Now, Moxon had come up that morning from Framlingham in Kent, where he was taking a holiday, to transact some business. Amongst other things he had to see Simon Pettigrew on a question about some bills.
The apparition he had encountered in the hall of the Charing Cross Hotel pursued him to Plunder's office, where he first went, and, when he left Plunder's for luncheon at Prosser's, in Chancery Lane, it still pursued him.
Though he knew it could not be Pettigrew, some uneasy spirit in his subconsciousness kept insisting that it was Pettigrew.
At two o'clock he called at Old Serjeants' Inn. He saw Brownlow, who had just returned from lunch.
No, Mr. Pettigrew was not in. He had gone out that morning early and had not returned.
"I must see him," said Moxon. "When do you think he will be in?"
Brownlow couldn't say.
"Would he be at his house, do you think?"
"Hardly," said Brownlow; "he might have gone home, but I think it's improbable."
"I must see him," said Moxon again. "It's extraordinary. Why, I wrote to him telling him I was coming this afternoon and he knows the importance of my business."
"Mr. Pettigrew hasn't opened his morning letters yet," said Brownlow.
"Good Lord!" said Moxon.
Then, after a pause:
"Will you telephone to his house to see?"
"Mr. Pettigrew has no telephone," said Brownlow; "he dislikes them, except in business."
Moxon remembered this and other old-fashioned traits in Pettigrew; the remembrance did not ease his irritation.
"Then I'll go to his house myself," said he.
When he arrived at King Charles Street, Mudd opened the door.
Mudd and Moxon were mutually known one to the other, Moxon having often dined there.
"Is your master in, Mudd?" asked Moxon.
"No, sir," answered Mudd; "he's not at home, and mayn't be at home for some time."
"What do you mean?"
"He left me directions that if he wasn't at the office when the brougham called to take him to luncheon I was to tell the office he was called away; the coachman has just come back to say he wasn't there, so I am sending him back to the office to tell them."
"Called away! For how long?"
"Well, it might be a month," said Mudd, remembering.
"Extraordinary!" said Moxon. "Well, I can't help it, and I can't wait; I must take my business elsewhere. I thought I saw Mr. Pettigrew in the Charing Cross Hotel, but he was dressed differently and seemed strange. Well, this is a great nuisance, but it can't be helped, I suppose.... A month...."
Off he went in a huff.
Mudd watched him as he went, then he closed the hall door. Then he sat down on one of the hall chairs.
"Dressed differently and seemed strange." It only wanted those words to start alarm in the mind of Mudd.
The affair of a year ago had always perplexed him, and now this!
"Seemed strange."
Could it be?... H'm.... He got up and went downstairs.
"Why, what's the matter with you, Mr. Mudd?" asked the cook-housekeeper. "Why, you're all of a shake."
"It's my stomach," said Mudd.
He took a glass of ginger wine, then he fetched his hat.
"I'm going out to get the air," said Mudd. "I mayn't be back for some time; don't bother about me if I aren't, and be sure to lock up the plate."
"God bless my soul, what's the matter with the man?" murmured the astonished housekeeper as Mudd vanished. "Blest if he isn't getting as queer as his master!"
Out in the street Mudd paused to blow his nose in a bandanna handkerchief just like Simon's. Then, as though this act had started his mechanism, off he went, hailed an omnibus in the next street, and got off at Charing Cross.
He entered the Charing Cross Hotel.
"Is a Mr. Pettigrew here?" asked Mudd of the hall porter.
The hall porter grinned.
"Yes, there's a Mr. Pettigrew staying here, but he's out."
"Well, I'm his servant," said Mudd.
"Staying here with him?" asked the porter.
"Yes. I've followed him on. What's the number of his room?"
"The office will know," replied the other.
"Well, just go to the office and get his key," said Mudd, "and send a messenger boy to No. 12, King Charles Street—that's our address—to tell Mrs. Jukes, the housekeeper, I won't be able to get back to-night maybe. Here's a shilling for him—but show me his room first."
Mudd carried conviction.
The hall porter went to the office.
"Key of Mr. Pettigrew's room," said he; "his servant has just come."
The superior damsel detached herself from book-keeping, looked up the number and gave the key.
Mudd took it and went up in the lift. He opened the door of the room and went in. The place had not been tidied, clothes lay everywhere.
Mudd, like a cat in a strange house, looked around. Then he shut the door.
Then he took up a coat and looked at the maker's name on the tab.
"Holland and Woolson"—Simon's tailors!
Then he examined all the garments. Such garments! Boating flannels, serge suits! Then the shoes, the patent leather boots. He openedthe chest of drawers and found the bundle of discarded clothes—the old coat with the left elbow "going," and the rest. He held them up, examined them, folded them and put them back.
Then he sat down to recover himself, blew his nose, wondered whether he or Simon were crazy, and then, rising up, began to fold and put away the new things in the wardrobe and chest-of-drawers.
He noticed that one of the portmanteaux was locked. Yet there was something in it that slid up and down as he tilted and lowered it.
Having looked round the room once again, he went downstairs, gave up the key, made arrangements for his room, and started out.
He made for Sackville Street. Meyer, the foreman of Holland and Woolson's, was known to him. He had sometimes called regarding Simon's clothes with directions for this or that.
"That blue serge suit you've just sent for Mr. Pettigrew don't quite rightly fit, Mr. Meyer," said the cunning Mudd. "I had the coat done up in a parcel to bring back to you for the sleeves to be shortened half an inch, but I forgot it; only remembered I'd forgot it at your door."
"We'll send for it," said Meyer.
"Right," said Mudd. Then, "No—on second thoughts, I'll fetch it myself when I have amoment to spare, for we're going from home for a few days. Mr. Pettigrew has had a good lot of clothes lately, Mr. Meyer."
