Eve brought in to her husband, who had improved his moral stamina and his physical charm by means of the finest of his dressing-gowns, a dark, thin young man, clothed to marvellous perfection, with a much-loved moustache, and looking as fresh as if he was just going to a party. Mr. Prohack of course recognised him as one of the guests.
"Good morning," said Mr. Prohack. "Soyouare the detective."
"Yes, sir," answered the detective, formally.
"Do you know, all the evening I was under the impression that you were First Secretary to the Czecho-Slovakian Legation."
"No, sir," answered the detective, formally.
"Well! Well! I think there is a proverb to the effect that appearances are deceptive."
"Is there indeed, sir?" said the detective, with unshaken gravity. "In our business we think that appearances ought to be deceptive."
"Now talking of your business," Mr. Prohack remarked with one of his efforts to be very persuasive. "What about this unfortunate affair?"
"Yes, sir, what about it?" The detective looked askance at Eve.
"I suppose there's no doubt the thing's been stolen—By the way, sit on the end of the bed, will you? Then you'll be near me."
"Yes, sir," said the detective, sitting down. "There is no doubt the necklace has been removed by some one, either for a nefarious purpose or for a joke."
"Ah! A joke?" meditated Mr. Prohack, aloud.
"It certainly hasn't been taken for a joke," said Eve warmly. "Nobody that I know well enough for them to play such a trick would dream of playing it."
"Then," said Mr. Prohack, "we are left all alone with the nefarious purpose. I had a sort of a notion that I should meet the nefarious purpose, and here it is! I suppose there's little hope?"
"Well, sir. You know what happens to a stolen pearl necklace. The pearls are separated. They can be sold at once, one at a time, or they can be kept for years and then sold. Pearls, except the very finest, leave no trace when they get a fair start."
"What I can't understand," Eve exclaimed, "is how it could have dropped off without me noticing it."
"Oh! I can easily understand that," said Mr. Prohack, with a peculiar intonation.
"I've known ladies lose even their hair without noticing anything," said the detective firmly. "Not to mention other items."
"But without anybody else noticing it either?" Eve pursued her own train of thought.
"Somebody did notice it," said the detective, writing on a small piece of paper.
"Who?"
"The person who took the necklace."
"Well, of course I know that," Eve spoke impatiently. "But who can it be? I feel sure it's one of the new servants or one of the hired waiters."
"In our business, madam, we usually suspect servants and waiters last." Then turning round very suddenly he demanded: "Who's that at the door?"
Eve, startled, moved towards the door, and in the same instant the detective put a small piece of paper into Mr. Prohack's lap, and Mr. Prohack read on the paper:
"Should like see you alone." The detective picked up the paper again. Mr. Prohack laughed joyously within himself.
"There's nobody at the door," said Eve. "How you frightened me!"
"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, fully inspired. "Take my keys off there, will you, and go to my study and unlock the top right-hand drawer of the big desk. You'll find a blue paper at the top at the back. Bring it to me. I don't know which is the right key, but you'll soon see."
And when Eve, eager with her important mission, had departed, Mr. Prohack continued to the detective:
"Pretty good that, eh, for an improvisation? The key of that drawer isn't on that ring at all. And even if she does manage to open the drawer there's no blue paper in there at all. She'll be quite some time."
The detective stared at Mr. Prohack in a way to reduce his facile self-satisfaction.
"What I wish to know from you, sir, personally, is whether you want this affair to be hushed up, or not."
"Hushed up?" repeated Mr. Prohack, to whom the singular suggestion opened out new and sinister avenues of speculation. "Why hushed up?"
"Most of the cases we deal with have to be hushed up sooner or later," answered the detective. "I only wanted to know where I was."
"How interesting your work must be," observed Mr. Prohack, with quick sympathetic enthusiasm. "I expect you love it. How did you get into it? Did you serve an apprenticeship? I've often wondered about you private detectives. It's a marvellous life."
"I got into it through meeting a man in the Piccadilly Tube. As for liking it, I shouldn't like any work."
"But some people love their work."
"So I've heard," said the detective sceptically. "Then I take it you do want the matter smothered?"
"But you've telephoned to Scotland Yard about it," said Mr. Prohack. "We can't hush it up after that."
"I toldthem," replied the detective grimly, indicating with his head the whole world of the house. "I toldthemI was telephoning to Scotland Yard; but I wasn't. I was telephoning to our head-office. Then am I to take it you want to find out all you can, but you want it smothered?"
"Not at all. I have no reason for hushing anything up."
The detective gazed at him in a harsh, lower-middle-class way, and Mr. Prohack quailed a little before that glance.
"Will you please tell me where you bought the necklace?"
"I really forget. Somewhere in Bond Street."
