"Well, I'll do what I can," said he. "I'll come round to-morrow morning. But see here, Mudd, where does he get his money from?"
"He's got ten thousand pounds somewhere hid," said Mudd.
"Ten thousand what?"
"Pounds. Ten thousand pounds somewhere hid. The doctor told me he had it. He drew the same last year and spent five in a month."
"Five pounds?"
"Five thousand, Mr. Robert."
"Five thousand in a month! I say, this is serious, Mudd."
"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" said Mudd. "Don't tell me—I know—and, me, I've been working forty years for five hundred."
"He couldn't have taken it out with him to-day, do you think?"
"No, Mr. Robert, I don't think he's as far gone as that. He's always been pretty close with his money, and closeness sticks, abrogation or no abrogation; but it's not the money I'm worritin' so much about as the women."
"What women?"
"Them that's always looking out for such as he."
"Well, we must coosh them off," said Bobby.
"You'll be here in the morning, Mr. Robert?"
"Yes, I'll be here, and, meanwhile, keep an eye on him."
"Oh, I'll keep an eye on him," said Mudd.
Then the yawning night porter saw this weird conference close, Mudd going off upstairs and Bobby departing, a soberer and wiser young man even than when he had entered.
It was late when he reached the Albany.Tozer was sitting up, reading a book on counterpoint.
"Well, what luck?" asked Tozer, pleased at the other's gravity and sobriety.
"I've found a plot," said Bobby; "at least, the middle of one, but it's tipsy."
"Tipsy?"
"It's my—Tozer, this is a dead secret between you and me—it's my Relative."
"Your uncle?"
"Yes."
"What on earth do you mean?"
Bobby explained.
Tozer made some tea over a spirit lamp as he listened, then he handed the other a cup.
"That's interesting," said he, as he sat down again and filled a pipe. "That's interesting."
"But look here," said the other, "do you believe it? Can a man get young again and forget everything and go on like this?"
"I don't know," said Tozer, "but I believe he can—and he seems to be doing it, don't he?"
"He does; we found a knocker in his coat pocket."
"I beg your pardon, a what?"
"A door-knocker; he must have wrung it off a door somewhere, a big brass one, like a lion's head."
"How old is he?"
"Uncle?"
"Yes."
"Sixty."
Tozer calculated.
"Forty years ago—yes, the young chaps about town were still ringing door-knockers then; it was going out, but I had an uncle who did it. This is interesting." Then he exploded. He had never seen Simon the solicitor, or his mirth might have been louder.
"It's very easy to laugh," said Bobby, rather huffed, "but you would not laugh if you were in my shoes—I've got to look after him."
"I beg your pardon," said Tozer. "Now let me be serious. Whatever happens, you have got a fineficellefor a story. I'm in earnest; it only wants working out."
"Oh, good heavens!" said Bobby. "Does one eat one's grandmother? And how am I to write stories tied like this?"
"He'll write it for you," said Tozer, "or I'm greatly mistaken, if you only hang on and give him a chance. He's begun it for you. And as for eating your grandmother, uncles aren't grandmothers, and you can change his name."
"I wish to goodness I could," said Bobby."The terror I'm in is lest his name should come out in some mad escapade."
"I expect he's been in the same terror of you," said Tozer, "many a time."
"Yes, but I hadn't an office to look after and a big business."
"Well, you've got one now," said Tozer, "and it will teach you responsibility, Bobby; it will teach you responsibility."
"Hang responsibility!"
"I know; that's what your uncle has often said, no doubt. Responsibility is the only thing that steadies men, and the sense of it is the grandfather of all the other decent senses. You'll be a much better man for this, Bobby, or my name is not Tozer."
"I wish it were Ravenshaw," said Bobby. Then remembrance made him pause.
"I ought to tell you——" said he, then he stopped.
"Well?" said Tozer.
"I promised you to stop—um—fooling after girls."
"That means, I expect, that you have been doing it."
"Not exactly, and yet——"
"Go on."
Bobby explained.
"Well," said Tozer, "I forgive you. It was good intent spoiled by atavism. You returned to your old self for a moment, like your Uncle Simon. Do you know, Bobby, I believe this disease of your uncle's is more prevalent than one would imagine—though of course in a less acute form. We are all of us always returning to our old selves, by fits and starts—and paying for the return. You see what you have done to-day. Your Uncle Simon has done nothing more foolish, you both found your old selves.
"Lord, that old self! All the experience and wisdom of the world don't head it off, it seems to me, when it wants to return. Well, you've done it, and when you write your story you can put yourself in as well as your uncle, and call the whole thing, 'A Horrible Warning.' Good night."
Uncle Simon awoke consumed by thirst, but without a headache; a good constitution and years of regular life had given him a large balance to draw upon.
Mudd was in the room arranging things; he had just drawn up the blind.
"Who's that?" asked Simon.
"Mudd," replied the other.
Mudd'stout ensembleas a new sort of hotel servant seemed to please Simon, and he accepted him at once as he accepted everything that pleased him.
"Give me that water-bottle," said Simon.
Mudd gave it. Simon half-drained it and handed it back. The draught seemed to act on him like the elixir vitæ.
"What are you doing with those clothes?" said he.
"Oh, just folding them," said Mudd.
"Well, just leave them alone," replied the other. "Is there any money in the pockets?"
"These aren't what you wore last night," said Mudd; "there was two pounds ten in the pockets of what you had on. Here it is, on the mantel."
"Good," said Simon.
"Have you any more money anywhere about?" asked Mudd.
Now Simon, spendthrift in front of pleasure and heedless of money as the wind, in front of Mudd seemed cautious and a bit suspicious. It was as though his subliminal mind recognised in Mudd restraint and guardianship and common sense.
"Not a halfpenny," said he. "Give me that two pounds ten."
Mudd, alarmed at the vigour of the other, put the money on the little table by the bed.
Simon was at once placated.
"Now put me out some clothes," said he. He seemed to have accepted Mudd now as a personal servant—hired when? Heaven knows when; details like that were nothing to Simon.
Mudd, marvelling and sorrowing, put out a suit of blue serge, a blue tie, a shirt and other things of silk. There was a bathroom, off the bedroom, and, the things put out, Simon aroseand wandered into the bathroom, and Mudd, taking his seat on a chair, listened to him tubbing and splashing—whistling, too, evidently in the gayest spirits, spirits portending another perfect day.
"Lead him," had said Oppenshaw. Why, Mudd already was being led. There was something about Simon, despite his irresponsibility and good humour, that would not brook a halter even if the halter were of silk. Mudd recognised that. And the money! What had become of the money? The locked portmanteau might contain it, but where was the key?
Mudd did not even know whether his unhappy master had recognised him or not, and he dared not ask, fearing complications. But he knew that Simon had accepted him as a servant, and that knowledge had to suffice.
If Simon had refused him, and turned him out, that would have been a tragedy indeed.
Simon, re-entering the bedroom, bath towel in hand, began to dress, Mudd handing things which Simon took as though half oblivious of the presence of the other. He seemed engaged in some happy vein of thought.
Dressed and smart, but unshaved, though scarcely showing the fact, Simon took the two pounds ten and put it in his pocket, then helooked at Mudd. His expression had changed somewhat; he seemed working out some problem in his mind.
"That will do," said he; "I won't want you any more for a few minutes. I want to arrange things. You can go down and come back in a few minutes."
Mudd hesitated. Then he went.
He heard Simon lock the door. He went into an adjoining corridor and walked up and down, dumbly praying that Mr. Robert would come—confused, agitated, wondering.... Suppose Simon wanted to be alone to cut his throat! The horror of this thought was dispelled by the recollection that there were no razors about; also by the remembered cheerfulness of the other. But why did he want to be alone?
Two minutes passed, three, five—then the intrigued one, making for the closed door, turned the handle. The door was unlocked, and Simon, standing in the middle of the room, was himself again.
"I've got a message I want you to take," said Simon.
Ten minutes later Mr. Robert Ravenshaw, entering the Charing Cross Hotel, found Mudd with his hat on, waiting for him.
"Thank the Lord you've come, Mr. Robert!" said Mudd.
"What's the matter now?" asked Bobby. "Where is he?"
"He's having breakfast," said Mudd.
"Well, that's sensible, anyhow. Cheer up, Mudd; why, you look as if you'd swallowed a funeral."
"It's the money," said Mudd. Then he burst out, "He told me to go from the room and come back in a minit. Out I went, and he locked the door. Back I came; there was he standing. 'Mudd,' said he, 'I've got a message for you to take. I want you to take a bunch of flowers to a lady.' Me!"
"Yes?" said Bobby.
"To a lady!"
"'Where's the flowers?' said I, wishing to head him off. 'You're to go and buy them,' said he. 'I have no money,' said I, wishing to head him off. 'Hang money!' said he, and he puts his hand in his pocket and out he brings a hundred-pound note and a ten-pound note. And he had only two pounds ten when I left him. He's got the money in that portmanteau, that I'm sure, and he got me out of the room to get it."
"Evidently," said Bobby.
"'Here's ten pounds,' said he; 'get the best bunch of flowers money can buy and tell the lady I'm coming to see her later on in the day.'
"'What lady?' said I, wishing to head him off.
"'This is the address,' said he, and goes to the writing-table and writes it out."
He handed Bobby a sheet of the hotel paper. Simon's handwriting was on it, and a name and address supplied by that memory of his which clung so tenaciously to all things pleasant.
"Miss Rossignol, 10, Duke Street, Leicester Square."
Bobby whistled.
"Did I ever dream I'd see this day?" mourned Mudd. "Me! Sent on a message like that, byhim!"
"This is a complication," said Bobby. "I say, Mudd, he must have been busy yesterday—uponmysoul——"
"Question is, what am I to do?" said Mudd. "I'm goin' to take no flowers to hussies."
Bobby thought deeply for a moment.
"Did he recognise you this morning?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Mudd, "but he made no bones. I don't believe he remembered me right, but he made no bones."
"Well, Mudd, you'd better just swallow your feelings and take those flowers, for if you don't, and he finds out, he may fire you. Where would we be then? Besides, he's to be humoured, so the doctor said, didn't he?"
"Shall I send for the doctor right off, sir?" asked Mudd, clutching at a forlorn hope.
"The doctor can't stop him from fooling after girls," said Bobby, "unless the doctor could put him away in a lunatic asylum; and he can't, can he, seeing he says he's not mad? Besides, there's the slur, and the thing would be sure to leak out. No, Mudd, just swallow your feelings and trot off and get those flowers, and, meanwhile, I'll do what I can to divert his mind. And see here, Mudd, you might just see what that girl is like."
"Shall I tell her he's off his head and that maybe she'll have the law on her if she goes on fooling with him?" suggested Mudd.
"No," said the more worldly-wise Bobby; "if she's the wrong sort that would only make her more keen. She'd say to herself, 'Here's a queer old chap with money, half off his nut, and not under restraint; let's make hay before they lock him up.' If she's the right sort it doesn't matter; he's safe, and, right sort or wrong sort, if he found you'd been interfering he might sendyou about your business. No, Mudd, there's nothing to be done but get the flowers and leave them, and see the lady if possible, and make notes about her. Say as little as possible."
"He told me to tell her he'd call later in the day."
