“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 heshould 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 fiftycents’ 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.”
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 diplomacyin 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 ofSociety 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 ofSociety 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.
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 withSoapy 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.”
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’sHome Companionwhich would be on the bookstallsnext 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,” continuedLord 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 calledpathosand the Romansdesiderium, 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. Hehad 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.
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 musthave 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 dayor 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 thebell 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.
CLAIRE LIPPETT sat in the kitchen of San Rafael, reading Pyke’sHome 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’sHome Companionabsorbed 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’sHearts Aflamecould conjure away.
Claire was worried. On the previous day a cloudhad 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 likea 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: