theatre.”
Sam looked at him dizzily.
“You aren’t--you can’t by any chance be referring to Miss Derrick?”
“Of course I am referring to Miss Derrick.”
So stupendous was Sam’s amazement that anybody could describe what was
probably the world’s greatest and most beautiful romance as “becoming
entangled with a girl” that he could only gape.
“I cabled to Mr. Pynsent, informing him of the circumstances and asking
for instructions.”
“You did what?” Sam’s stupor of astonishment had passed away, whirled to
the four winds on a tempestuous rush of homicidal fury. “You mean to
tell me that you had the--the nerve--the insolence----” He gulped. Being
a young man usually quick to express his rare bursts of anger in terms
of action, he looked longingly at Lord Tilbury, regretting that the
latter’s age and physique disqualified him as a candidate for assault
and battery. “Do you mean to tell me----” He swallowed rapidly. The
thought of this awful little man spying upon Kay and smirching her with
his loathly innuendoes made mere words inadequate.
“I informed Mr. Pynsent that you were conducting a clandestine love
affair and asked him what I was to do.”
To Sam, like some blessed inspiration, there came a memory of a scene
that had occurred in his presence abaft the fiddley of the tramp steamer
_Araminta_ when that vessel was two days out of New York. A dreamy
able-bodied seaman, thoughts of home or beer having temporarily taken
his mind off his job, had chanced to wander backward onto the foot of
the bos’n while the latter was crossing the deck with a full pot of
paint in his hands. And the bos’n, recovering his breath, had condensed
his feelings into two epithets so elastic and comprehensive that, while
they were an exact description of the able-bodied seaman, they applied
equally well to Lord Tilbury. Indeed, it seemed to Sam that they might
have been invented expressly for Lord Tilbury’s benefit.
A moment before he had been deploring the inadequacy of mere words. But
these were not mere words. They were verbal dynamite.
“You so-and-so!” said Sam. “You such-and-such!”
Sailors are toughened by early training and long usage to bear
themselves phlegmatically beneath abuse. Lord Tilbury had had no such
advantages. He sprang backward as if he had been scalded by a sudden jet
of boiling water.
“You pernicious little bounder!” said Sam. He strode to the door and
flung it open. “Get out!”
If ever there was an occasion on which a man might excusably have said
“Sir!” this was it; and no doubt, had he been able to speak, this was
the word which Lord Tilbury would have used. Nearly a quarter of a
century had passed since he had been addressed in this fashion to his
face, and the thing staggered him.
“Get out!” repeated Sam. “What the devil,” he inquired peevishly, “are
you doing here, poisoning the air?”
Lord Tilbury felt no inclination to embark upon a battle of words in
which he appeared to be in opposition to an expert. Dazedly he flapped
out into the hall, the grey flannel trousers swirling about his feet. At
the front door, however, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet
fired the most important shell in his ammunition wagon. He turned at
bay.
“Wait!” he cried. “I may add----”
“No, you mayn’t,” said Sam.
“I wish to add----”
“Keep moving!”
“I insist on informing you,” shouted Lord Tilbury, plucking at the
trousers with a nautical twitch, “of this one thing: Your uncle said in
his cable that you were to take the next boat back to America.”
It had not been Sam’s intention to permit anything to shake the stern
steeliness of his attitude, but this information did it. He stopped
midway in an offensive sniff designed to afford a picturesque
illustration of his view on the other’s air-poisoning qualities and
gazed at him blankly.
“Did he say that?”
“Yes, he did.” Sam scratched his chin thoughtfully. Lord Tilbury began
to feel a little better. “And,” he continued, “as I should imagine that
a young man of your intellectual attainments has little scope for making
a living except by sponging on his rich relatives, I presume that you
will accede to his wishes. In case you may still suppose that you are a
member of the staff of Tilbury House, I will disabuse you of that view.
You are not.”
Sam remained silent; and Lord Tilbury, expanding and beginning to
realise that there is nothing unpleasant about a battle of words
provided that the battling is done in the right quarter, proceeded.
“I only engaged you as a favour to your uncle. On your merits you could
not have entered Tilbury House as an office boy. I say,” he repeated in
a louder voice, “that, had there been no question of obliging Mr.
Pynsent, I would not have engaged you as an office boy.”
Sam came out of his trance.
“Are you still here?” he said, annoyed.
“Yes, I am still here. And let me tell you----”
“Listen!” said Sam. “If you aren’t out of this house in two seconds,
I’ll take those trousers back.”
Every Achilles has his heel. Of all the possible threats that Sam could
have used, this was probably the only one to which Lord Tilbury, in his
dangerously elevated and hostile frame of mind, would have paid heed.
For one moment he stood swelling like a toy balloon, then he slid out
and the door banged behind him.
A dark shape loomed up before Lord Tilbury as he stood upon the gravel
outside the portal of Mon Repos. Beside this shape there frolicked
another and a darker one.
“’Evening, sir.”
Lord Tilbury perceived through the gloom that he was being addressed by
a member of the force. He made no reply. He was not in the mood for
conversation with policemen.
“Bringing your dog back,” said the officer genially. “Found ’er roaming
about at the top of the street.”
“It is not my dog,” said Lord Tilbury between set teeth, repelling Amy
as she endeavoured in her affable way to climb on to his neck.
“Not a member of the ’ousehold, sir? Just a neighbour making a friendly
call? I see. Now I wonder,” said the policeman, “if any of my mates ’ave
approached you on the matter of this concert in aid of a
charitubulorganisation which is not only most deserving in itself but is
connected with a body of men to ’oom you as a nouse’older will----”
“G-r-r-h!” said Lord Tilbury.