"He has," said Meyer, with a twinkle in his eye; "suits and suits, almost as if he were going to be married."
"Married!" cried the other. "What put that into your head, Mr. Meyer? He's not a marrying man. Why, I've never seen him as much as glance an eye at a female."
"Oh, it was only my joke," said Meyer.
Now, in Mudd's soul there had lain for years an uneasiness, a crumpled rose-leaf of thought that touched him sometimes as he turned at night in bed. It was the fear that some day Simon might ruin Mudd's life with a mistress. He couldn't stand a mistress. He had always sworn that to himself; the experience of fellow butlers whose lives were made loathsome by mistresses would have been enough without his own deep-rooted antipathy to females, except as spectacular objects. Mrs. Jukes was a relation of his, and he could stand her; the maid-servants were automata beneath his notice—but a mistress!
Mad alarm filled his mind, for his heart told him that the words of Meyer had foundation in probability.
That affair of last year, when Simon had departed and returned in new strange clothes, might have been the courting, this the real thing?
He left the tailor's, called a taxi and drove to the office.
Brownlow was in.
"What is it, Mudd?" asked Brownlow, as the latter was shown into his room.
"Did you get my message, Mr. Brownlow?" asked Mudd.
"Yes."
"Oh, that's all right," said Mudd. "I just thought I'd call and ask. The master told me to send the message; he's going away for a bit. Wants a change, too. I think he's been overworking lately, Mr. Brownlow."
"He's always overworking," said Brownlow. "I think he's been suffering from brain-fag, Mudd; he's very reticent about himself, but I'm glad he saw a doctor."
"Saw a doctor! Why, he never told me."
"Didn't he? Well, he did—Dr. Oppenshaw, of Harley Street. This is between you and me. Try and make him rest more, Mudd."
"I will," said Mudd. "He wants rest. I've been uneasy about him a long while. What's thedoctor's number in Harley Street, Mr. Brownlow?"
"110A," said Brownlow, picking the number out of his marvellous memory; "but don't let Mr. Pettigrew know I told you. He's very touchy about himself."
"I won't."
Off he went.
"Faithful old servitor," thought Brownlow.
The faithful old servitor got into a taxi. "110A, Harley Street," said he to the driver; "and drive quick and I'll give you an extra tuppence."
Oppenshaw was in.
When he was informed that Pettigrew's servant had called to see him, he turned over a duchess he was engaged on, gave her a harmless prescription, bowed her out and rang the bell.
Mudd was shown in.
"I've come to ask——" said Mudd.
"Sit down," said Oppenshaw.
"I've come to speak——"
"I know; about your master. How is he?"
"Well, I've come to ask you, sir; he's at the Charing Cross Hotel at present."
"Has he gone there to live?"
"Well, he's there."
"I saw him some time ago about the state ofhis health, and, frankly, Mr. Mudd, it's serious."
Mudd nodded.
"Tell me," said Oppenshaw, "has he been buying new clothes?"
"Heaps; no end," said Mudd. "And such clothes—things he's never worn before."
"So? Well, it's fortunate you found him. What is his conversation like? Have you talked to him much?"
"I haven't seen him yet," Mudd explained.
"Well, stay close to him, and be very careful. He is suffering from a form of mental upset. You must cross him as little as possible, use persuasion, gentle persuasion. The thing will run its course. It mustn't be suddenly checked."
"Is he mad?" asked the other.
"No, but he is not himself—or rather, he is himself—in a different way; but a sudden check might make him mad. You have heard of people walking in their sleep—well, this is something akin to that. You know it is highly dangerous to awaken a sleep-walker suddenly. Well, it's just the same with Mr. Pettigrew; it might imbalance his mind for good."
"What am I to do?"
"Just keep watch on him."
"But suppose he don't know me?"
"He won't know you, but if you are kind to him he will accept you into his environment, and then you will link on to his mental state."
"He's out now, and God knows where, or doing what," said Mudd; "but I'll be on the watch for him coming in—if he ever comes."
"Oh, he will come home right enough."
"Is there any fear of those women getting hold of him?" asked Mudd, returning to his old dread.
"That's just what there is—every fear; but you must be very careful not to interpose your will violently. Get gently between, gently between. You understand me. Suggestion does a lot in these cases. Another thing, you must treat him as one treats a boy. You must imagine to yourself that your master is only twenty, for that, in truth, is what he is. He has gone back to a younger state—or rather, a younger state has come to meet him, having lain dormant, just as a wisdom tooth lies dormant, then grows."
"Oh, Lord!" said Mudd. "I never did think I'd live to see this day."
"Oh, it might be worse."
"I don't see."
"Well, from what I can make out of his youth, it was not a vicious one, only foolish;had he been vicious when young he might be terrible now."
"The first solicitor in London," said Mudd in a dreary voice.
"Well, he's not the first solicitor in London to make a fool of himself, nor will he be the last. Cheer up and keep your eyes open and do your duty; no man can do more than that."
"Shall I send for you, doctor, if he gets worse?"
"Well," said Oppenshaw; "from what you tell me he couldn't be much worse. Oh no, don't bother to send—unless, of course, the thing took a different course, and he were to become violent without reason; but that won't happen, you can take my word for it."
Mudd departed.
He walked all the way back to the Charing Cross Hotel, but instead of entering, he suddenly took a taxi, and returned to Charles Street. Here he packed some things in a handbag, and having again given directions to Mrs. Jukes to lock up the plate, he told her he might be some time gone.
"I'm going with the master on some law business," said Mudd. "Make sure and bolt the front door—and lock up the plate."
It was the third or fourth time he had given her these instructions.