"Oh! I see," said the detective. "A necklace of forty-nine pearls, over half of them stated to be as big as peas, and it's slipped your memory where you bought it." The detective yawned.
"And I'm afraid I haven't kept the receipt either," said Mr. Prohack. "I have an idea the firm went out of business soon after I bought the necklace. At least I seem to remember noticing the shop shut up and then opening again as something else."
"No jeweller ever goes out of business in Bond Street," said the detective, and yawned once more. "Well, Mr. Prohack, I don't think I need trouble you any more to-night. If you or Mrs. Prohack will call at our head-office during the course of to-morrow you shall have our official report, and if anything really fresh should turn up I'll telephone you immediately. Good night, Mr. Prohack." The man bowed rather awkwardly as he rose from the bed, and departed.
"That chap thinks there's something fishy between Eve and me," reflected Mr. Prohack. "I wonder whether there is!" But he was still in high spirits when Eve came back into the room.
"The sleuth-hound has fled," said he. "I must have given him something to think about."
"I've tried all the keys and none of them will fit," Eve complained. "And yet you're always grumbling at me for not keeping my keys in order. If you wanted to show him the blue paper why have you let him go?"
"My dear," said Mr. Prohack, "I didn't let him go. He did not consult me, but merely and totally went."
"And what is the blue paper?" Eve demanded.
"Well, supposing it was the receipt for what I paid for the pearls?"
"Oh! I see. But how would that help?"
"It wouldn't help," Mr. Prohack replied. "My broken butterfly, you may as well know the worst. The sleuth-hound doesn't hold out much hope."
"Yes," said Eve. "And you seem delighted that I've lost my pearls! I know what it is. You think it will be a lesson for me, and you love people to have lessons. Why! Anybody might lose a necklace."
"True. Ships are wrecked, and necklaces are lost, and Nelson even lost his eye."
"And I'm sure itwasone of the servants."
"My child, you can be just as happy without a pearl necklace as with one. You really aren't a woman who cares for vulgar display. Moreover, in times like these, when society seems to be toppling over, what is a valuable necklace, except a source of worry? Felicity is not to be attained by the—"
Eve screamed.
"Arthur! If you go on like that I shall run straight out of the house and take cold in the Square."
"I will give you another necklace," Mr. Prohack answered this threat, and as her face did not immediately clear, he added: "And a better one."
"I don't want another one," said Eve. "I'd sooner be without one. I know it was all my own fault. But you're horrid, and I can't make you out, and I never could make you out. I never did know where I am with you. And I believe you're hiding something from me. I believe you picked up the necklace, and that's why you sent the detective away."
Mr. Prohack had to assume his serious voice which always carried conviction to Eve, and which he had never misused. "I haven't picked your necklace up. I haven't seen it. And I know nothing about it." Then he changed again. "And if you'll kindly step forward and kiss me good morning I'll try to snatch a few moments' unconsciousness."
Mr. Prohack's life at this wonderful period of his career as a practising philosopher at grips with the great world seemed to be a series of violent awakenings. He was awakened, with even increased violence, at about eight o'clock the next—or rather the same—morning, and he would have been awakened earlier if the servants had got up earlier. The characteristic desire of the servants to rise early had, however, been enfeebled by the jolly vigils of the previous night. It was, of course, Eve who rushed in to him—nobody else would have dared. She had hastily cast about her plumpness the transformed Chinese gown, which had the curious appearance of a survival from some former incarnation.
"Arthur!" she called, and positively shook the victim. "Arthur!"
Mr. Prohack looked at her, dazed by the electric light which she had ruthlessly turned on over his head.
"There's a woman been caught in the area. She's a fat woman, and she must have been there all night. The cook locked the area gate and the woman was too fat to climb over. Brool's put her in the servants' hall and fastened the door, and what do you think we ought to do first? Send for the police or telephone to Mr. Crewd—he's the detective you saw last night?"
"If she's been in the area all night you'd better put her to bed, and give her some hot brandy and water," said Mr. Prohack.
"Arthur, please, please, be serious!" Eve supplicated.
"I'm being as serious as a man can who has been disturbed in this pleasant fashion by a pretty woman," said Mr. Prohack attentively examining the ceiling. "You go and look after the fat lady. Supposing she died from exposure. There'd have to be an inquest. Do you wish to be mixed up in an inquest? What does she want? Whatever it is, give it her, and let her go, and wake me up next week. I feel I can sleep a bit."
"Arthur! You'll drive me mad. Can't you see that she must be connected with the necklace business. Shemustbe. It's as clear as day-light!"
"Ah!" breathed Mr. Prohack, thoughtfully interested. "I'd forgotten the necklace business."
"Yes, well, I hadn't!" said Eve, rather shrewishly. "I had not."