"Leave that to me," said Bobby. "And now, off with you."
Mudd departed and Bobby made for the coffee-room.
He entered and looked around. A good many people were breakfasting in the big room, the ordinary English breakfast crowd at a big hotel; family parties, lone men and lone women, some reading letters, some papers, and all, somehow, with an air of divorcement from home.
Simon was there, seated at a little table on the right and enjoying himself. Now, and in his right mind, Simon gave Bobby another shock. Could it be possible that this pleasant-faced, jovial-looking gentleman, so well-dressed andà la mode, was Uncle Simon? What an improvement! So it seemed at first glance.
Simon looked up from his sausages—he was having sausages, saw Bobby—and with his unfailing memory of pleasant things, even dimly seen, recognised him as the man of last night.
"Hullo," said Simon, as the other came up tothe table, "there you are again. Had breakfast?"
"No," said Bobby. "I'll sit here if I may." He drew a chair to the second place that was laid and took his seat.
"Have sausages," said Simon. "Nothing beats sausages."
Bobby ordered sausages, though he would have preferred anything else. He didn't want to argue.
"Nothing beats sausages," said Uncle Simon again.
Bobby concurred.
Then the conversation languished, just as it may between two old friends or boon companions who have no need to keep up talk.
"Feeling all right this morning?" ventured Bobby.
"Never felt better in my life," replied the other. "Never felt better in my life. How did you manage to get home?"
"Oh, I got home all right."
Simon scarcely seemed to hear this comforting declaration; scrambled eggs had been placed before him.
Bobby, in sudden contemplation of a month of this business, almost forgot his sausages. The true horror of Uncle Simon appeared tohim now for the first time. You see, he knew all the facts of the case. An ordinary person, unknowing, would have accepted Simon as all right, but it seemed to Bobby, now, that it would have been much better if his companion had been decently and honestly mad, less uncanny. He was obviously sane, though a bit divorced from things; obviously sane, and eating scrambled eggs after sausages with the abandon of a schoolboy on a holiday after a long term at a cheap school; sane, and enjoying himself after a night like that—yet he was Simon Pettigrew.
Then he noticed that Simon's eyes were constantly travelling, despite the scrambled eggs, in a given direction. A pretty young girl was breakfasting with a family party a little way off—that was the direction.
There was a mother, a father, something that looked like an uncle, what appeared to be an aunt, and what appeared to be May dressed in a washing silk blouse and plain skirt.
November was glancing at May.
Bobby remembered Miss Rossignol and felt a bit comforted; then he began to feel uncomfortable: the aunt was looking fixedly at Simon. His admiration had evidently been noted by Watchfulness; then the uncle seemed to take notice.
Bobby, blushing, tried to make conversation, and only got replies. Then, to his relief, the family, having finished breakfast, withdrew, and Simon became himself again, cheerful and burning for the pleasures of the day before him, the pleasures to be got from London, money, and youth.
His conversation told this, and that he desired to include Bobby in the scheme of things, and the young man could not help remembering Thackeray's little story of how, coming up to London, he met a young Oxford man in the railway carriage, a young man half-tipsy with the prospect of a day in town and a "tear round"—with the prospect, nothing more.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Bobby, as the other rose from the table.
"Shaved," said Simon; "come along and get shaved; can't go about like this."
Bobby was already shaved, but he followed the other outside to a barber's and sat reading aDaily Mirrorand waiting whilst Simon was operated on. The latter, having been shaved, had his hair brushed and trimmed, and all the time during these processes the barber spake in this wise, Simon turning the monologue to a duologue.
"Yes, sir, glorious weather, isn't it?London's pretty full, too, for the time of year—fuller than I've seen for a long time. Ever tried face massage, sir? Most comforting. Can be applied by yourself. Can sell you a complete outfit, Parker's face cream and all, two pound ten. Thank you, sir. Staying in the Charing Cross 'Otel? I'll have it sent to your room. Yes, sir, the 'otel is full. There's a deal of money being spent in London, sir. Raise your chin, sir, a leetle more. Ever try a Gillette razor, sir? Useful should you wish to shave in a 'urry; beautiful plated. This is it, sir—one guinea—shines like silver, don't it? Thank you, sir, I'll send it up with the other. Yes, sir, it's most convenient havin' a barber's close to the 'otel. I supply most of the 'otel people with toilet rekisites. 'Air's a little thin on the top, sir; didn't mean no offence, sir, maybe it's the light. Dry, that's what it is; it's the 'ot weather. Now, I'd recommend Coolers' Lotion followed after application by Goulard's Brillantine. Oh, Lord, no, sir!Thembrillantines is no use. Goulard's is the only real; costs a bit more, but then, cheap brillantine is rewin. Thank you, sir. And how are you off for 'air brushes, sir? There's a pair of bargains in that show-case—travellers' samples—I can let you have, silver-plated, as good as you'll get in London and 'arfthe price. Shine, don't they? And feel the bristles—real 'og. Thank you, sir. Two ten—one one—one four—two ten—and a shillin' for the 'air cut and shave. No, sir, I can't change an 'undred-pound note. A ten? Yes, I can manage a ten. Thank you, sir."
Seven pounds and sixpence for a hair-cut and shave—with accompaniments. Bobby, tongue-tied and aghast, rose up.
"'Air cut, sir?" asked the barber.
"No, thanks," replied Bobby.
Simon, having glanced at himself in the mirror, picked up his straw hat and walking-stick, and taking the arm of his companion, out they walked.
"Where are you going?" asked Bobby.
"Anywhere," replied the other; "I want to get some change."
"Why, you've got change!"