"He's out of his mind," said Mrs. Jukes, as she watched him go. She wasn't far wrong.
Mudd had been used to a rut—a rut forty years deep. His light and pleasant duties carried him easily through the day. Of evenings when Simon was dining out he would join a social circle in the private room of a highly respectable tavern close by, smoke his pipe, drink two hot gins, and depart for home at ten-thirty. When Simon was in he could smoke his pipe and read his paper in his own private room. He had five hundred pounds laid by in the bank—no stocks and shares for Mudd—and he would vary his evening amusements by counting the toll of his money.
It is easy to be seen that this jolt out of the rut was, literally, a jolt.
At the Charing Cross Hotel he found the room allotted to him, deposited his things and, disdaining the servants' quarters, went out to a tavern to read the paper.
He reckoned Simon might not return till late, and he reckoned right.
Madame Rossignol was a charming old lady of sixty, a production of France—no other country could have produced her. She lived in Duke Street, Leicester Square, supporting herself and her daughter Cerise by translating English books into French. Cerise did millinery. Madame combined absolute innocence with absolute instinct. She knew all about things; her innocence was not ignorance, it was purity—rising above a knowledge of the world, and disdaining to look at evil.
She was dreadfully poor.
Her love for Cerise was like a disease always preying upon her. Should she die, what would happen to Cerise?
Behold these together clasped in each other's arms. Set in the shabby sitting-room, it might have been a scene at the Port St. Martin.
"Oh, mother," murmured the girl, "is he not good!"
"He is more than good," said Madame. "Most surely thebon Dieusent him to be your guardian angel."
"Is he not charming?" went on Cerise, unlinking herself from the maternal embrace and touching her hair into order again with a little laugh. "So different from the leaden-faced English, so gay and yet so—so——"
"There is a something—I do not know what—about him," said the old lady; "something of Romance. Is it not like a little tale of Madame Perichon's or a little play of Monsieur Baree? Might he not just have come in as in one of those? You go out, lose your purse, are lost. I sit waiting for you at your non-return in this wilderness of London; you return, but not alone. With you comes the Marquis de Grandcourt, who bows and says, 'Madame, I return you your daughter; I ask in return your friendship. I am alone, like you; let us then be friends.' I reply, 'Monsieur, you behold our poverty, but you cannot behold our hearts or the gratitude in my mind.' What a little story!"
"And how he laughed, and said, 'Hang monee!'" cut in Cerise. "What means that 'hang monee!' maman? And how he pulled out all the gold pieces like a boy, saying, 'I am rich!'—just as a little boy might say, 'I amrich! I am rich!' No bourgeois could have done that without offending, without giving one a shiver of the skin."
"You have said it," replied Madame. "A little boy—a great and good man, yet a little boy. He is not in his first youth, but there are people, like Pierre Pan, who never lose youth. It is so; I have seen it."
"Simon Pattigrew," murmured Cerise, with a little laugh.
A knock came to the door and a little maid-of-all-work, and down at heel, entered with a huge bouquet, one of those bouquets youth flings atprima donnas.
Simon, after leaving the Rossignols, had struck a flower shop—this was the result. A piece of paper accompanied the bouquet, and on the paper, written in a handwriting that hitherto had only appeared on letters of business and documents of law, were the words: "From your Friend."
Simon, having struck the flower shop, might have struck a fruit shop and a bonnet shop, only that the joy of love, the love that comes at first sight, the love of dreams, made him incapable of any more business—even the business of buying presents for his fascinator.
It was now five o'clock, and, pursuing his wayWest, he found Piccadilly. He passed girls without looking at them—he saw only the vision of Cerise. She led him as far as St. George's Hospital, as though leading him away from the temptations of the West, but the gloomy prospect of Knightsbridge headed him off, and, turning, he came back. Big houses, signs of wealth and prosperity, seemed to hold him in a charm, just as he was held by all things pretty, coloured, or dazzling.
A glittering restaurant drew him in presently, and here he had a jovial dinner; all alone, it is true, but with plenty to look at.
He had also a half-bottle of champagne and a maraschino.
He had already consumed that day a cocktail coloured, two glasses of brandy-and-water cold and a half-bottle of champagne. His ordinary consumption of alcohol was moderate. A glass of green-seal sherry at twelve, and a half-bottle of St. Estéphe at lunch, and, shall we say, a small whisky-and-soda at dinner, or, if dining out or with guests, a couple of glasses of Pommery.
And to-day he had been drinking restaurant champagne "tres sec"—and two half-bottles of it! The excess was beginning to tell. It told in the slight flush on his cheeks, which, strange tosay, did not make him look younger; it told in the tip he gave the waiter, and in the way he put on his hat. He had bought a walking-stick during his peregrinations, a dandy stick with a tassel—the passing fashion had just come in—and with this under his arm he left the café in search of pleasures new.
The West End was now ablaze, and the theatres filling. Simon, like Poe's man of the crowd, kept with the crowd; a blaze of lights attracted him as a lamp a moth.
The Pallaceum sucked him in. Here, in a blue haze of tobacco-smoke and to the tune of a band, he sat for awhile watching the show, roaring with laughter at the comic turns, pleased with the conjuring business, and fascinated—despite Cerise—with the girl in tights who did acrobatic tricks aided by two poodles and a monkey.