"Quite possibly she may be mixed up in the necklace business," Mr. Prohack admitted. "She may be a clue. Look here, don't let's tell anybody outside—not even Mr. Crewd. Let's detect for ourselves. It will be the greatest fun. What does she say for herself?"
"She said she was waiting outside the house to catch a young lady with a snub-nose going away from my reception—Mimi Winstock, of course."
"Why Mimi Winstock?"
"Well, hasn't she got a turned-up nose? And she didn't go away from my reception. She's sleeping here," Eve rejoined triumphantly.
"And what else does the fat woman say?"
"She says she won't say anything else—except to Mimi Winstock."
"Well, then, wake up Mimi as you wakened me, and send her to the servants' hall—wherever that is—I've never seen it myself!"
Eve shook her somewhat tousled head vigorously.
"Certainly not. I don't trust Miss Mimi Winstock—not one bit—and I'm not going to let those two meet until you've had a talk with the burglar."
"Me!" Mr. Prohack protested.
"Yes, you. Seeing that you don't want me to send for the police. Something has to be done, and somebody has to do it. And I never did trust that Mimi Winstock, and I'm very sorry she's gone to Charlie. That was a great mistake. However, it's got nothing to do with me." She shrugged her agreeable shoulders. "But my necklace has got something to do with me."
Mr. Prohack thought "What would Lady Massulam do in such a crisis? And how would Lady Massulam look in a dressing-gown and her hair down? I shall never know." Meanwhile he liked Eve's demeanour—its vivacity and simplicity. "I'm afraid I'm still in love with her," the strange fellow reflected, and said aloud: "You'd better kiss me. I shall have an awful headache if you don't." And Eve reluctantly kissed him, with the look of a martyr on her face.
Within a few minutes Mr. Prohack had dismissed his wife, and was descending the stairs in a dressing-gown which rivalled hers. The sight of him in the unknown world of the basement floor, as he searched unaided for the servants' hall, created an immense sensation,—far greater than he had anticipated. A nice young girl, whom he had never seen before and as to whom he knew nothing except that she was probably one of his menials, was so moved that she nearly had an accident with a tea-tray which she was carrying.
"What is your name?" Mr. Prohack benignly asked.
"Selina, sir."
"Where are you going with that tea-tray and newspaper?"
"I was just taking it upstairs to Machin, sir. She's not feeling well enough to get up yet, sir."
Mr. Prohack comprehended the greatness of the height to which Machin had ascended. Machin, a parlourmaid, drinking tea in bed, and being served by a lesser creature, who evidently regarded Machin as a person of high power and importance on earth! Mr. Prohack saw that he was unacquainted with the fundamental realities of life in Manchester Square.
"Well," said he. "You can get some more tea for Machin. Give me that." And he took the tray. "No, you can keep the newspaper."
The paper wasThe Daily Picture. As he held the tray with one hand and gave the paper back to Selina with the other, his eye caught the headlines: "West End Sensation. Mrs. Prohack's Pearls Pinched." He paled; but he was too proud a man to withdraw the paper again. No doubtThe Daily Picturewould reach him through the customary channels after Machin had done with it, accompanied by the usual justifications about the newsboy being late; he could wait.
"Which is the servants' hall," said he. Selina's manner changed to positive alarm as she indicated, in the dark subterranean corridor, the door that was locked on the prisoner. Not merely the presence of Mr. Prohack had thrilled the basement floor; there was a thrill greater even than that, and Mr. Prohack, by demanding the door of the servants' hall was intensifying the thrill to the last degree. The key was on the outside of the door, which he unlocked. Within the electric light was still burning in the obscure dawn.
The prisoner, who sprang up from a chair and curtsied fearsomely at the astonishing spectacle of Mr. Prohack, was fat in a superlative degree, and her obesity gave her a middle-aged air to which she probably had no right by the almanac. She looked quite forty, and might well have been not more than thirty. She made a typical London figure of the nondescript industrial class. It is inadequate to say that her shabby black-trimmed bonnet, her shabby sham-fur coat half hiding a large dubious apron, her shabby frayed black skirt, and her shabby, immense, amorphous boots,—it is inadequate to say that these things seemed to have come immediately out of a tenth-rate pawnshop; the woman herself seemed to have come, all of a piece with her garments, out of a tenth-rate pawnshop; the entity of her was at any rate homogeneous; it sounded no discord.
She did nothing so active as to weep, but tears, obeying the law of gravity, oozed out of her small eyes, and ran in zigzags, unsummoned and unchecked, down her dark-red cheeks.
"Oh, sir!" she mumbled in a wee, scarcely articulate voice. "I'm a respectable woman, so help me God!"