He bounded out of the gate. Dimly, as he waddled down Burberry Road, the
grey flannel trousers brushing the pavement with a musical swishing
sound, there came to him, faint but pursuing, the voice of the
indefatigable policeman:
“This charitubulorganisationtowhichIallude----”
Out of the night, sent from heaven, there came a crawling taxicab. Lord
Tilbury poured himself in and sank back on the seat, a spent force.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SAM HEARS GOOD NEWS
Kay came out into the garden of San Rafael. Darkness had fallen now, and
the world was full of the sweet, wet scents of an autumn night. She
stood still for a moment, sniffing, and a little pang of home-sickness
shot through her. The garden smelled just like Midways. This was how she
always remembered Midways most vividly, with the shadows cloaking the
flower beds, the trees dripping and the good earth sending up its
incense to a starlit sky.
When she shut her eyes she could almost imagine that she was back there.
Then somebody began to whistle in the road and a train clanked into the
station and the vision faded.
A faint odour of burning tobacco came to her, and on the lawn next door
she saw the glow of a pipe.
“Sam!” she called.
His footsteps crunched on the gravel and he joined her at the fence.
“You’re a nice sort of person, aren’t you?” said Kay. “Why didn’t you
come back?”
“I had one or two things to think about.”
“Willoughby dashed in for a minute and told me an incoherent story. So
the man got away?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Lord Tilbury!” said Kay, with a sudden silvery little bubble of
laughter.
Sam said nothing.
“What did he want, by the way?”
“He came to tell me that he had had a cable from my uncle saying that I
was to go back at once.”
“Oh!” said Kay with a little gasp, and there was silence. “Go back--to
America?”
“Yes.”
“At once?”
“Wednesday’s boat, I suppose.”
“Not this very next Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
There was another silence. The night was as still as if the clock had
slipped back and Valley Fields had become the remote country spot of two
hundred years ago.
“Are you going?”
“I suppose so.”
From far away, out in the darkness, came the faint grunting of a train
as it climbed the steep gradient of Sydenham Hill. An odd forlorn
feeling swept over Kay.
“Yes, I suppose you must,” she said. “You can’t afford to offend your
uncle, can you?”
Sam moved restlessly, and there was a tiny rasping sound as his hand
scraped along the fence.
“It isn’t that,” he said.
“But your uncle’s very rich, isn’t he?”
“What does that matter?” Sam’s voice shook. “Lord Tilbury was good
enough to inform me that my only way of making a living was to sponge on
my uncle, but I’m not going to have you thinking it.”
“But--well, why are you going then?”
Sam choked.
“I’ll tell you why I’m going. Simply because I might as well be in New
York as anywhere. If there was the slightest hope that by staying on
here I could get you to--to marry me----” His hand rasped on the fence
again. “Of course, I know there isn’t. I know you don’t take me
seriously. I haven’t any illusions about myself. I know just what I
amount to in your eyes. I’m the fellow who blunders about and trips over
himself and is rather amusing when you’re in the mood. But I don’t
count. I don’t amount to anything.” Kay stirred in the darkness, but she
did not speak. “You think I’m kidding all the time. Well, I just want
you to know this--that I’m not kidding about the way I feel about you. I
used to dream over that photograph before I’d ever met you. And when I
met you I knew one thing for certain, and that was there wasn’t ever
going to be anyone except you ever. I know you don’t care about me and
never will. Why should you? What on earth is there about me that could
make you? I’m just a----”
A little ripple of laughter came from the shadows.
“Poor old Sam!” said Kay.
“Yes! There you are--in a nutshell! Poor old Sam!”
“I’m sorry I laughed. But it was so funny to hear you denouncing
yourself in that grand way.”
“Exactly! Funny!”
“Well, what’s wrong with being funny? I like funny people. I’d no notion
you had such hidden depths, Sam. Though, of course, the palmist said
you had, didn’t she?”
The train had climbed the hill and was now rumbling off into the
distance. A smell of burning leaves came floating over the gardens.
“I don’t blame you for laughing,” said Sam. “Pray laugh if you wish to.”
Kay availed herself of the permission.
“Oh, Sam, you are a pompous old ass, aren’t you? ‘Pray laugh if you wish
to’!... Sam!”
“Well?”
“Do you really mean that you would stay on in England if I promised to
marry you?”
“Yes.”
“And offend your rich uncle for life and get cut off with a dollar or
whatever they cut nephews off with in America?”
“Yes.”
Kay reached up at Sam’s head and gave his hair a little proprietorial
tug.
“Well, why don’t you, Sambo?” she said softly.
It seemed to Sam that in some strange way his powers of breathing had
become temporarily suspended. A curious dry feeling had invaded his
throat. He could hear his heart thumping.
“What?” he croaked huskily.
“I said why--do--you--not, Samivel?” whispered Kay, punctuating the
words with little tugs.
Sam found himself on the other side of the fence. How he had got there
he did not know. Presumably he had scrambled over. A much abraded shin
bone was to show him later that this theory was the correct one, but at
the moment bruised shins had no meaning for him. He stood churning the
mould of the flower bed on which he had alighted, staring at the
indistinct whiteness which was Kay.
“But look here,” said Sam thickly. “But look here----” A bird stirred
sleepily in the tree.
“But look here----”
And then somehow--things were happening mysteriously to-night, and
apparently of their own volition--he found that Kay was in his arms. It
seemed to him also, though his faculties were greatly clouded, that he
was kissing Kay.
“But look here----” he said thickly. They were now, in some peculiar
manner, walking together up the gravel path, and he, unless his senses
deceived him, was holding her hand tucked very tightly under his arm. At
least, somebody, at whom he seemed to be looking from a long distance,
was doing this. This individual, who appeared to be in a confused frame
of mind, was holding that hand with a sort of frenzied determination, as
if he were afraid she might get away from him. “But look here, this
isn’t possible!”
“What isn’t possible?”