Then he found the bar, and there he stood adding fuel to pleasure, his stick under his arm, his hat tilted back, a new cigar in his mouth, and a smile on his face—a smile with a suggestion of fixity. Alas! if Cerise could have seen the Marquis de Grandcourt now!—or was it Madame who raised him to the peerage of France? If she could have been by to just raise her eyebrows at him! Yet she was there, in away, for the ladies of thefoyerwho glanced at him not unkindly, taken perhaps by hisbonhomie, and smiling demeanour and atmosphere of wealth and enjoyment, found no response. Yet he found momentary acquaintances, of a sort. A couple of University men up in town for a lark seemed to find him part of the lark; they all drank together, exchanged views, and then the University men vanished, giving place to a gentleman in a very polished hat, with diamond studs, and a face like a hawk, who suggested "fizz," a small bottle of which was consumed mostly by the hawk, who then vanished, leaving Simon to pay.
Simon ordered another, paid for it, forgot it, and found himself in the entrance hall calling in a loud voice for a hansom.
A taxi was procured for him and the door opened. He got inside and said, "Wait a moment—one moment."
Then he began paying half-crowns to the commissionaire who had opened the taxi door for him. "That's for your trouble," said Simon. "That's for your trouble. That's for your trouble. Where am I? Oh yes—shut that confounded door, will you, and tell the chap to drive on!"
"Where to, sir?"
Oppenshaw would have been interested in the fact that champagne beyond a certain amount had the effect of wakening Simon's remote past. He answered:
"Evans'."
Consultation outside.
"Evans's? Which Evans's? There ain't no such 'otel, there ain't no such bar. Ask him which Evans's?"
"Which Evanses did you say, sir?" asked the commissionaire, putting his head in. "The driver don't know which you mean. Where does it lay?"
He got a chuck under the chin that nearly drove his head to the roof of the taxi.
Then Simon's head popped out of the window. It looked up and down the street.
"Where's that chap that put his head through the window?" asked Simon.
A small crowd and a policeman drew round. "What is it, sir?" asked the policeman.
Simon seemed calculating the distance with a view to the bonneting of the enquirer. Then he seemed to find the distance too far.
"Tell him to drive me to the Argyle Rooms," said he. Then he vanished.
Another council outside, the commissionaire presiding.
"Take him to the Leicester 'Otel. Why, Lord bless me! the Argyle Rooms has been closed this forty years. Take him round about and let him have a snooze."
The taximan started with the full intention of robbery—not by force, but by strategy. Robbery on the dock. It was not theatre turning-out time yet, and he would have the chance of earning a few dishonest shillings. He turned every corner he could, for every time a taxi turns a corner the "clock" increases in speed. He drove here and there, but he never reached the Leicester 'Otel, for in Full Moon Street, the home of bishops and earls, the noise inside the vehicle made him halt. He opened the door and Simon burst out, radiant with humour and now much steadier on his legs.
"How much?" said Simon, and then, without waiting for a reply, thrust half a handful of coppers and silver into the fist of the taximan, hit him a slap on the top of his flat cap that made him see stars, and walked off.
The man did not pursue, he was counting his takings: eleven-and-fivepence, no less.
"Crazy," said he; then he started his engine and went off, utterly unconscious of the fact that he had entertained and driven something worthy to be preserved in the BritishMuseum—a real live reveller of the sixties.
The full moon was shining on Full Moon Street, an old street that still preserves in front of its houses the sockets for the torches of the linkmen. It does not require much imagination to see phantom sedan chairs in Full Moon Street on a night like this, or the watchman on his rounds, and to-night the old street—if old streets have memories—must surely have stirred in its dreams, for, as Simon went on his way, the night began suddenly to be filled with cat-calls.
A lady airing a Pom whisked her treasure into the house as Simon passed, and shut the door with a bang; such a bang that the knocker gave a jump and Simon a hint.
Ten yards further on he went up steps, paused before a hall door that, in daylight, would have been green, and took the knocker.
Just a few turns of his wrist and the knocker was his, a glorious brass knocker, weighing half a pound. No other young man in London that night could have done the business like that or shown such dexterity in an art lost as the art of pinchbeck-making.
He collected two more knockers in that street, retaining only one as a trophy. He threw the others into an area, pulled the house doorbell violently, and ran.
In Berkeley Square he was just beginning to deal with another knocker, when the door opened to an elderly woman of the housekeeper type and a dachshund.
"What do you want?" asked the housekeeper.
"Does the Duke of Cu-cu-cumberland live here?" hiccupped Simon.
"No, sir, he does not."
"Sorry—sorry—sorry," said Simon. "My mistake—entirely my mistake. Very sorry to trouble you indeed. What a pretty little dog! What's his name?"
He was entirely affable now, and, forgetful of knockers, wished to strike up a friendship, a desire unshared evidently by the lady.
"I think you had better go away," said she, recognising a gentleman and mourning the fact.
He considered this proposition deeply for a moment.
"That's all very well," said he, "but where am I to go? That's the question."
"You had better go home."
This seemed slightly to irritate him.
"I'mnot going home—thistime of night—not likely." He began to descend the steps as if to get away from admonition. "Not me; you can go home yourself."
Off he went.
He walked three times round Berkeley Square. He met a constable, enquired where that street ended and when, found sympathy in return for half-crowns, and was mothered into a straighter street.
Half-way down the straighter street he remembered he hadn't shown the sympathetic constable his door-knocker, but the policeman, fortunately, had passed out of sight.
Then he stood for awhile remembering Cerise. Her vision had suddenly appeared before him; it threw him into deep melancholy—profound melancholy. He went on till the lights and noise of Piccadilly restored him. Then, further on, he entered a flaming doorway through which came the music of a band.
On the morning of the fourth of June, the same morning on which Simon had broken like a butterfly from his chrysalis of long-moulded custom and stiff routine, Mr. Bobby Ravenshaw, nephew and only near relation of Simon Pettigrew, awoke in his chambers in Pactolus Mansions, Piccadilly, yawned, rang for his tea, and, picking up the book he had put beside him on dropping to sleep, began to read.