"You shall be respected," said Mr. Prohack. "Sit down and drink some of this tea and eat the bread-and-butter.... No! I don't want you to say anything just yet. No, nothing at all."
When she had got the tea into the cup, she poured it into the saucer and blew on it and began to drink loudly. After two sips she plucked at a piece of bread-and-butter, conveyed it into her mouth, and before doing anything further to it, sirruped up some more tea. And in this way she went on. Her table manners convinced Mr. Prohack that her claim to respectability was authentic.
"And now," said Mr. Prohack, gazing through the curtained window at the blank wall that ended above him at the edge of the pavement, so as not to embarrass her, "will you tell me why you spent the night in my area?"
"Because some one locked the gate on me, sir, while I was hiding under the shed where the dustbins are."
"I quite see," said Mr. Prohack, "I quite see. But why did you go down into the area? Were you begging, or what?"
"Me begging, sir!" she exclaimed, and ceased to cry, fortified by the tonic of aroused pride.
"No, of course you weren't begging," said Mr. Prohack. "You may have given to beggars—"
"That I have, sir." She cried again.
"But you don't beg. I quite see. Then what?"
"It's no use me a-trying to tell you, sir. You won't believe me." Her voice was extraordinarily thin and weak, and seldom achieved anything that could fairly be called pronunciation.
"I shall," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm a great believer. You try me. You'll see."
"It's like this. I was converted last night, and that's where the trouble began, if it's the last word I ever speak."
"Theology?" murmured Mr. Prohack, turning to look at her and marvelling at the romantic quality of basements.
"There was a mission on at the Methodists' in Paddington Street, and in I went. Seems strange to me to be going into a Methodists', seeing as I'm so friendly with Mr. Milcher."
"Who is Mr. Milcher?"
"Milcher's the sexton at St. Nicodemus, sir. Or I should say sacristan. They call him sacristan instead of sexton because St. Nicodemus is High, as I daresayyouknow, sir, living so close."
Mr. Prohack was conscious of a slight internal shiver, which he could not explain, unless it might be due to a subconscious premonition of unpleasantness to come.
"I know that I live close to St. Nicodemus," he replied. "Very close. Too close. But I did not know how High St. Nicodemus was. However, I'm interrupting you." He perceived with satisfaction that his gift of inspiring people with confidence was not failing him on this occasion.
"Well, sir, as I was saying, it might, as you might say, seem strange me popping like that into the Methodists', seeing what Milcher's views are; but my mother was a Methodist in Canonbury,—a great place for dissenters, sir, North London, you know, sir, and they do say blood's thicker than water. So there I was, and the Mission a-going on, and as soon as ever I got inside that chapel I knew I was done in. I never felt so all-overish in all my days, and before I knew where I was I had found salvation. And I was so happy, you wouldn't believe. I come out of that Methodists' as free like as if I was coming out of a hospital, and God knows I've been in a hospital often enough for my varicose veins, in the legs, sir. You might almost have guessed I had 'em, sir, from the kind way you told me to sit down, sir. And I was just wondering how I should break it to Milcher, sir, because me passing St. Nicodemus made me think of him—not as I'm not always thinking of him—and I looked up at the clock—you know it's the only 'luminated church clock in the district, sir, and the clock was just on eleven, sir, and I waited for it to strike, sir, and it didn't strike. My feet was rooted to the spot, sir, but no, that clock didn't strike, and then all of a sudden it rushed over me about that young woman asking me all about the tower and the clock and telling me as her young man was so interested in church-towers and he wanted to go up, and would I lend her the keys of the tower-door because Milcher always gives me the bunch of church-keys to keep for him while he goes into the Horse and Groom public-house, sir, him not caring to take church keys into a public-house. He's rather particular, sir. They are, especially when they're sacristans. It rushed over me, and I says to myself, 'Bolsheviks,' and I thought I should have swounded, but I didn't."
Mr. Prohack had to make an effort in order to maintain his self-control, for the mumblings of the fat lady were producing in him the most singular and the most disturbing sensations.
"If there's any tea left in the pot," said he, "I think I'll have it."
"Andwelcome, sir," replied the fat lady. "But there's only one cup. But I have but hardly drunk out of it, sir."
Mr. Prohack first of all went to the door, transferred the key from the outside to the inside, and locked the door. Then he drank the dregs of the tea out of the sole cup; and seeing a packet of Mr. Brool's Gold Flake cigarettes on the mahogany sideboard, he ventured to help himself to one.