“All this. A girl like you--a wonderful, splendid, marvellous girl like
you can’t possibly love”--the word seemed to hold all the magic of all
the magicians, and he repeated it dazedly--“love--love--can’t possibly
love a fellow like me.” He paused, finding the wonder of the thing
oppressive. “It--it doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?”
“Well, a fellow--a man--a fellow--oh, I don’t know.”
Kay chuckled. It came upon Sam with an overwhelming sense of personal
loss that she was smiling and that he could not see that smile. Other,
future smiles he would see, but not that particular one, and it seemed
to him that he would never be able to make up for having missed it.
“Would you like to to know something, Sam?”
“What?”
“Well, if you’ll listen, I’ll explain exactly how I feel. Have you ever
had a very exciting book taken away from you just when you were in the
middle of it?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I have. It was at Midways, when I was nine. I had borrowed it
from the page boy, who was a great friend of mine, and it was about a
man called Cincinnati Kit, who went round most of the time in a mask,
with lots of revolvers. I had just got half-way in it when my governess
caught me and I was sent to bed and the book was burned. So I never
found out what happened in the little room with the steel walls behind
the bar at the Blue Gulch Saloon. I didn’t get over the disappointment
for years. Well, when you told me you were going away, I suddenly
realised that this awful thing was on the point of happening to me
again, and this time I knew I would never get over it. It suddenly
flashed upon me that there was absolutely nothing worth while in life
except to be with you and watch you and wonder what perfectly mad thing
you would be up to next. Would Aunt Ysobel say that that was love?”
“She would,” said Sam with conviction.
“Well, it’s my form of it, anyhow. I just want to be with you for years
and years and years, wondering what you’re going to do next.”
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do at this moment,” said Sam. “I’m
going to kiss you.”
Time passed.
“Kay,” said Sam.
“Yes?”
“Do you know---- No, you’ll laugh.”
“I promise I won’t. What were you going to say?”
“That photograph of you--the one I found in the fishing hut.”
“What about it?”
“I kissed it once.”
“Only once?”
“No,” said Sam stoutly. “If you really want the truth, every day; every
blessed single day, and several times a day. Now laugh!”
“No; I’m going to laugh at you all the rest of my life, but not
to-night. You’re a darling, and I suppose,” said Kay thoughtfully, “I’d
better go and tell uncle so, hadn’t I, if he has got back?”
“Tell your uncle?”
“Well, he likes to know what’s going on around him in the home.”
“But that means that you’ll have to go in.”
“Only for a minute. I shall just pop my head in at the door and say ‘Oh,
uncle, talking of Sam, I love him.’”
“Look here,” said Sam earnestly, “if you will swear on your word of
honour--your sacred word of honour--not to be gone more than thirty
seconds----”
“As if I could keep away from you longer than that!” said Kay.
Left alone in a bleak world, Sam found his thoughts taking for a while a
sombre turn. In the exhilaration of the recent miracle which had altered
the whole face of the planet, he had tended somewhat to overlook the
fact that for a man about to enter upon the sacred state of matrimony he
was a little ill equipped with the means of supporting a home. His
weekly salary was in his pocket, and a small sum stood to his credit in
a Lombard Street bank; but he could not, he realised, be considered an
exceptionally good match for the least exacting of girls. Indeed, at the
moment, like the gentleman in the song, all he was in a position to
offer his bride was a happy disposition and a wild desire to succeed.
These are damping reflections for a young man to whom the keys of heaven
have just been given, and they made Sam pensive. But his natural
ebullience was not long in coming to the rescue. One turn up and down
the garden and he was happy again in the possession of lavish rewards
bestowed upon him by beaming bank managers, rejoicing in their hearty
City fashion as they saw those missing bonds restored to them after many
years. He refused absolutely to consider the possibility of failure to
unearth the treasure. It must be somewhere in Mon Repos, and if it was
in Mon Repos he would find it--even if, in direct contravention of the
terms of Clause 8 in his lease, he had to tear the house to pieces.
He strode, full of a great purpose, to the window of the kitchen. A
light shone there, and he could hear the rumbling voice of his faithful
henchman. He tapped upon the window, and presently the blind shot up and
Hash’s face appeared. In the background Claire, a little flushed, was
smoothing her hair. The window opened.
“Who’s there?” said Hash gruffly.
“Only me, Hash. I want a word with you.”
“Ur?”
“Listen, Hash. Tear yourself away shortly, and come back to Mon Repos.
There is man’s work to do there.”
“Eh?”
“We’ve got to search that house from top to bottom. I’ve just found out
that it’s full of bonds.”
“You don’t say!”
“I do say.”
“Nasty things,” said Hash reflectively. “Go off in your ’ands as likely
as not.”
At this moment the quiet night was rent by a strident voice.
“Sam! Hi, Sam! Come quick!”
It was the voice of Willoughby Braddock, and it appeared to proceed from
one of the upper rooms of Mon Repos.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SPIRITED BEHAVIOUR OF MR. BRADDOCK
When Willoughby Braddock, some ten minutes earlier, had parted from Kay
and come out on to the gravel walk in front of San Rafael, he was in a
condition of mind which it is seldom given to man to achieve until well
through the second quart of champagne. So stirred was his soul, so
churned up by a whirlwind of powerful emotions, that he could have
stepped straight into any hospital as a fever patient and no questions
asked.
For the world had become of a sudden amazingly vivid to Willoughby.
After a quarter of a century in which absolutely nothing had occurred to
ruffle the placid surface of his somewhat stagnant existence, strange
and exhilarating things had begun to happen to him with a startling
abruptness.
When he reflected that he had actually stood chatting face to face with
a member of the criminal classes, interrupting him in the very act of
burgling a house, and on top of that had found Lord Tilbury, a man who
was on the committee of his club, violently transformed into a
sans-culotte, it seemed to him that life in the true meaning of the word
had at last begun.