The book wasMonte Cristo. Now Pactolus Mansions, Piccadilly, sounds a very grand address, and, as a matter of fact, it is a grand address, but the address is grander than the place. For one thing, it is not in Piccadilly, the approach is up a dubious side street; the word "Pactolus" bears little relationship to it, nor the word "Mansions," and the rents are moderate. Downstairs there is a restaurant and a lounge with cosy corners.
People take chambers in Pactolus Mansions and vanish. The fact is never reported to the Society for Psychical Research, the levitation being always accountable for by solid reasons. To stop them from vanishing before their rent is paid they have to pay their rent in advance. No credit is given under any circumstances. This seems hard, yet there are the compensating advantages that the rent is low, the service good, and the address taking.
Bobby Ravenshaw had chosen to live in Pactolus Mansions because it was the cheapest place he could get near the gayest place in town.
Bobby was an orphan, an Oxford man without a degree, and with a taste for literature and fine clothes. Absolutely irresponsible. Five hundred a year, derived from Simon, of whose only sister he was the son, and an instinct for bridge that was worth another two hundred and fifty supported Bobby in a lame sort of way, assisted by friends, confiding tailors and bootmakers, and a genial moneylender who was also a cigar merchant.
Bobby had started in life a year or two ago with cleverness of no mean order and the backing of money, but Fate had dealt him out two bad cards: a nature that was charming and irresponsible, and good looks. Girlsworshipped Bobby, and if his talents had only cast him on the stage their worship might have helped. As it was, it hindered, for Bobby was a literary man, and no girl has ever bought a book on the strength of the good looks of the author.
His tea having arrived, Bobby drank it, finished the chapter inMonte Cristoand then rose and dressed.
He was leaving Pactolus Mansions that day for the very good reason that, if he wished to stay beyond twelve o'clock, he would have to pay a month's rent in advance, and he only had thirty shillings.
Uncle Simon had "foreclosed." That was Bobby's expression, a month ago. For a month Bobby had watched the sands running down; no more money to come in and all the time money running out. Absolutely unalarmed, and only noticing the fact as he might have noticed a change in the weather, he had made no provision, trusting to chance, to bridge that betrayed him, and to friends. Literature could not help. He had got into a wrong groove as far as moneymaking went. Little articles for literary papers of limited circulation and a really cultivated taste are not the immediate means to financial support in a world that devours its fictional literature like ham sandwiches, forgottenas soon as eaten—and only fictional literature pays.
He was thinking more ofMonte Cristothan of his own position as he dressed. The fact that he had to look out for other rooms worried him as an uncomfortable business to be performed, but not much. If he couldn't get other rooms that day he could always stay with Tozer. Tozer was an Oxford man with chambers in the Albany—chambers always open to Bobby at any hour. A sure stand-by in trouble.
Then, having dressed, he took his hat and stick and the sovereign and half-sovereign lying on the mantel, tipped the servant the half-sovereign, and ordered that his things should be packed and his luggage taken to the office to be left till he called for it.
"I'm going to the country," said Bobby, "and I'll send my address for letters to be forwarded."
Then he started.
He called first at the Albany.
Tozer, the son of a big, defunct Manchester cotton merchant, was a man of some twenty-three years, red-haired, with a taste for the good things of life, a taste for boxing, a taste for music, and a hard common sense that never deserted him even in his gayest and mostfrivolous moods. His chambers were newly furnished, the walls of the sitting-room adorned with old prints, mostly proofs before letter; boxing gloves and single-sticks hinted of themselves, and a violoncello stood in the corner.
He was at breakfast when Bobby arrived. Tozer rang for another cup and plate.
"Tozer," said Bobby, "I'm bust."
"Aren't surprised to hear it," replied Tozer. "Try these kippers."
"One single sovereign in the world, my boy, and I'm hunting for new rooms."
"What's the matter with your old rooms? Have they kicked you out?"
Bobby explained.
"Good Lord!" said Tozer. "You've cut the ground from under your feet, staying at a place like that."
"It's not all my fault, it's my relative. I always boasted to him that I paid my rent in advance; he took it as a sign of wisdom."
"What made him go back on you?"
"A girl."
"Which way?"
"Well, it was this way. I was staying with the Huntingdons, you know, the Warwickshire lot."
"I know—bridge and brandy crowd."
"Oh, they're all right. Well, I was staying with them when I met her."
"What's her name?"
"Alice Carruthers."
"Heave ahead."
"I got engaged to her; she hadn't a penny."
"Just like you."
"And her people haven't a penny, and I wrote like a fool telling the relative. He gave me the option of cutting her off or being cut off. It seems her people were the real obstacle. He wrote quite libellous things about them. I refused."
"Of course."
"And he cut me off. Well, the funny thing was she cut me off a week later, and she's engaged now to a chap called Harkness."
"Well, why don't you tell the relative and make it up?"
"Tell him she'd fired me! Besides, it's no use, he'd just go on to other things—what he calls extravagances and irresponsibilities."
"I see."
"That's just how it is."
"Look here, Bobby," said Tozer, "you've just got to cut all this nonsense and get to work. You've been making a fool of yourself."
"I have," said Bobby, helping himself to marmalade.
"There's no use saying, 'I have,' and then forgetting. I know you. You're a good sort, Bobby, but you are in the wrong set; you couldn't keep the pace. You've loads of cleverness and you're going to rot. Work!"
"How?"
"Write," said Tozer, who believed in Bobby and hated to see him going to waste. "Write. I've always been urging you to settle down and write."
"I made five pounds ten last year writing," said Bobby.
"I know—articles on old French poetry and so on. You've got to write fiction. You can do it. That little story you wrote for Tillson's was ripping."