"Yes, sir," resumed the fat lady. "I nearly swounded, and I couldn't feel happy no more until I'd made a clean breast of it all to Milcher. And I was setting off for Milcher when it struck me all of a heap as I'd promised the young lady with the turned-up nose as I wouldn't say nothing about the keys to nobody. It was very awkward for me, sir, me being converted and anxious to do right, and not knowing which was right and which was wrong. But a promise is a promise whether you're converted or not—that I do hold. Anyhow I says to myself I must see Milcher and tell him the clock hadn't struck eleven, and I prayed as hard as I could for heavenly guidance, and I was just coming down the Square on my way to Milcher's when who should I see get out of a taxi and run into this house but that young lady and her young man. I said in my haste that was an answer to prayer, sir, but I'm not so sure now as I wasn't presuming too much. I could see there was something swanky a-going on here and I said to myself, 'That young lady's gone in. She'll come out again; she's one of the gues's, she is,' I said, 'and him too, and I'll wait till she does come out and then I'll catch her and have it out with her even if it means policemen.' And the area-gate being unfastened, I slipped down the area-steps, sir, with my eye on the front-door. And that was what did me. I had to sit down on the stone steps, sir, because of my varicose veins and then one of the servants comes infromthe street, sir, and I more like dropped down the area-steps, sir, than walked, sir, and hid between two dustbins, and when the coast was clear I went up again and found gate locked and nothing doing. And it's as true as I'm standing here—sitting, I should say."
Mr. Prohack paused, collecting himself, determined to keep his nerve through everything. Then he said:
"When did the mysterious young lady borrow the keys from you?"
"Last night, sir, I mean the night before last."
"And where are the keys now?"
"Milcher's got 'em, sir. I lay he's up in the tower by this time, a-worrying over that clock. It'll be in the papers—you see if it isn't, sir."
"And he's got no idea that you ever lent the keys?"
"That he has not, sir. And the question is: must I tell him?"
"What exactly are the relations between you and Mr. Milcher?"
"Well, sir, he's a bit dotty about me, as you might say. And he's going to marry me. So he says, and I believe him."
And Mr. Prohack reflected, impressed by the wonder of existence:
"This woman too has charm for somebody, who looks on her as the most appetising morsel on earth."
"Now," he said aloud, "you are good enough to ask my opinion whether you ought to tell Mr. Milcher. My advice to you is: Don't. I applaud your conversion. But as you say, a promise is a promise—even if it's a naughty promise. You did wrong to promise. You will suffer for that, and don't think your conversion will save you from suffering, because it won't. Don't run away with the idea that conversion is a patent-medicine. It isn't. It's rather a queer thing, very handy in some ways and very awkward in others, and you must use it with commonsense or you'll get both yourself and other people into trouble. As for the clock, it's stopping striking is only a coincidence, obviously. Abandon the word 'Bolshevik.' It's a very overworked word, and wants a long repose. If the clock had been stopped from striking by your young friends it would have stopped the evening before last, when they went up the tower. And don't imagine there's any snub-nosed young lady living here. There isn't. She must have left while you were down among the dustbins, Mrs. Milcher—that is to be. She paid you something for your trouble, quite possibly. If so, give the money to the poor. That will be the best way to be converted."
"So I will, sir."
"Yes. And now you must go." He unlocked the door and opened it. "Quick. Quietly. Into the area, and up the area-steps. And stop a moment. Don't you be seen in the Square for at least a year. A big robbery was committed in this very house last night. You'll see it in to-day's papers. My butler connected your presence in the area—and quite justifiably connected it—with the robbery. Without knowing it you've been in the most dreadful danger. I'm saving you. If you don't use your conversion with discretion it may land you in prison. Take my advice, and be silent first and converted afterwards. Good morning. Tut-tut!" He stopped the outflow of her alarmed gratitude. "Didn't I advise you to be silent? Creep, Mrs. Milcher. Creep!"
"Well, what have you said to her? What does she say? What have you done with her?" questioned Eve excitedly, who had almost finished dressing when Mr. Prohack, gorgeously, but by no means without misgivings, entered her bedroom.
"I've talked to her very seriously and let her go," answered Mr. Prohack.
Eve sat down as if stabbed on the chair in front of her dressing-table, and stared at Mr. Prohack.
"You've let her go!" cried she, with an outraged gasp, implying that she had always suspected that she was married to a nincompoop, but not to such a nincompoop. "Where's she gone to?"
"I don't know."
"What's her name? Who is she?"
"I don't know that either. I only know that she's engaged to be married, and that a certain sacristan is madly but I hope honourably in love with her, and that she's had nothing whatever to do with the disappearance of your necklace."
"I suppose she told you so herself!" said Eve, with an irony that might have shrivelled up a husband less philosophic.
"She did not. She didn't say a word about the necklace. But she did make a full confession. She's mixed up in the clock-striking business."
"The what business?"
"The striking of the church-clock. You know it's stopped striking since last night, under the wise dispensation of heaven."