But it was something that Kay had said that had set the seal on the
thrills of this great day. Quite casually she had mentioned that Mrs.
Lippett proposed, as soon as her daughter Claire was married to Hash
Todhunter, to go and live with the young couple. It was as if somebody,
strolling with stout Balboa, had jerked his thumb at a sheet of water
shining through the trees and observed nonchalantly, “By the way,
there’s the Pacific.” It was this, even more than the other events of
the afternoon, that had induced in Mr. Braddock the strange, yeasty
feeling of unreality which was causing him now to stand gulping on the
gravel. For years he had felt that only a miracle could rid him of Mrs.
Lippett’s limpet-like devotion, and now that miracle had happened.
He removed his hat and allowed the cool night air to soothe his flaming
forehead. He regretted that he had pledged himself to dinner that night
at the house of his Aunt Julia. Aunt Julia was no bad sort, as aunts go,
but dinner at her house was scarcely likely to provide him with
melodrama, and it was melodrama that Mr. Braddock’s drugged soul now
craved, and nothing but melodrama. It irked him to be compelled to leave
this suburban maelstrom of swift events and return to a London which
could not but seem mild and tame by comparison.
However, he had so pledged himself, and the word of a Braddock was his
bond. Moreover, if he were late, Aunt Julia would be shirty to a degree.
Reluctantly he started to move toward the two-seater, and had nearly
reached it when he congealed again into a motionless statue. For, even
as he prepared to open the gate of San Rafael, he beheld slinking in at
the gate of Mon Repos a furtive figure.
In his present uplifted frame of mind a figure required to possess only
the minimum of furtiveness to excitement Willoughby Braddock’s
suspicions, and this one was well up in what might be called the Class A
of furtiveness. It wavered and it crept. It hesitated and it slunk. And
as the rays from the street lamp shone momentarily upon its face, Mr.
Braddock perceived that it was a drawn and anxious face, the face of one
who nerves himself to desperate deeds.
And, indeed, the other was feeling nervous. He walked warily, like some
not too courageous explorer picking his way through a jungle in which he
suspects the presence of unpleasant wild beasts. Drawn by the lure of
gain to revisit Mon Repos, Chimp Twist was wondering pallidly if each
moment might not not bring Hash ravening out at him from the shadows.
He passed round the angle of the house, and Willoughby Braddock,
reckless of whether or no this postponement of his return to London
would make him late for dinner at Aunt Julia’s and so cause him to be
properly ticked off by that punctuality-loving lady, flitted silently
after him and was in time to see him peer through the kitchen window. A
moment later, his peering seeming to have had a reassuring effect, he
had opened the back door and was inside the house.
Willoughby Braddock did not hesitate. The idea of being alone in a small
semi-detached house with a desperate criminal who was probably armed to
the gills meant nothing to him now. In fact, he rather preferred it. He
slid silently through the back door in the fellow’s wake; and having
removed his shoes, climbed the kitchen stairs. A noise from above told
him that he was on the right track. Whatever it was that the furtive
bloke was doing, he was doing it upstairs.
As for Chimp Twist, he was now going nicely. The operations which he was
conducting were swift and simple. Once he had ascertained by a survey
through the kitchen window that his enemy, Hash, was not on the
premises, all his nervousness had vanished. Possessing himself of the
chisel which he had placed in the drawer of the kitchen table in
readiness for just such an emergency, he went briskly upstairs. The
light was burning in the hall and also in the drawing-room; but the
absence of sounds encouraged him to believe that Sam, like Hash, was
out. This proved to be the case, and he went on his way completely
reassured. All he wanted was five minutes alone and undisturbed, for the
directions contained in Mr. Finglass’ letter had been specific; and once
he had broken through the door of the top back bedroom, he anticipated
no difficulty in unearthing the buried treasure. It was, Mr. Finglass
had definitely stated, a mere matter of lifting a board. Chimp Twist did
not sing as he climbed the stairs, for he was a prudent man, but he felt
like singing.
A sharp cracking noise came to Willoughby Braddock’s ears as he halted
snakily on the first landing. It sounded like the breaking open of a
door.
And so it was. Chimp, had the conditions been favourable, would have
preferred to insinuate himself into Hash’s boudoir in a manner involving
less noise; but in this enterprise of his time was of the essence and he
had no leisure for niggling at locks with a chisel. Arriving on the
threshold, he raised his boot and drove it like a battering-ram.
The doors of suburban villas are not constructed to stand rough
treatment. If they fit within an inch or two and do not fall down when
the cat rubs against them, the architect, builder and surveyor shake
hands and congratulate themselves on a good bit of work. And Chimp,
though a small man, had a large foot. The lock yielded before him and
the door swung open. He went in and lit the gas. Then he took a rapid
survey of his surroundings.
Half-way up the second flight of stairs, Willoughby Braddock stood
listening. His face was pink and determined. As far as he was concerned,
Aunt Julia might go and boil herself. Dinner or no dinner, he meant to
see this thing through.
Chimp wasted no time.
“The stuff,” his friend, the late Edward Finglass, had written, “is in
the top back bedroom. You’ve only to lift the third board from the
window and put your hand in, Chimpie, and there it is.” And after this
had come a lot of foolish stuff about sharing with Soapy Molloy. A
trifle maudlin old Finky had become on his deathbed, it seemed to Chimp.
And, hurried though he was, Chimp Twist had time to indulge in a brief
smile as he thought of Soapy Molloy. He also managed to fit in a brief
moment of complacent meditation, the trend of which was that when it
comes to a show-down brains will tell. He, Chimp Twist, was the guy with
the brains, and the result was that in about another half minute he
would be in possession of American-bearer securities to the value of
two million dollars. Whereas poor old Soapy, who had just about enough
intelligence to open his mouth when he wished to eat, would go through
life eking out a precarious existence, selling fictitious oil stock to
members of the public who were one degree more cloth-headed than
himself. There was a moral to be drawn from this, felt Chimp, but his
time was too valuable to permit him to stand there drawing it. He
gripped his chisel and got to work.