"The devil of it is," said Bobby, "I can't find plots. I can write all right if I have only something to write about, but I can't find plots."
"That's rubbish, and pure laziness. Can't find plots, with your experience of London and life! You've got to find plots, and find them sharp; it's the only trade open to you. You can do it, and it pays. Now look here, B. R. I'll finance you——"
"Thanks awfully," said Bobby, helping himself to a cigarette from a box on a little table near by.
"Reserve your thanks. I'm not going to finance a slacker, which you are at present, but a hard-working literary man, which you will be when I have done with you. I will give you a room here on the strict conditions that you keep early hours five days a week."
"Yes."
"That you give up bridge."
"Yes."
"And fooling after girls."
"Yes."
"And this day set out and find a plot for a good, honest, payable piece of fiction, novel length. I'm not going to let you off with short-story writing."
"Yes."
"I know a good publisher, and I will assure you that the thing shall be published in the best form, that I will back the advertising and pushing—see? And I will promise you that, however the thing turns out, you shall have two hundred pounds. You will get all profits if it is a success, understand me?"
"Yes."
"You shall have five pounds a week pocket-money whilst you are writing, to be repaid out of profits if the profits exceed two hundred, not to be repaid if they don't."
"I don't like taking money for nothing," said Bobby.
"You won't get it, only for hard work. Besides, it's for my amusement and interest. I believe in you, and I want to see my belief justified. You need never bother about taking money from me. First, I have plenty; secondly, I never give it without aquid pro quo, the trading instinct is too strong in me."
"Well," said Bobby, "it's jolly good of you, and I'll pay you the lot back, if——"
Tozer was lighting a cigarette; he flung the match down impatiently.
"If! You'll do nothing if you begin with an 'if.' Now, make up your mind quick without any 'ifs.' Will you, or won't you?"
"I will," said Bobby, suddenly catching on to the idea and taking fire. "I believe I can do it if——"
"If!" shouted Tozer.
"Iwilldo it. I'll find a plot. I'll dig in my brains right away—I'll hunt round."
"Off with you, then," said Tozer, "and send your luggage here and come back to-night with your plot. You can work in your bedroom and you can have all your meals here—I forgot to include that. Now I'm going to have a tune on the 'cello."
Bobby departed with a light heart. His position, before calling on Tozer, had really begun to weigh on him. Tozer had given him even more than the promise of financial support, he had given him the backing of his common sense. He had "jawed" him mildly, and Bobby felt all the better for it. It was like a tonic. His high spirits as he descended the stairs increased with every step taken.
Bobby was no sponge. Bridge and the relative had kept him going, and he had always managed to meet his debts, with the exception, perhaps, of a tradesman or two; nor would he have taken this favour from any other man than Tozer, and perhaps not even from Tozer had it not been accompanied by the "jawing."
So he set out, light of heart, young, good-looking, well-dressed, yet with only a sovereign, to hunt through the summer landscape of London for the plot for a novel.
Why, he was the plot for a novel, or at least the beginning of one, had he known!
He did not, but he had an intimate knowledge of Tozer's fictional proclivities and a fine understanding of exactly what Tozer wanted. Bones, ribs, and vertebra, construction—or, in other words, story. Tozer could not be fubbedoff with fine writing, with long introspective chapters dealing with the boyhood of the author, with sham psychology masquerading as Fiction; nor, indeed, could Bobby have supplied the two latter features. Tozer wanted action, people moving on their feet under the dominion of the author's purpose, through situations, towards a definite goal.
Out in Vigo Street, and despite the aura of inspiration around the Bodley Head, Bobby's high spirits came slightly under eclipse; it all at once seemed to him that he had undertaken a task. In Cork Street, as he stood for a moment looking at the rare editions exposed in the windows of Elkin Mathews, this feeling grew and put on horns.
A task to Bobby meant a thing disagreeable to do, and the elegant volumes of minor poets, copies of the Yellow Book, and vellum-bound editions of belles lettres were saying to him, "You've got to write a novel, my boy, a good Mudie novel, the sort of novel the Tozers of life will pay for; no little essays written with the little finger turned up. No modern verses like your 'Harmonies and Discords,' that cost you twenty-five pounds to produce and sold sixteen copies of itself, according to last returns. You have got to be the harmonious blacksmith now;get into your apron, get under your spreading chestnut-tree, and produce."
In Bond Street he met Lord Billy Tottenham, a fellow Oxonian, who met his death in a mud-hole in Flanders the other year.
Lord Billy, with a boyish, smug, but immovable face adorned with a tortoiseshell-rimmed eyeglass.
"Hello, Bobby!" said Billy.
"Hello, Billy!" said Bobby.
"What's wrong with you?" asked Billy.
"Broke to the world, my dear chap."
"What was the horse?" asked Billy.
"'Twasn't a horse—a girl, mostly."
"Well, you're not the first chap that's been broke by a girl," said Billy. "Walk along a bit—but it might have been worse."
"How so?"
"She might have married you."
"Maybe; but the worst of it is I've got to work—tuck up my sleeves and work."
"What at?"
"Novel-writing."
"Well, that's easy enough," said Billy cheerfully. "You can easily get some literary cove to do the writing and stick your name to it, and we'll all buy your books, my boy, we'll all buy your books; not that I ever read books much,but I'll buy 'em if you write 'em. Come into Jubber's."
Arm-in-arm they entered Long's Hotel, where Billy resided, and over a mutual whisky-and-soda they forgot books and discussed horses; they lunched together and discussed dogs, girls, and mutual friends. It was like old times again, but over the liqueurs and over the cigarette-smoke suddenly appeared to Bobby the vision of Tozer. He said good-bye to the affluent one, and departed. "I've got to work," said Bobby.