As he made this perfectly simple announcement, Mr. Prohack observed a sudden change in his wife's countenance. Her brow puckered: a sad, protesting, worried look came into her eyes.
"Please don't begin on the clock again, my poor Arthur! You ought to forget it. You know how bad it is for you to dwell on it. It gets on your nerves and you start imagining all sorts of things, until, of course, there's no chance of you sleeping. If you keep on like this you'll make me feel a perfect criminal for taking the house. You don't suspect it, but I've several times wished we never had taken it—I've been so upset about your nervous condition."
"I was merely saying," Mr. Prohack insisted, "that our fat visitor, who apparently has enormous seductive power over sacristans, had noticed about the clock just as I had, and she thought—"
Eve interrupted him by approaching swiftly and putting her hands on his shoulders, as he had put his hands on her shoulders a little while earlier, and gazing with supplication at him.
"Please, please!" she besought him. "To oblige me. Do drop the church-clock. I know what it means for you."
Mr. Prohack turned away, broke into uproarious and somewhat hysterical laughter, and left the bedroom, having perceived to his amazement that she thought the church-clock was undermining his sanity.
Going to his study, he rang the bell there, and Brool, with features pale and drawn, obeyed the summons. The fact that his sanity was suspect, however absurdly, somehow caused Mr. Prohack to assume a pontifical manner of unusual dignity.
"Is Miss Warburton up yet?"
"No, sir. One of the servants knocked at her door some little time ago, but received no answer."
"She must be wakened, and I'll write a note that must be given to her immediately."
Mr. Prohack wrote: "Please dress at once and come to my study. I want to see you about the church-clock. A.P." Then he waited, alternately feeling the radiator and warming his legs at the newly-lit wood fire. He was staggered by the incredible turn of events, and he had a sensation that nothing was or ever would be secure in the structure of his environment.
"Well, I'm hanged! Well, I'm hanged!" he kept saying to himself, and indeed several times asserted that an even more serious fate had befallen him.
"Here I am!" Mimi exclaimed brazenly, entering the room.
The statement was not exaggerated. She emphatically was there, aspiring nose and all—in full evening dress, the costume of the night before.
"Have you slept in your clothes?" Mr. Prohack demanded.
Her manner altered at his formidable tone.
"No, sir," she replied meekly. "But I've nothing else here. I shall put a cloak on and drive off in a taxi to change for the day. May I sit down?"
Mr. Prohack nodded. Indubitably she made a wonderful sight in her daring splendour.
"So you've found out all about it already!" said she, still meekly, while Mr. Prohack was seeking the right gambit. "Please do tell me how," she added, disposing the folds of her short skirt about the chair.
"I'm not here to answer questions," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm here to ask them. How did you do it? And was it you or Charlie or both of you? Whose idea was it?"
"It was my idea," Mimi purred. "But Mr. Charles seemed to like it. It was really very simple. We first of all found out about the sexton."
"And how did you do that?"
"Private enquiry agents, of course. Same people who were in charge here last night. I knew of them when I was with Mr. Carrel Quire, and it was I who introduced them to Mrs. Prohack."
"It would be!" Mr. Prohack commented. "And then?"
"And then when we'd discovered Mrs. Slipstone—or Miss Slipstone—"
"Who's she?"
"She's a rather stout charwoman who has a fascination for the sexton of St. Nicodemus. When I'd got her it was all plain sailing. She lent me the church keys and Mr. Charles and I went up the tower to reconnoitre."
"But that was more than twenty-four hours before the clock ceased to strike, and you returned the keys to her."
"Oh! So you know that too, do you?" said Mimi blandly. "Mr. Prohack, I hope you'll forgive me for saying that you're most frightfully clever. Ididgive the keys back to Mrs. Slipstone a long time before the clock stopped striking, but you see, Mr. Charles had taken an impression of the tower key in clay, so that last night we were able to go up with an electric torch and our own key. The clock is a very old one, and Mr. Charles removed a swivel or something—I forget what he called it, but he seems to understand everything about every kind of machinery. He says it would take a tremendous long time to get another swivel, or whatever it is, cast, even if it ever could be cast without a pattern, and that you'll be safe for at least six months, even if we don't rely on the natural slowness of the Established Church to do anything really active. You see it isn't as if the clock wasn't going. It's showing the time all right, and that will be sufficient to keep the rector and the church-wardens quiet. It keeps up appearances. Of course if the clock had stopped entirely they would have had to do something.... You don't seem very pleased, dear Mr. Prohack. We thought you'd be delighted. We did it all for you."
"Did you indeed!" said Mr. Prohack ruthlessly. "And did you think of the riskiness of what you were doing? There'll be a most appalling scandal, certainly police-court proceedings, and I shall be involved, if it comes to light."