Mr. Braddock, peering in at the door with the caution of a red Indian
stalking a relative by marriage with a tomahawk, saw that the intruder
had lifted a board and was groping in the cavity. His heart beat like a
motor-bicycle. It gave him some little surprise that the fellow did not
hear it.
Presumably the fellow was too occupied. Certainly he seemed like a man
whose mind was on his job. Having groped for some moments, he now
uttered a sound that was half an oath and half a groan, and as if seized
with a frenzy, began tearing up other boards, first one, then another,
after that a third. It was as though this business of digging up boards
had begun to grip him like some drug. Starting in a modest way with a
single board he had been unable to check the craving, and it now
appeared to be his intention to excavate the entire floor.
But he was not allowed to proceed with this work uninterrupted. Possibly
this wholesale demolition of bedrooms jarred upon Mr. Braddock’s
sensibilities as a householder. At any rate, he chose this moment to
intervene.
“I say, look here!” he said.
It had been his intention, for he was an enthusiastic reader of
sensational fiction and knew the formulæ as well as anyone, to say
“Hands up!” But the words had slipped from him without his volition. He
hastily corrected himself.
“I mean, Hands up!” he said.
Then backing to the window, he flung it open and shouted into the night.
“Sam! Hi, Sam! Come quick!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE MISSING MILLIONS
Those captious critics who are always on the alert to catch the
historian napping and expose in his relation of events some damaging
flaw will no doubt have seized avidly on what appears to be a blunder in
the incident just recorded. Where, they will ask, did Willoughby
Braddock get the revolver, without which a man may say “Hands up!” till
he is hoarse and achieve no result? For of all the indispensable
articles of costume which the well-dressed man must wear if he wishes to
go about saying “Hands up!” to burglars, a revolver is the one which can
least easily be omitted.
We have no secrets from posterity. Willoughby Braddock possessed no
revolver. But he had four fingers on his right hand, and two of these he
was now thrusting earnestly against the inside of his coat pocket. Wax
to receive and marble to retain, Willoughby Braddock had not forgotten
the ingenious subterfuge by means of which Soapy Molloy had been enabled
to intimidate Lord Tilbury, and he employed it now upon Chimp Twist.
“You low blister!” said Mr. Braddock.
Whether this simple device would have been effective with a person of
ferocious and hard-boiled temperament, one cannot say; but fortunately
Chimp was not of this description. His strength was rather of the head
than of the heart. He was a man who shrank timidly from even the
appearance of violence; and though he may have had doubts as to the
genuineness of Mr. Braddock’s pistol, he had none concerning the
latter’s physique. Willoughby Braddock was no Hercules, but he was some
four inches taller and some sixty pounds heavier than Chimp, and it was
not in Mr. Twist’s character to embark upon a rough-and-tumble with such
odds against him.
Indeed, Chimp would not lightly have embarked on a rough-and-tumble with
anyone who was not an infant in arms or a member of the personnel of
Singer’s Troupe of Midgets.
He tottered against the wall and stood there, blinking. The sudden
materialisation of Willoughby Braddock, apparently out of thin air, had
given him a violent shock, from which he had not even begun to recover.
“You man of wrath!” said Mr. Braddock.
The footsteps of one leaping from stair to stair made themselves heard.
Sam charged in.
“What’s up?”
Mr. Braddock, with pardonable unction, directed his notice to the
captive.
“Another of the gang,” he said. “I caught him.”
Sam gazed at Chimp and looked away, disappointed.
“You poor idiot,” he said peevishly. “That’s my odd-job man.”
“What?”
“My odd-job man.”
Willoughby Braddock felt for an instant damped. Then his spirits rose
again. He knew little of the duties of odd-job men; but whatever they
were, this one, he felt, had surely exceeded them.
“Well, why was he digging up the floor?”
And Sam, glancing down, saw that this was what his eccentric employee
had, indeed, been doing; and suspicion blazed up within him.
“What’s the game?” he demanded, eying Chimp.
“Exactly,” said Mr. Braddock. “The game--what is it?”
Chimp’s nerves had recovered a little of their tone. His agile brain was
stirring once more.
“You can’t do anything,” he said. “It wasn’t breaking and entering. I
live here. I know the law.”
“Never mind about that. What were you up to?”
“Looking for something,” said Chimp sullenly. “And it wasn’t there.”
“Did you know Finglass?” asked Sam keenly.
Chimp gave a short laugh of intense bitterness.
“I thought I did. But I didn’t know he was so fond of a joke.”
“Bradder,” said Sam urgently, “a crook named Finglass used to live in
this house, and he buried a lot of his swag somewhere in it.”
“Good gosh!” exclaimed Mr. Braddock. “You don’t say so!”
“Did this fellow take anything from under the floor?”
“You bet your sweet life I didn’t,” said Chimp with feeling. “It wasn’t
there. You seem to know all about it, so I don’t mind telling you that
Finky wrote me that the stuff was under the third board from the window
in this room. Whether he was off his damned head or was just stringing
me, I don’t know. But I do know it isn’t there. And now I’m going.”
“Oh, no, you aren’t, by Jove!” said Mr. Braddock.
“Oh, let him go,” said Sam wearily. “What’s the use of keeping him
hanging round?” He turned to Chimp. His own disappointment was so keen
that he could almost sympathise with him. “So you think Finglass really
got away with the stuff, after all?”
“Looks like it.”
“Then why on earth did he write to you?”
Chimp shrugged his shoulders.
“Off his nut, I guess. He always was a loony sort of bird, outside of
business.”
“You don’t think the other chap found the stuff, Sam?” suggested Mr.
Braddock.
Sam shook his head.
“I doubt it. It’s much more likely it was never here at all. We had a
friend of yours here this evening,” he said to Chimp. “At least, I
suppose he was a friend of yours. Thomas G. Gunn he called himself.”
“I know who you mean--that poor dumb brick, Soapy. He wouldn’t have
found anything. If it isn’t here it isn’t anywhere. And now I’m going.”
Mr. Braddock eyed him a little wistfully as he slouched through the
doorway. It was galling to see the only burglar he had ever caught
walking out as if he had finished paying a friendly call. However, he
supposed there was nothing to be done about it. Sam had gone to the
window and was leaning out, looking into the night.
“I must go and see Kay,” he said at length, turning.
“I must get up to town,” said Mr. Braddock. “By Jove, I shall be most
frightfully late if I don’t rush. I’m dining with my Aunt Julia.”
“This is going to be bad news for her.”
“Oh, no, she’ll be most awfully interested. She’s a very sporting old
party.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“My Aunt Julia.”
“Oh? Well, good-bye.”
Sam left the room, and Willoughby Braddock, following him at some little
distance, for his old friend seemed disinclined for company and
conversation, heard the front door bang. He sat down on the stairs and
began to put on his shoes, which he had cached on the first landing.
While he was engaged in this task, the front doorbell rang. He went down
to open it, one shoe off and one shoe on, and found on the steps an aged
gentleman with a white beard.
“Is Mr. Shotter here?” asked the aged gentleman.
“Just gone round next door. Mr. Cornelius, isn’t it? I expect you’ve
forgotten me--Willoughby Braddock. I met you for a minute or two when I
was staying with Mr. Wrenn.”
“Ah, yes. And how is the world using you, Mr. Braddock?”
Willoughby was only too glad to tell him. A confidant was precisely what
in his exalted frame of mind he most desired.
“Everything’s absolutely topping, thanks. What with burglars floating in
every two minutes and Lord Tilbury getting de-bagged and all that,
life’s just about right. And my housekeeper is leaving me.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“I wasn’t. What it means is that now I shall at last be able to buzz off
and see life. Have all sorts of adventures, you know. I’m frightfully
keen on adventure.”
“You should come and live in Valley Fields, Mr. Braddock. There is
always some excitement going on here.”
“Yes, you’re not far wrong. Still, what I meant was more the biffing off
on the out-trail stuff. I’m going to see the world. I’m going to be one
of those fellows Kipling writes about. I was talking to a chap of that
sort at the club the other day. He said he could remember Uganda when
there wasn’t a white man there.”
“I can remember Valley Fields when it had not a single cinema house.”
“This fellow was once treed by a rhinoceros for six hours.”
“A similar thing happened to a Mr. Walkinshaw, who lived at Balmoral, in
Acacia Road. He came back from London one Saturday afternoon in a new
tweed suit, and his dog, failing to recognise him, chased him on to the
roof of the summer house.... Well, I must be getting along, Mr.
Braddock. I promised to read extracts from my history of Valley Fields
to Mr. Shotter. Perhaps you would care to hear them too.”
“I should love it, but I’ve got to dash off and dine with my Aunt
Julia.”
“Some other time perhaps?”
“Absolutely.... By the way, that man I was telling you about. He was as
near as a toucher bitten by a shark once.”
“Nothing to what happens in Valley Fields,” said Mr. Cornelius
patriotically. “The occupant of the Firs at the corner of Buller Street
and Myrtle Avenue--a Mr. Phillimore--perhaps you have heard of him?”
“No.”
“Mr. Edwin Phillimore. Connected with the firm of Birkett, Birkett,
Birkett, Son, Podmarsh, Podmarsh & Birkett, the solicitors.”
“What about him?”
“Last summer,” said Mr. Cornelius, “he was bitten by a guinea pig.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
MR. CORNELIUS READS HIS HISTORY
§ 1
It is a curious fact, and one frequently noted by philosophers, that
every woman in this world cherishes within herself a deep-rooted belief,
from which nothing can shake her, that the particular man to whom she
has plighted her love is to be held personally blameworthy for
practically all of the untoward happenings of life. The vapid and
irreflective would call these things accidents, but she knows better. If
she arrives at a station at five minutes past nine to catch a train
which has already left at nine minutes past five, she knows that it is
her Henry who is responsible, just as he was responsible the day before
for a shower of rain coming on when she was wearing her new hat.
But there was sterling stuff in Kay Derrick. Although no doubt she felt
in her secret heart that the omission of the late Mr. Edward Finglass to
deposit his ill-gotten gains beneath the floor of the top back bedroom
of Mon Repos could somehow have been avoided if Sam had shown a little
enterprise and common sense, she uttered no word of reproach. Her
reception of the bad news, indeed, when, coming out into the garden, he
saw her waiting for him on the lawn of San Rafael and climbed the fence
to deliver it, was such as to confirm once and for all his enthusiastic
view of her splendid qualities. Where others would have blamed, she
sympathised. And not content with mere sympathy, she went on to minimise
the disaster with soothing argument.
“What does it matter?” she said. “We have each other.”
The mind of man, no less than that of woman, works strangely. When, a
few days before, Sam had read that identical sentiment, couched in
almost exactly the same words, as part of the speech addressed by Leslie
Mordyke to the girl of his choice in the third galley of Cordelia
Blair’s gripping serial, _Hearts Aflame_, he had actually gone so far as
to write in the margin the words, “Silly fool!” Now he felt that he had
never heard anything not merely so beautiful but so thoroughly sensible,
practical and inspired.
“That’s right!” he cried.
If he had been standing by a table he would have banged it with his
fist. Situated as he was, in the middle of a garden, all he could do was
to kiss Kay. This he did.
“Of course,” he said, when the first paroxysm of enthusiasm had passed,
“there’s just this one point to be taken into consideration. I’ve lost
my job, and I don’t know how I’m to get another.”