Simon unlinked, and in the face of the Strand and the passers-by produced from his pocket two hundred-pound notes, three or four one-pound notes, and a ten-pound note; searching in his pockets to see what gold he had, he dropped a hundred-pound note, which Bobby quickly recovered.
"Mind!" said Bobby. "You'll have those notes snatched."
"That's all right," said Simon.
He replaced the money in his pocket, and his companion breathed again.
Bobby had borrowed five pounds from Tozer in view of possibilities.
"Look here," said he, "what's the good of staying in London a glorious day like this? Let's go somewhere quiet and enjoy ourselves—Richmond or Greenwich or somewhere. I'll pay expenses and you need not bother about change."
"No, you won't," said Simon. "You're going to have some fun along with me. What's the matter with London?"
Bobby couldn't say.
Renouncing the idea of the country, without any other idea to replace it except to keep his companion walking and away from shops and bars and girls, he let himself be led. They were making back towards Charing Cross. At theBureau de ChangeSimon went in, the idea of changing a hundred-pound note pursuing him. He wanted elbow-room for enjoyment, but the Bureau refused to make change. The note was all right; perhaps it was Simon that was the doubtful quantity. He had quite a little quarrel over the matter and came out arm-in-arm with his companion and flushed.
"Come along," said Bobby, a new idea striking him. "We'll get change somewhere."
From Charing Cross, through Cockspur Street, then through Pall Mall and up St. James's Street they went, stopping at every likely and unlikely place to find change. Engaged so, Simon at least was not spending money or taking refreshment. They tried at shipping offices, at insurance offices, at gun-shops and tailors, till the weary Bobby began to loathe the business, began to feel that both he and his companion were under suspicion and almost that the business they were on was doubtful.
Simon, however, seemed to pursue it with zest and, now, without anger. It seemed to Bobby as though he enjoyed being refused, as it gave him another chance of entering another shop and showing that he had a hundred-pound note to change—a horrible foolish satisfaction that put a new edge to the affair. Simon was swanking.
"Look here,", said the unfortunate, at last, "wasn't there a girl you told me of last night you wanted to send flowers to? Let's go and get them; then we can have a drink somewhere."
"She'll wait," said Simon. "Besides, I've sent them. Come on."
"Very well," said Bobby, in desperation. "Ibelieve I know a place where you can get your note changed; it's close by."
They reached a cigar merchant's. It was the cigar merchants and moneylenders that had often stood him in good stead. "Wait for me," said Bobby, and he went in. Behind the counter was a gentleman recalling Prince Florizel of Bohemia.
"Good morning, Mr. Ravenshaw," said this individual.
"Good morning, Alvarez," replied Bobby. "I haven't called about that little account I owe you though—but cheer up. I've got you a new customer—he wants a note changed."
"What sort of note?" asked Alvarez.
"A hundred-pound note; can you do it?"
"If the note's all right."
"Lord bless me, yes! I can vouch for that and for him; only he's strange to London. He's got heaps of money, too, but you must promise not to rook him too much over cigars, for he's a relative of mine."
"Where is he?" asked Alvarez.
"Outside."
"Well, bring him in."
Bobby went out. Uncle Simon was gone. Gone as though he had never been, swallowed up in the passing crowd, fascinated away byheaven knows what, and with all those bank-notes in his pocket. He might have got into a sudden taxi or boarded an omnibus, or vanished up Sackville Street or Albemarle Street; any passing fancy or sudden temptation would have been sufficient.
Bobby, hurrying towards St. James's Street to have a look down it, stopped a policeman.
"Have you seen an old gentleman—I mean a youngish-looking gentleman—in a straw hat?" asked Bobby. "I've lost him." Scarcely waiting for the inevitable reply, he hurried on, feeling that the constable must have thought him mad.
St. James's Street showed nothing of Simon. He was turning back when, half-blind to everything but the object of his search, he almost ran into the arms of Julia Delyse. She was carrying a parcel that looked like a manuscript.
"Why, Bobby, what is the matter with you?" asked Julia.
"I'm looking for someone," said Bobby distractedly. "I've lost a relative of mine."
"I wish it were one of mine," said Julia. "What sort of relative?"
"An oldish man in a straw hat. Walk down a bit; you look that side of the street and I'llwatch this; hemayhave gone into a shop—and Imustget hold of him."
He walked rapidly on, and Julia, sucked for a moment into this whirlpool of an Uncle Simon that had already engulfed Mudd, Bobby, and the good name of the firm of Pettigrew, toiled beside him till they came nearly to the Park railings.
"He's gone," said Bobby, stopping suddenly dead. "It's no use; he's gone."
"Well, you'll find him again," said Julia hopefully. "Relatives always turn up."
"Oh, he's sure to turn up," said the other, "and that's what I'm dreading—it's the way he'll turn up that's bothering me."
"I could understand you better if I knew what you meant," said Julia. "Let's walk back; this is out of my direction."
They turned.
Despite his perplexity and annoyance, Bobby could not suppress a feeling of relief at having done with the business for a moment; all the same, he was really distressed. The craving for counsel and companionship in thought seized him.
"Julia, can you keep a secret?" asked he.
"Tight," said Julia.
"Well, it's my uncle."
"You've lost?"
"Yes; and he's got his pockets full of hundred-pound bank-notes—and he's no more fit to be trusted with them than a child."
"What a delightful uncle!"
"Don't laugh; it's serious."
"He's not mad, is he?"
"No, that's the worst of it. He's got one of these beastly new diseases—I don't know what it is, but as far as I can make out it's as if he'd got young again without remembering what he is."
"How interesting!"
"Yes, you would find him very interesting if you had anything to do with him; but, seriously, something has to be done. There's the family name and there's his business." He explained the case of Simon as well as he could.
Julia did not seem in the least shocked.
"But I think it's beautiful," she broke out. "Strange—but in a way beautiful and pathetic. Oh, ifonlya few more people could do the same—become young, do foolish things instead of this eternal grind of common sense, hard business, and everything that ruins the world!"
Bobby tried to imagine the world with an increased population of the brand of Uncle Simon, and failed.
"I know," he said, "but it will be the ruin of his business and reputation. Abstractly, I don't deny there's something to be said for it, but in the concrete it don't work. Do think, and let's try to find a way out."
"I'm thinking," said Julia.
Then, after a pause:
"You must get him away from London."
"That was my idea, but he won't go, not even to Richmond for a few hours. He won't leave London."
"There's a place in Wessex I know," said Julia, "where there's a charming little hotel. I was down there for a week in May. You might take him there."
"We'd never get him into the train."
"Take him in a car."
"Might do that," said Bobby. "What's the name of it?"
"Upton-on-Hill; and I'll tell you what, I'll go down with you, if you like, and help to watch him. I'd like to study him."
"I'll think of it," said Bobby hurriedly. The affair of Uncle Simon was taking a new turn; like Fate, it was trying to force him into closer contact with Julia. Craving for someone to help him to think, he had welded himself to Julia with this family secret for solder. Theidea of a little hotel in the country with Julia, ever ready for embracements and passionate scenes, the knowledge that he was almost half-engaged to her, the instinct that she would suck him into cosy corners and arbours—all this frankly frightened him. He was beginning to recognise that Julia was quite light and almost brilliant in the street when love-making was impossible, but impossibly heavy and dull, though mesmeric, when alone with him with her head on his shoulder. And away in the distance of his mind a deformed sort of common sense was telling him that if once Julia got a good long clutch on him she would marry him; he would pass from whirlpool to whirlpool of cosy corner and arbour over the rapids of marriage with Julia clinging to him.
"I'll think of it," said he. "What's its name?"
"The Rose Hotel, Upton-on-Hill—think of Upton Sinclair. It's a jolly little place, and such a nice landlord; we'd have a jolly time, Bobby. Bobby, have you forgotten yesterday?"
"No," said Bobby, from his heart.
"I didn't sleep a wink last night," said the lady of the red hair. "Did you?"
"Scarcely."
"Do you know," said she, "this is almost likeFate. It gives us a chance to meet under the same roof quite properly since your uncle is there—not that I care a button for the world, but still, there are the proprieties, aren't there?"
"There are."
"Wait for me," said she. "I want to go into my publishers' with this manuscript."
They had reached a fashionable publishers' office that had the appearance of a bank premises. In she went, returning in a moment empty-handed.
"Now I'm free," said she; "free for a month. What are you doing to-day?"
"I'll be looking for Uncle Simon," he replied. "I must rush back to the Charing Cross Hotel, and after that—I must go on hunting. I'll see you to-morrow, Julia."
"Are you staying at the Charing Cross?"
"No, I'm staying atB12, the Albany, with a man called Tozer."
"I wish we could have had the day together. Well, to-morrow, then."
"To-morrow," said Bobby.
He put her into a taxi and she gave the address of a female literary club, then when the taxi had driven away he returned to the Charing Cross Hotel.
There he found Mudd, who had just returned.
Mudd, with the ten-pound note and the written address, had started that morning with the intention of doing another errand as well. He first took a cab to King Charles Street. It was a relief to find it there, and that the house had not been burned down in the night. Fire was one of Mudd's haunting dreads—fire and the fear of a mistress. He had extinguishing-bombs hung in every passage, besides red, cone-shaped extinguishers. If he could have had bombs to put out the flames of love and keep women away he no doubt would have had them.
Mrs. Jukes received him, and he enquired if the plate had been locked up. Then he visited his own room and examined his bank-book to see if it were safe and untampered with; then he had a glass of ginger wine for his stomach's sake.
"Where are you off to now?" asked Mrs. Jukes.
"On business for the master," replied Mudd. "I've some law papers to take to an address. Lord! look at those brasses! Haven't the girls no hands? Place going to rack and ruin if I leave it two instant minits. And look at that fender—sure you put the chain on the hall door last night?"
"Sure."
"Well, be sure you do it, for there's another Jack-the-Ripper chap goin' about the West End, I've heard, and he may be in on you if you don't."
Having frightened Mrs. Jukes into the sense of the necessity for chains as well as bolts, Mudd put on his hat, blew his nose, and departed, banging the door behind him and making sure it was shut.
There is a flower shop in the street at the end of King Charles Street. He entered, bought his bouquet, and with it in his hand left the establishment. He was looking for a cab to hide himself in; he found none, but he met a fellow butler, Judge Ponsonby's man.
"Hello, Mr. Mudd," said the other; "going courting?"
"Mrs. Jukes asked me to take them to a female friend that's goin' to be married," said Mudd.
The bouquet was not extraordinarily large, but it seemed to grow larger.
Condemned to take an omnibus in lieu of a cab, it seemed to fill the omnibus; people looked at it and then at Mudd. It seemed to him that he was condemned to carry Simon's folly bare in the face of the world. Then he remembered what he had said about the recipient going to be married. Was that an omen?
Mudd believed in omens. If his elbow itched—and it had itched yesterday—he was going to sleep in a strange bed; he never killed spiders, and he tested "strangers" in the tea-cup to see if they were male or female.
The omen was riding him now, and he got out of the omnibus and sought the street of his destination, feeling almost as though he were a fantastic bridesmaid at some nightmare wedding, with Simon in the rôle of groom.
That Simon should select a wife in this gloomy street off Leicester Square, and in this drab-looking house at whose door he was knocking, did not occur to Mudd. What did occur to him was that some hussy living in this house had put her spell on Simon and might select him for a husband, marry him at a registrar office before his temporary youth had departed, and come and reign at Charles Street.
Mudd's dreaded imaginary mistress had always figured in his mind's eye as a stout lady—eminently a lady—who would interfere with his ideas of how the brasses ought to be polished, interfere with tradesmen, order Mudd about, and make herself generally a nuisance; this new imaginary horror was a "painted slut," who would bring ridicule and disgrace on Simon and all belonging to him.
Mudd had the fine feelings of an old maid on matters like this, backed by a fine knowledge of what elderly men are capable of in the way of folly with women.
Did not Mr. Justice Thurlow marry his cook?
He rang at the dingy hall door and it was opened by a dingy little girl in a print dress.
"Does Miss Rosinol live here?" asked Mudd.
"Yus."
"Can I see her?"
"Wait a minit," said the dingy one. She clattered up the stairs; she seemed to wear hobnailed boots to judge by the noise. A minute elapsed, and then she clattered down again.
"Come in, plaaze," said the little girl.
Mudd obeyed and followed upstairs, holding on to the shaky banister with his left hand,carrying the bouquet in his right, feeling as though he were a vicious man walking upstairs in a dream; feeling no longer like Mudd.
The little girl opened a door, and there was the "painted hussy"—old Madame Rossignol sitting at a table with books spread open before her and writing.
She translated—as before said—English books into French, novels mostly.
The bouquet of last night had been broken up; there were flowers in vases and about the room; despite its shabbiness, there was an atmosphere of cleanliness and high decency that soothed the stricken soul of Mudd.
"I'm Mr. Pettigrew's man," said Mudd, "and he asked me to bring you these flowers."
"Ah, Monsieur Seemon Pattigrew," cried the old lady, her face lighting. "Come in, monsieur. Cerise!—Cerise!—a gentilmon from Mr. Pattigrew. Will you not take a seat, monsieur?"
Mudd, handing over the flowers, sat down, and at that moment in came Cerise from the bedroom adjoining. Cerise, fresh and dainty, with wide blue eyes that took in Mudd and the flowers, that seemed to take in at the same time the whole of spring and summer.
"Poor, but decent," said Mudd to himself.
"Monsieur," said the old lady, as Cerise ran off to get a bowl to put the flowers in, "you are as welcome to us as your good kind master who saved my daughter yesterday. Will you convey to him our deepest respects and our thanks?"
"Saved her?" said Mudd.
Madame explained. Cerise, arranging the flowers, joined in; they waxed enthusiastic. Never had Mudd been so chattered to before. He saw the whole business and guessed how the land lay now. He felt deeply relieved. Madame inspired him with instinctive confidence; Cerise in her youth and innocence repelled any idea of marriage between herself and Simon. But they'd got to be warned, somehow, that Simon was off the spot. He began the warning seated there before the women and rubbing his knees gently, his eyes wandering about as though seeking inspiration from the furniture.
Mr. Pettigrew was a very good master, but he had to be took care of; his health wasn't what it might be. He was older than he looked, but lately he had had an illness that had made him suddenly grow young again, as you might say; the doctors could not make it out, but he was just like a child sometimes, as you might say.
"I said it," cut in Madame. "A boy—that is his charm."
Well, Mudd did not know anything about charms, but he was often very anxious about Mr. Pettigrew. Then, little by little, the confidence the women inspired opened his flood-gates and his suppressed emotions came out.
London was not good for Mr. Pettigrew's health—that was the truth; he ought to be got away quiet and out of excitement—doorknockers rose up before him as he said this—but he was very self-willed. It was strange a gentleman getting young again like this, and a great perplexity and trouble to an old man like him, Mudd.
"Ah, monsieur, he has been always young," said Madame; "that heart could never grow old."
Mudd shook his head.
"I've known him for forty year," said he, "and it has hit me cruel hard, his doing things he's never done before—not much; but there you are—he's different."
"I have known an old gentleman," said Madame—"Monsieur de Mirabole—he, too, changed to be quite gay and young, as though spring had come to him. He wrote me verses," laughed Madame. "Me, an old woman! I humoured him, did I not, Cerise? But I never read his verses; I could not humour him to that point."
"What happened to him?" asked Mudd gloomily.
"Oh dear, he fell in love with Cerise," said Madame. "He was very rich; he wanted to marry Cerise, did he not, Cerise?"
"Oui, maman," replied Cerise, finishing the flowers.
All this hit Mudd pleasantly. Sincere as sunshine, patently, obviously, truthful, this pair of females were beyond suspicion on the charge of setting nets for Simon. Also, and for the first time in his life, he came to know the comfort of a female mind when in trouble. His troubles up to this had been mostly about uncleaned brasses, corked wine, letters forgotten to be posted. In this whirlpool of amazement, like Poe's man in the descent of the maelstrom, who, clinging to a barrel, found that he was being sucked down slower, Mudd, clinging now to the female saving-something—sense, clarity of outlook, goodness, call it what you will—found comfort.
He had opened his mind, the nightmare had lifted somewhat. Opening his mind to Bobby had not relieved him in the least; on the contrary, talking with Bobby, the situation had seemed more insane than ever. The two rigid masculine minds had followed one another, incapable of mutual help; the buoyant female
Something incapable of strict definition was now to Mudd as the supporting barrel. He clutched at the idea of old Monsieur de Mirabole, who had got young again without coming to much mischief; he felt that Simon in falling upon these two females had fallen amongst pillows. He told them of Simon's message, that he would call upon them later in the day, and they laughed.
"He will be safe with us," said Madame; "we will not let him come to 'arm. Do not be alarmed, Monsieur Mudd, the bon Dieu will surely protect an innocent so charming, so good—so much goodness may walk alone, even amongst tigers, even amongst lions; it will come to no 'arm. We will see that he returns to the Sharing Cross 'Otel—I will talk to 'im."
Mudd departed, relieved, so great is the power of goodness, even though it shines in the persons of an impoverished old French lady and a girl whose innocence is her only strength.
But his relief was not to be of long duration, for on entering the hotel, as before said, he met Bobby. "He's gone," said Bobby; "given me the slip; and he has two hundred-pound bank-notes with him, to say nothing of the rest."
"Oh, Lord!" said Mudd.
"Can he have gone to see that girl? What's her address?"
"What girl?" asked Mudd.
"The girl you took the flowers to."
"I've just been," said Mudd. "No, he wasn't there. Wish he was; it's an old lady."
"Old lady!"
"And her daughter. They're French folk, poor but honest, not a scrap of harm in them." He explained the Rossignol affair.
"Well, there's nothing to be done but sit down and wait," said Bobby.
"It's easy to say that. Me, with my nerves near gone."
"I know; mine are nearly as bad. 'Pon my soul, it's just as if one had lost a child. Mudd, we've got to get him out of London; we've got to do it."
"Get him back first," said Mudd. "Get him back alive with all that money in his pocket. He'll be murdered before night, that's my opinion, I know London; or gaoled—and he'll give his right name."
"We'll tip the reporters if he is," said Bobby, "and keep it out of the papers. I was run in once and I know the ropes. Cheer up, Mudd, and go and have a whisky-and-soda; you want bucking up, and so do I."
"Bucking up!" said Mudd.
One of the pleasantest, yet perhaps most dangerous, points about Simon Pettigrew's condition was his un-English open-heartedness towards strangers—strangers that pleased him. A disposition, in fact, to chum up with anything that appealed to him, without question, without thought. Affable strangers, pretty girls—it was all the same to Simon.
Now, when Bobby Ravenshaw went into the cigar merchant's, leaving Simon outside, he had not noticed particularly a large Dragon-Fly car, claret-coloured and adorned with a tiny monogram on the door-panel, which was standing in front of the shop immediately on the right. It was the property of the Hon. Dick Pugeot, and just as Bobby disappeared into the tobacconist's the Hon. Dick appeared from the doorstep of the next-door shop.
Dick Pugeot, late of the Guards, was a big, yellow man, quite young, perhaps not morethan twenty-five, yet with a serious and fatherly face and an air that gave him another five years of apparent age. This serious and fatherly appearance was deceptive. With the activity of a gnat, a disregard of all consequences, a big fortune, a good heart, and a taste for fun of any sort as long as it kept him moving, Dick Pugeot was generally in trouble of some kind or another. His crave for speed on the road was only equal to his instinct for fastness in other respects, but, up to this, thanks to luck and his own personality, he had, with the exception of a few endorsed licences and other trifles of that sort, always escaped.
But once he had come very near to a real disaster. Some eighteen months ago he found himself involved with a lady, a female shark in the guise of an angel, a—to put it in his own language—"bad 'un."
The bad 'un had him firmly hooked. She was a Countess, too! and fried and eaten he undoubtedly would have been had not the wisdom of an uncle saved him.
"Go to my solicitor, Pettigrew," said the uncle. "If she were an ordinary card-sharper I would advise you to go to Marcus Abraham, but, seeing what she is, Pettigrew is the man. He wouldn't take up an ordinary case of thissort, but, seeing what she is, and considering that you are my nephew, he'll do it—and he knows all the ins and outs of her family. There's nothing he doesn't know about us."
"Us" meaning people of high degree.
Pugeot went, and Simon took up the case, and in forty-eight hours the fish was off the hook, frantically grateful. He presented Simon with a silver wine-cooler and then forgot him, till this moment, when, coming out of Spud and Simpson's shop, he saw Simon standing on the pavement smoking a cigar and watching the pageant of the street.
Simon's new clothes and holiday air and straw hat put him off for a moment, but it was Pettigrew right enough.
"Hello, Pettigrew!" said Pugeot.
"Hello," said Simon, pleased with the heartiness and appearance of this new friend.
"Why, you look quite gay," said Pugeot. "What are you up to?"
"Out for some fun," said Simon. "What are you up to?"
"Same as you," replied Pugeot, delighted, amused, and surprised at Simon's manner and reply, the vast respect he had for his astuteness greatly amplified by this evidence of mundane leanings. "Get into the car; I've got to callat Panton Street for a moment, and then we'll go and have luncheon or something."
He opened the car door and Simon hopped in; then he gave the address to the driver and the car drove off.
"Well, I never expected to see you this morning," said Pugeot. "Never can feel grateful enough to you either—you've nothing special to do, have you? Anywhere I can drive you to?"
"I've got to see a girl," said Simon, "but she can wait."
Pugeot laughed.
That explained the summer garb and straw hat, but the frankness came to him with the weest bit of a shock. However, he was used to shocks, and if old Simon Pettigrew was running after girls it was no affair of his. It was a good joke, though, despite the fact that he could never tell it. Pugeot was not the man to tell tales out of school.
"Look here," said Simon, suddenly producing his notes, "I want to change a hundred; been trying to do it in a lot of shops. You can't have any fun without some money."
"Don't you worry," said Pugeot. "This is my show."
"I want to change a hundred," said Simon,with the persistency of Toddy wanting to see the wheels go round.
"Well, I'll get you change, though you don't really want it. Why, you've got two hundred there—and a tenner!"
"It's not too much to have a good time with."
"Oh my!" said Pugeot. "Well, if you're on the razzle-dazzle, I'm with you, Pettigrew. I feel safe with you, in a way; there's not much you don't know."