His momentary lapse from the direction of the target only served to pull him together, and it seemed, now, as though the luncheon and the lapse had made things easier. He told himself if he hadn't brains enough to scare up some sort of plot for a six-shilling novel he had better drown himself. If he couldn't do what hundreds of people with half his knowledge of the world and ability were doing he would be a mug of the very first water.
If anything depressed him it was the horrible and futile assurance of Billy that "his friends would buy his books." He went to Pactolus Mansions and ordered his luggage to be sent to the Albany, then he changed his sovereign and bought a cigar, then an omnibus gave him aninspiration. He would get on top of an omnibus and in that cool and airy position do a bit of thinking.
It was not an original idea; he had read, or heard, of a famous author who thought out his plots on the tops of omnibuses—but it was an idea. He clambered on to the top of an eastward-going bus, and, behind a fat lady with bugles on her bonnet, tried to compose his mind.
Why not make a story about—Billy? People liked reading of the aristocracy, and Billy was a character in his way and had many stories attached to him. He could start the book grandly, simply out of remembered visions of Lord William Tottenham in his gayest moods. L. W. T. emptying bottles of cliquot into a grand piano at Oxford. Oxford—ay, grander and grander—the book should begin at Oxford with a fresh and vigorous picture of University life. Tozer would come in, and a host of others; then, after Oxford, there was the rub.
The story that had begun so brightly suddenly ceased.
A character and a situation do not make a story.
They had reached the Bank—as if by derision, when he told himself this. He got off the omnibus and got on a westward-bound oneharking back to the land he knew. He remembered the expression, "racking one's brains to find a plot." He knew the meaning of it now.
At Piccadilly Circus, where all the things meet, a lanky, wild-looking, red-haired girl in a picture hat and a fit of abstraction—that was the impression she gave—caught his eye. In a moment he was after her.
Here was salvation. Julia Delyse, the last catch-on, whose books were selling by the hundred thousand. He had met her at the Three Arts Ball and once since. She had called him Bobby the second time. He had flirted with her, as he flirted with everything with skirts on, and forgotten her. She was very modern; modern enough to raise the hair on a grandmother's scalp. Her looks were to match.
"Hello," said he.
"Hello, Bobby," said Julia.
"You are just the person I want to see," said Bobby.
"How's that?" said Julia.
"I'm in a fix."
"What sort of fix?"
"I've got to write a novel."
"What's the hurry?" asked Julia.
"Money," said Bobby.
"Make money?"
"Yes."
"If you write for money you're lost," said Julia.
"I'm lost anyway," replied Bobby. "Where are you going to?"
"Home; my flat's close by. Come and have some tea."
"I don't mind. Well now, see here; I've got to do it and I can't find anything to write about."
"With all London before you?"
"I know, but when I start to think it all gets behind me. I want you to start me with some idea; you're full of ideas and you know the ropes."
They had reached the flat, and the lady with ideas ushered him in.
The sitting-room was in a scheme of black with Japanese effects; she offered cigarettes, lit one herself, and tea was brought in.
Then the hypnotism began.
The fact that she was a "famous authoress" would not have mattered a button to Bobby yesterday; to-day, on his new strange road, it lent her a charm that completed the fascination of her wondrous eyes. They seemed wild in the street, but when she looked at one intensively they were wonderful. Plots were forgotten, andin the twilight Bobby's full, musical voice might have been heard discussing literature—with long pauses.
"Dear old thing.... Is that cushion comfy?... Oh, bother the girl and the tea-things!... Just put your head so—so...."
He had been hooked twenty times by girls and pulled off the hook by parents or been thrown back by the fisherwoman on inspecting his bank balance, but he had never been hooked like this before, for Julia had no parents to speak of; she was above bank balances, and her grip was of iron where passion was concerned, and publishers. Her publishers could have told you that by the way she gripped her rights when they tried to cheat her of them, for, despite her wondrous eyes and wild air and the fact that she was a genius, she was practical as well as tenacious in hold.
Then, at the end of theséance, Bobby found himself leaving the flat a semi-tied-up man. He couldn't remember whether he had proposed to her or she to him, or whether either of them had proposed or actually accepted, but there was a tie between them, a tie slight enough and not binding in any court; less an engagement than an attachment formed, so he told himself.
He remembered in the street, however, that atie between him and an authoress was not what Tozer wanted; he had received no plot or even literary hint. Had he retained his clear senses during theséance, and had he possessed a knowledge of Julia Delyse's brilliant and cynical books, he might have wondered where the brilliancy and cynicism came from. In love, Julia was absolutely unliterary—and a bit heavy—clinging, as it were.
The momentary idea of running back to ask for the forgotten plot, as for a hat left behind, was dispelled by this sudden feeling that she was heavy.
Under the fascination of her eyes and in that weird room she seemed light; in St. James's Street, where he now was, she seemed heavy. And he would have to go on with the attachment for awhile or be a brute. That recognition, with the remembrance of Tozer and a recognition of his failure in his search for the one essential thing, depressed him for a moment. Then he determined to forget about everything and go and have dinner. In other words, failing in his search for the thing he wanted, he stopped searching, leaving the matter in the hands of blind chance.
Or fate, if you like it better, for it was fated that Bobby should find that day the thing he was in search of.
He dined at a little club he patronised in a street off St. James's Street, met a friend named Foulkes, and adjourned to the Alhambra, Foulkes insisting on doing all the paying.
They left the Alhambra at half-past ten.
"I must be getting back to the Albany," said Bobby. "I'm sharing rooms with a chap, and he's an early bird."
"Oh, let him wait," said Foulkes. "Come along for ten minutes to the Stage Club."