“Of course you’ll get another!”
“Why, so I will!” said Sam, astounded by the clearness of her reasoning.
The idea that the female intelligence was inferior to the male seemed to
him a gross fallacy. How few men could have thought a thing all out in
a flash like that.
“It may not be a big job, but that will be all the more fun.”
“So it will.”
“I always think that people who marry on practically nothing have a
wonderful time.”
“Terrific!”
“So exciting.”
“Yes.”
“I can cook a bit.”
“I can wash dishes.”
“If you’re poor, you enjoy occasional treats. If you’re rich, you just
get bored with pleasure.”
“Bored stiff.”
“And probably drift apart.”
Sam could not follow her here. Loth as he was to disagree with her
lightest word, this was going too far.
“No,” he said firmly, “if I had a million I wouldn’t drift apart from
you.”
“You might.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“I’m only saying you might.”
“But I shouldn’t.”
“Well, anyhow,” said Kay, yielding the point, “all I’m saying is that it
will be much more fun being awfully hard up and watching the pennies and
going out to the Palais de Dance at Hammersmith on Saturday night, or if
it was my birthday or something, and cooking our own dinner and making
my own clothes, than--than----”
“----living in a gilded cage, watching love stifle,” said Sam,
remembering Leslie Mordyke’s remarks on the subject.
“Yes. So, honestly, I’m very glad it was all a fairy story about that
money being in Mon Repos.”
“So am I. Darned glad.”
“I’d have hated to have it.”
“So would I.”
“And I think it’s jolly, your uncle disinheriting you.”
“Absolutely corking.”
“It would have spoiled everything, having a big allowance from him.”
“Everything.”
“I mean, we should have missed all the fun we’re going to have, and we
shouldn’t have felt so close together and----”
“Exactly. Do you know, I knew a wretched devil in America who came into
about twenty million dollars when his father died, and he went and
married a girl with about double that in her own right.”
“What became of him?” asked Kay, shocked.
“I don’t know. We lost touch. But just imagine that marriage!”
“Awful!”
“What possible fun could they have had?”
“None. What was his name?”
“Blenkiron,” said Sam in a hushed voice. “And hers was Poskitt.”
For some moments, deeply affected by the tragedy of these two poor bits
of human wreckage, they stood in silence. Sam felt near to tears, and he
thought Kay was bearing up only with some difficulty.
The door leading into the garden opened. Light from the house flashed
upon them.
“Somebody’s coming out,” said Kay, giving a little start as though she
had been awakened from a dream.
“Curse them!” said Sam. “Or rather, no,” he corrected himself. “I think
it’s your uncle.”
Even at such a moment as this, he could harbour no harsh thought toward
any relative of hers.
It was Mr. Wrenn. He stood on the steps, peering out.
“Kay!” he called.
“Yes?”
“Oh, you’re there. Is Shotter with you?”
“Yes.”
“Could you both come in for a minute?” inquired Mr. Wrenn, his
voice--for he was a man of feeling--conveying a touch of apology.
“Cornelius is here. He wants to read you that chapter from his history
of Valley Fields.”
Sam groaned in spirit. On such a night as this young Troilus had climbed
the walls of Troy and stood gazing at the Grecian tents where lay his
Cressida, and he himself had got to go into a stuffy house and listen to
a bore with a white beard drooling on about the mouldy past of a London
suburb.
“Well, yes, I know; but----” he began doubtfully.
Kay laid a hand upon his arm.
“We can’t disappoint the poor old man,” she whispered. “He would take it
to heart so.”
“Yes, but I mean----”
“No.”
“Just as you say,” said Sam.
He was going to make a good husband.
Mr. Cornelius was in the drawing-room. From under his thick white brows
he peered at them, as they entered, with the welcoming eyes of a man
who, loving the sound of his own voice, sees a docile audience
assembling. He took from the floor a large brown paper parcel and,
having carefully unfastened the string which tied it, revealed a second
and lighter wrapping of brown paper. Removing this, he disclosed a layer
of newspaper, then another, and finally a formidable typescript bound
about with lilac ribbon.
“The matter having to do with the man Finglass occurs in Chapter Seven
of my book,” he said.
“Just one chapter?” said Sam, with a touch of hope.
“That chapter describes the man’s first visit to my office, my early
impressions of him, his words as nearly as I can remember them, and a
few other preliminary details. In Chapter Nine----”
“Chapter Nine!” echoed Sam, aghast. “You know, as a matter of fact,
there really isn’t any need to read all that, because it turns out that
Finglass never----”
“In Chapter Nine,” proceeded Mr. Cornelius, adjusting a large pair of
horn-rimmed spectacles, “I show him accepted perfectly unsuspiciously by
the residents of the suburb, and I have described at some length,
because it is important as indicating how completely his outward
respectability deceived those with whom he came in contact, a garden
party given by Mrs. Bellamy-North, of Beau Rivage, in Burberry Road, at
which he appeared and spoke a few words on the subject of the
forthcoming election for the district council.”
“We shall love to hear that,” said Kay brightly. Her eye, wandering
aside, met Sam’s. Sam, who had opened his mouth, closed it again.
“I remember that day very distinctly,” said Mr. Cornelius. “It was a
beautiful afternoon in June, and the garden of Beau Rivage was looking
extraordinarily attractive. It was larger, of course, in those days. The
house which I call Beau Rivage in my history has since been converted
into two semi-detached houses, known as Beau Rivage and Sans Souci. That
is a change which has taken place in a great number of cases in this
neighbourhood. Five years ago Burberry Road was a more fashionable
quarter, and the majority of the houses were detached. This house where
we are now sitting, for example, and its neighbour, Mon Repos, were a
single residence when Edward Finglass came to Valley Fields. Its name
was then Mon Repos, and it was only some eighteen months later that San
Rafael came into existence as a separate----”
He broke off; and breaking off, bit his tongue, for that had occurred
which had startled him considerably. One unit in his audience, until
that moment apparently as quiet and well-behaved as the other units, had
suddenly, to all appearances, gone off his head. The young man Shotter,
uttering a piercing cry, had leaped to his feet and was exhibiting
strange emotion.