"Not much," said Simon, puffing himself.
The car stopped.
"A minute," said Pugeot. Out he jumped, transacted his business, and was back again under five minutes. There was a new light in his sober eye.
"Let's go and have a slap at the Wilderness," said he, lowering his voice a tone. "You know the Wilderness. I can get you in—jolly good fun."
"Right," said Simon.
Pugeot gave an address to the driver and off they went. They stopped in a narrow street and Pugeot led the way into a house.
In the hall of this house he had an interview with a pale-faced individual in black, an evil, weary-looking person who handed Simon avisitors' book to sign. They then went into a bar, where Simon imbibed a cocktail, and from the bar they went upstairs.
Pugeot opened a door and disclosed Monte Carlo.
A Monte Carlo shrunk to one room and one table. This was the Wilderness Club, and around the table were grouped men of all ages and sizes, some of them of the highest social standing.
The stakes were high.
Just as a child gobbles a stolen apple, so these gentlemen seemed to be trying to make as much out of their furtive business as they could and get away, winners or losers, as soon as possible lest worse befel them. Added to the uneasiness of the gambler was the uneasiness of the law-breaker, the two uneasinesses, combined making a mental cocktail that, to a large number of the frequenters, had a charm far above anything to be obtained in a legitimate gambling-shop on the Continent.
This place supplied Oppenshaw with some of his male patients.
Pugeot played and lost, and then Simon plunged.
They were there an hour, and in that hour Simon won seven hundred pounds!
Then Pugeot, far more delighted than he, dragged him away.
It was now nearly one o'clock, and downstairs they had luncheon, of a sort, and a bottle of cliquot, of a sort.
"You came in with two hundred and you are going out with nine," said Pugeot. "I am so jolly glad—youhavethe luck. When we've finished we'll go for a great tearing spin and get the air. You'd better get a cap somewhere; that straw hat will be blown to Jericho. You've never seen Randall drive? He beats me. We'll run round to my rooms and get coats—the old car is a Dragon-Fly. I want to show you what a Dragon-Fly can really do on the hard high-road out of sight of traffic. Two Benedictines, please."
They stopped at Scott's, where Simon invested in a cap; then they went to Pugeot's rooms, where overcoats were obtained. Then they started.
Pugeot was nicknamed the Baby—Baby Pugeot—and the name sometimes applied. Mixed with his passion for life, he loved fresh air and a good many innocent things, speed amongst them. Randall, the chauffeur, seemed on all fours with him in the latter respect, and the Dragon-Fly was an able instrument. ClearingLondon, they made through Sussex for the sea. The day was perfect and filled for miles with the hum of the Dragon-Fly. At times they were doing a good seventy miles, at times less; then came the Downs and a vision of the sea—seacoast towns through which they passed picking up petrol and liquid refreshments. At Hastings, or somewhere, where they indulged in a light and early dinner, the vision of Cerise, always like a guardian angel, arose before the remains of the mind of Simon, and her address. He wanted to go there at once, which was manifestly impossible. He tried to explain her to Pugeot, who at the same time was trying to explain a dark-eyed girl he had met at a dance the week before last and who was haunting him. "Can't get her blessed eyes out of my head, my dear chap; and she's engaged two deep to a chap in the Carabineers, without a cent to his name and a pile of debts as big as Mount Ararat. She won't be happy—that's what's gettin' me; she won't be happy. How can she be happy with a chap like that, without a cent to his name and a pile of debts? Lord,Ican't understand women, they're beyond me. Waiter,confound you! do you call this stuff asparagus? Take it away! Not a cent to her name—and tied to him for years, maybe. I mean to say, it'sabsurd.... What were you saying? Oh yes, I'll take you there—it's only round the corner, so to speak. Randall will do it. The Dragon-Fly'll have us there in no time. Do you remember, was this Hastings or Bognor? Waiter, hi! Is this Hastings or Bognor? All your towns are so confoundedly alike there's no telling which is which, and I've been through twenty. Hastings, that'll do; put your information down in the bill—if you can find room for it. You needn't be a bit alarmed, old chap, she'll be there all right. You said you sent her those flowers? Well, that will keep her all right and happy. I mean to say, she'll be right—absolutely—I know women from hoof to mane. No, no pudding. Bill, please."
Then they were out in the warm summer twilight listening to a band. Then they were getting into the car, and Pugeot was saying to Simon:
"It's a jolly good thing we've got a teetotum driver. Whatyousay, old chap?"
Then the warm and purring night took them and sprinkled stars over them, and a great moon rose behind, which annoyed Pugeot, who kept looking back at it, abusing it because the reflection from the wind-screen got in his eyes. Then they burst a tyre and Pugeot, instantlybecoming condensedly clever and active and clear of speech, insisted on putting on the spare wheel himself. He had a long argument with Randall as to which was the front and which was the back of the wheel—not the sideways front and back, but the foreways front and back, Randall insisting gently that it did not matter. Then the wheel on and all the nuts re-tested by Randall—an operation which Pugeot took as a sort of personal insult; the jack was taken down, and Pugeot threw it into a ditch. They would not want it again as they had not another spare wheel, and it was a nuisance anyhow, but Randall, with the good humour and patience which came to him from a salary equal to the salary of a country curate, free quarters and big tips and perquisites, recovered the jack and they started.
A town and an inn that absolutely refused to serve the smiling motorists with anything stronger than "minerals" was passed. Then ten miles further on the lights of a town hull down on the horizon brought the dry "insides" to a dear consideration of the position.
The town developing an inn, Randall was sent, as the dove from the ark, with a half-sovereign, and returned with a stone demijohn and two glasses. It was beer.