"But it can't come to light!" Mimi exploded.
"And yet it came to my light."
"Yes, I expect Mr. Charles was so proud that he couldn't help telling you some bits about it. But nobody else can know. Even if Mrs. Slipstone lets on to the sexton, the sexton will never let on because if he did he'd lose his place. The sexton will always have to deny that he parted with the keys even for a moment. It will be the loveliest mystery that ever was, and all the police in the world won't solve it. Of course, if you aren't pleased, I'm very sorry."
"It isn't a question of not being pleased. The breath is simply knocked out of me—that's what it is! Whatever possessed you to do it?"
"But something had to be done, Mr. Prohack. Everybody in the house was terribly upset about you. You couldn't sleep because of the clock, and you said you never would sleep. Mrs. Prohack was at her wit's end."
"Everybody in the house was terribly upset about me! This is the first I've heard of anybody being terribly upset about me. I thought that everybody except me had forgotten all about the infernal clock."
"Naturally!" said Mimi, with soothing calmness. "Mrs. Prohack quite rightly forbade any mention of the clock in your presence. She said the best thing to do was to help you to forget it by never referring to it, and we all agreed with her. But it weighed on us dreadfully. And something really had to be done."
Mr. Prohack was not unimpressed by this revelation of the existence of a social atmosphere which he had never suspected. But he was in no mood for compromise.
"Now just listen to me," said he. "You are without exception the most dangerous woman that I have ever met. All women are dangerous, but you are an acute peril."
"Yes," Mimi admitted, "Mr. Carrel Quire used to talk like that. I got quite used to it."
"Did he really? Well, I think all the better of him, then. The mischief with you is that your motives are good. But a good motive is no excuse for a criminal act, and still less excuse for an idiotic act. I don't suppose I shall do any good by warning you, yet I do hereby most solemnly warn you to mend your ways. And I wish you to understand clearly that I am not a bit grateful to you. In fact the reverse."
Mimi stiffened herself.
"Perhaps you would prefer us to restore the missing part and start the clock striking again. It would be perfectly easy. We still have our own key to the tower and we could do it to-night. I am sure it will be at least a week before the church-wardens send an expert clock-maker up the tower."
In that moment Mr. Prohack had a distressing glimpse into the illogical peculiarities of the human conscience, especially his own. He knew that he ought to accept Mimi's offer, since it would definitely obviate the possible consequences of a criminal act and close a discreditable incident. But he thought of his bad nights instead of thinking of Mimi's morals and the higher welfare of society.
"No," he said. "Let sleeping clocks lie." And he saw that Mimi read the meanness of his soul and was silently greeting him as a fellow-sinner.
She surprised him by saying:
"I assure you, Mr. Prohack, that my sole idea—that our sole idea—was to make the house more possible for you." And as she uttered these words she gazed at him with a sort of delicious pouting, challenging reproach.
What a singular remark, he thought! It implied a comprehension of the fact, which he had considerately never disclosed, that he objected to the housein totoand would have been happier in his former abode. And, curiously, it implied further that she comprehended and sympathised with his objections. She knew she had not done everything necessary to reconcile him to the noble mansion, but she had done what she could—and it was not negligible.
"Nothing of the kind," said he. "You simply had no 'sole idea.' When I admitted just now that your motives were good I was exaggerating. Your motives were only half good, and if you think otherwise you are deceiving yourself; you are not being realistic. In that respect you are no better than anybody else."
"What was my other motive, then?" she enquired submissively, as if appealing for information to the greatest living authority on the enigmas of her own heart.
"Your other motive was to satisfy your damnable instinct for dubious and picturesque adventure," said Mr. Prohack. "You were pandering to the evil in you. If you could have stopped the clock from striking by walking down Bond Street in Mrs. Slipstone's clothes and especially her boots, would you have done it? Certainly not. Of course you wouldn't. Don't try to come the self-sacrificing saint over me, because you can't do it."
These words, even if amounting to a just estimate of the situation, were ruthless and terrible. They might have accomplished some genuine and lasting good if Mr. Prohack had spoken them in a tone corresponding to their import. But he did not. His damnable instinct for pleasing people once more got the better of him, and he spoke them in a benevolent and paternal tone, his voice vibrating with compassion and with appreciation of her damnable instinct for dubious and picturesque adventure. The tone destroyed the significance of the words.
Moreover, not content with the falsifying tone, he rose up from his chair as he spoke, approached the charming and naughty girl, and patted her on the shoulder. The rebuke, indeed, ended by being more agreeable to the sinner than praise might have been from a man less corroded with duplicity than Mr. Prohack.
Mimi surprised him a second time.
"You're perfectly right," she said. "You always are." And she seized his limp hand in hers and kissed it,—and ran away, leaving him looking at the kissed hand.
Well, he was flattered, and he was pleased; or at any rate something in him, some fragmentary part of him, was flattered and pleased. Mimi's gesture was a triumph for a man nearing fifty; but it was an alarming triumph.... Odd that in that moment he should think of Lady Massulam! His fatal charm was as a razor. Had he been playing with it as a baby might play with a razor?... Popinjay? Coxcomb? Perhaps, Nevertheless, the wench had artistically kissed his hand, and his hand felt self-complacent, even if he didn't.
Brool, towards whom Mr. Prohack felt no impulse of good-will, came largely in with a salver on which were the morning letters and the morning papers, including the paper perused by Machin with her early bedside tea and doubtless carefully folded again in its original creases to look virginal.
The reappearance of that sheet had somewhat the quality of a sinister miracle to Mr. Prohack. He asked no questions about it so that he might be told no lies, but he searched it in vain for a trace of the suffering Machin. It was, however, full of typographical traces of himself and his family. The description of the reception was disturbingly journalistic, which adjective, for Mr. Prohack, unfortunately connoted the adjective vulgar. All the wrong people were in the list of guests, and all the decent quiet people were omitted. A value of twenty thousand pounds was put upon the necklace, contradicting another part of the report which stated the pearls to be "priceless." Mr. Prohack's fortune was referred to; also his Treasury past; the implication being that the fortune had caused him to leave the Treasury. His daughter's engagement to Mr. Morfey was glanced at; and it was remarked that Mr. Morfey—"known to all his friends and half London as 'Ozzie' Morfey"—was intimately connected with the greatest stage Napoleon in history, Mr. Asprey Chown. Finally a few words were given to Charlie; who was dubbed "a budding financier already responsible for one highly successfulcoupand likely to be responsible for several others before much more water has run under the bridges of the Thames."
Mr. Prohack knew, then, in his limbs the meaning of the word "writhe," and he was glad that he had not had his bath, because even if he had had his bath he would have needed another one. His attitude towards his fellow men had a touch of embittered and cynical scorn unworthy of a philosopher. He turned, in another paper, to the financial column, for, though all his money was safe in fixed-interest-bearing securities, the fluctuations of whose capital value could not affect his safety, yet he somehow could not remain quite indifferent to the fluctuations of their capital value; and in the financial column he saw a reference to a "young operator," who, he was convinced, could be no other than Charlie; in the reference there was a note of sarcasm which hurt Mr. Prohack and aroused anew his apprehensions.
And among his correspondence was a letter which had been delivered by hand. He thought he knew the handwriting on the envelope, and he did: it was from Mr. Softly Bishop. Mr. Softly Bishop begged, in a very familiar style, that Mr. Prohack and wife would join himself and Miss Fancy on an early day at a little luncheon party, and he announced that the 'highly desirable event to the possibility of which he had alluded' on the previous evening, had duly occurred. Strange, the fellow's eagerness to publish his engagement to a person of more notoriety than distinction! The fellow must have "popped the question" while escorting Miss Fancy home in the middle of the night, and he must have written the note before breakfast and despatched it by special messenger. What a mentality!
Mr. Prohack desired now a whole series of baths. And he was very harassed indeed. If he, by a fluke, had discovered the escapade of the church-tower and the church-clock, why should not others discover it by other flukes? Was it conceivable that such a matter should forever remain a secret? The thing, to Mr. Prohack's sick imagination, was like a bomb with a fuse attached and the fuse lighted. When the bomb did go off, what trouble for an entirely innocent Mr. Prohack! And he loathed the notion of his proud, strong daughter being affianced to a man who, however excellent intrinsically, was the myrmidon of that sublime showman, Mr. Asprey Chown. And he hated his connection with Mr. Softly Bishop and with Miss Fancy. Could he refuse the invitation to the little luncheon party? He knew that he could not refuse it. His connection with these persons was indisputable and the social consequences of it could not be fairly avoided. As for the matter of the necklace, he held that he could deal with that,—but could he? He lacked confidence in himself. Even his fixed interest-bearing securities might, by some inconceivable world-catastrophe, cease to bear interest, and then where would he be?
Philosophy! Philosophy was absurdly unpractical. Philosophy could not cope with real situations. Where had he sinned? Nowhere. He had taken Dr. Veiga's advice and given up trying to fit his environment to himself instead of vice versa. He had let things rip and shown no egotistic concern in the business of others. But was he any better off in his secret soul? Not a whit. He ought to have been happy; he was miserable. On every hand the horizon was dark, and the glitter of seventeen thousand pounds per annum did not lighten it by the illuminative power of a single candle.... But his feverish hand gratefully remembered Mimi's kiss.