“What’s that?” cried Sam. “What did you say?”
Mr. Cornelius regarded him through a mist of tears. His tongue was
giving him considerable pain.
“Did you say,” demanded Sam, “that in Finglass’ time San Rafael was part
of Mon Repos?”
“Yeh,” said Mr. Cornelius, rubbing the wound tenderly against the roof
of his mouth.
“Give me a chisel!” bellowed Sam. “Where’s a chisel? I want a chisel!”
§ 2
“Bleck my soul!” said Mr. Cornelius. He spoke a little thickly, for his
tongue was still painful. But its anguish was forgotten under the spell
of a stronger emotion. Five minutes had passed since Sam’s remarkable
outburst in the drawing-room; and now, with Mr. Wrenn and Kay, he was
standing in the top back bedroom of San Rafael, watching the young man
as he drew up from the chasm in which he had been groping a very
yellowed, very dusty package which crackled and crumbled in his fingers.
“Bleck my soul!” said Mr. Cornelius.
“Good heavens!” said Mr. Wrenn.
“Sam!” cried Kay.
Sam did not hear their voices. With the look of a mother bending over
her sleeping babe, he was staring at the parcel.
“Two million!” said Sam, choking. “Two million--count ’em--two million!”
A light of pure avarice shone in his eyes. He looked like a man who had
never heard of the unhappy fate of Dwight Blenkiron, of Chicago,
Illinois, and Genevieve, his bride, _née_ Poskitt; or who, having heard,
did not give a whoop.
“What’s ten per cent on two million?” asked Sam.
§ 3
Valley Fields lay asleep. Clocks had been wound, cats put out of back
doors, front doors bolted and chained. In a thousand homes a thousand
good householders were restoring their tissues against the labours of
another day. The silver-voiced clock on the big tower over the college
struck the hour of two.
But though most of its inhabitants were prudently getting their eight
hours and insuring that schoolgirl complexion, footsteps still made
themselves heard in the silence of Burberry Road. They were those of Sam
Shotter of Mon Repos, pacing up and down outside the gate of San Rafael.
Long since had Mr. Wrenn, who slept in the front of that house, begun to
wish Sam Shotter in bed or dead; but he was a mild and kindly man, loth
to shout winged words out of windows. So Sam paced, unrebuked, until
presently other footsteps joined in chorus with his and he perceived
that he was no longer alone.
A lantern shone upon him.
“Out late, sir,” said the sleepless guardian of the peace behind him.
“Late?” said Sam. Trifles like time meant nothing to him. “Is it late?”
“Just gone two, sir.”
“Oh? Then perhaps I had better be going to bed.”
“Suit yourself, sir. Resident here, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Then I wonder,” said the constable, “if I can interest you in a concert
which is shortly to take place in aid of a charitubulorganisation
connection with a body of men to ’oom you as a nouse’older will----”
“Do you believe in palmists?”
“No, sir---- be the first to admit that you owe the safety of your
person and the tranquillity of your ’ome--the police.”
“Well, let me tell you this,” said Sam warmly: “Some time ago a palmist
told me that I was shortly about to be married, and I am shortly about
to be married.”
“Wish you luck, sir. Then perhaps I can ’ave the pleasure of selling you
and your good lady to be a couple of tickets for this concert in aid of
the Policemen’s Orphanage. Tickets, which may be ’ad in any quantity,
consist of the five-shilling ticket----”
“Are you married?”
“Yes sir---- the three-shilling ticket, the half-crown ticket, the
shilling ticket, and the sixpenny ticket.”
“It’s the only life, isn’t it?” said Sam.
“That of the policeman, sir, or the orphan?”
“Married life.”
The constable ruminated.
“Well, sir,” he replied judicially, “it’s like most things--’as its
advantages and its disadvantages.”
“Of course,” said Sam, “I can see that if two people married without
having any money, it might lead to a lot of unhappiness. But if you’ve
plenty of money, nothing can possibly go wrong.”
“Have you plenty of money, sir?”
“Pots of it.”
“In that case, sir, I recommend the five-shilling tickets. Say, one for
yourself, one for your good lady to be and--to make up the round
sovereign--a couple for any gentlemen friends you may meet at the club
’oo may desire to be present at what you can take it from me will be a
slap-up entertainment, high class from start to finish. Constable
Purvis will render Asleep on the Deep----”
“Look here,” said Sam, suddenly becoming aware that the man was babbling
about something, “what on earth are you talking about?”
“Tickets, sir.”
“But you don’t need tickets to get married.”
“You need tickets to be present at the annual concert in aid of the
Policemen’s Orphanage, and I strongly advocate the purchase of ’alf a
dozen of the five-shilling.”
“How much are the five-shilling?”
“Five shillings, sir.”
“But I’ve only got a ten-pound note on me.”
“Bring your change to your ’ome to-morrow.”
Sam became aware with a shudder of self-loathing that he was allowing
this night of nights to be marred by sordid huckstering.
“Never mind the change,” he said.
“Sir?”
“Keep it all. I’m going to be married,” he added in explanation.
“Keep the ’ole ten pounds, sir?” quavered the stupefied officer.
“Certainly. What’s ten pounds?”
There was a silence.
“If everybody was like you, sir,” said the constable at length, in a
deep, throaty voice, “the world would be a better place.”
“The world couldn’t be a better place,” said Sam. “Good night.”
“Good night, sir,” said the constable reverently.
(THE END)
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