They went to the Stage Club. Then, the place being empty and little amusement to be found there, they departed, Foulkes declaring his determination to see Bobby part of the way home.
Passing a large entrance hall blazing with light and filled with the noise of a distant band, Foulkes stopped.
"Come in here for a moment," said he. In they went.
The place was gay—very gay. Little marble-topped tables stood about; French waiters running from table to table and serving guests—ladies and gentlemen.
At a long glittering bar many men were standing, and a Red Hungarian Band was discoursing scarlet music.
Foulkes took a table and ordered refreshment. The place was horrid. One could not tell exactly what there was about it that went counter to all the finer feelings and the sense of home, simplicity, and happiness.
Bobby, rather depressed, felt this, but Foulkes, a man of tougher fibre, seemed quite happy.
"What ails you, Ravenshaw?" asked Foulkes.
"Nothing," said Bobby. "No, I won't have any more to drink. I've work to do——"
Then he stopped and stared before him with eyes wide.
"What is it now?" asked Foulkes.
"Good Lord!" said Bobby. "Look at that chap at the bar!"
"Which one?"
"The one with the straw hat on the back ofhis head. It can't be—but it is—it's the Relative."
"The one you told me of that fired you out and cut you off with a shilling?"
"Yes. Uncle Simon. No, it's not, it can't be. It is, though, in a strawhat."
"And squiffy," said Foulkes.
Bobby got up and, leaving the other, strolled to the bar casually. The man at the bar was toying with a glass of soda-water supplied to him on sufferance. Bobby got close to him. Yes, that was the right hand with the white scar—got when a young man "hunting"—and the seal ring.
The last time Bobby had met Uncle Simon was in the office in Old Serjeants' Inn. Uncle Simon, seated at his desk-table with his back to the big John Tann safe, had been in bitter mood; not angry, but stern. Bobby seated before him, hat in hand, had offered no apologies or exculpations for his conduct with girls, for his stupid engagement, for his idleness. He had many bad faults, but he never denied them, nor did he seek to minimise them by explanations and lies.
"I tried to float you," had said Uncle Simon, as though Bobby were a company. "I have failed. Well, I have done my duty, and Iclearly see that I will not be doing my duty by continuing as I have done; the allowance I have made you is ended. You will now have to swim for yourself. I should never have put money in your hands; I quite see that."
"I can make my own living," said Bobby. "I am not without gratitude for what you have done——"
"And a nice way you have shown your gratitude," said the other, "tangling yourself like that—gaming, frequenting bars."
So the interview had ended. Frequenting bars!
"Uncle Simon!" said Bobby half-nervously, touching the other on the arm.
Uncle Simon swung slowly round. Bobby might have been King Canute for all Uncle Simon knew. He had got beyond the stage where the word "uncle" from a stranger would have aroused ire or surprise.
"H'are you?" said Simon. "Have a drink?"
Yes, it was Uncle Simon right enough, and Bobby, in all his life, had never received such a shock as that which came to him now with the full recognition of the fact. St. Paul's Cathedral turned into a gambling-shop, the Bishop of London dressed as a clown, would have beennothing to this. He was horrified. He came to the swift conclusion that Uncle Simon had come to smash somehow, and gone mad. A vague idea flew through his mind that his respected relative was dressed like this as a disguise to avoid creditors, but he had sense enough not to ask questions.
"I don't mind," said he; "I'll have a small soda."
"Small grandmother," said the other; then, nodding to the bar-tender, "'Nother same as mine."
"What have you been doing?" asked Bobby vaguely, as he took the glass.
"Roun' the town—roun' the town," replied the other. "Gl'd to meet you. What've you been doin'?"
"Oh, I've just been going round the town."
"Roun' the town, that's the way—roun' the town," replied the other. "Roun' an' roun' and roun' the town."
Foulkes broke into this intellectual discussion.
"I'm off," said Foulkes.
"Stay a minit," said Uncle Simon. "What'll you have?"
"Nothing, thanks," said Foulkes.
"Come on," said Bobby, taking the arm of his relative.
"W'ere to?" asked the other, hanging back slightly.
"Oh, we'll go round the town—round and round. Come on." Then to Foulkes, "Get a taxi, quick!"
Foulkes vanished towards the door.
Then Simon, falling in with the round-the-town idea, arm-in-arm, the pair threaded their way between the tables, the cynosure of all eyes, Simon exhibiting dispositions to stop and chat with seated and absolute strangers, Bobby perspiring and blushing. All the lectures on fast living he had ever endured were nothing to this; the shame of folly, for the first time in his life, appeared definitely before him, and the relief of the street and the waiting taxi beyond words.
They bundled Simon in.
"No. 12, King Charles Street, Westminster," said Bobby to the driver.
Uncle Simon's head and bust appeared at the door of the vehicle, the address given by Bobby seeming to have paralysed the round-the-town idea in his mind.
"Ch'ing Cross Hotel," said he. "Wach you mean givin' wrong address? I'm staying Ch'ing Cross Hotel."
"Well, let's go to Charles Streetfirst," agreed Bobby.
"No—Ch'ing Cross Hotel—luggage waitin' there."
Bobby paused.
Could it be possible that this was the truth? It couldn't be stranger than the truth before him.
"All right," said he. "Charing Cross Hotel, driver."
He said good-bye to Foulkes, got in, and shut the door.
Uncle Simon seemed asleep.
The Charing Cross Hotel was only a very short distance away, and when they got there Bobby, leaving the sleeping one undisturbed, hopped out to make enquiries as to whether a Mr. Pettigrew was staying there; if not, he could go on to Charles Street.
In the hall he found the night porter and Mudd.
"Good heavens! Mr. Robert, what are you doing here?" said Mudd.
Bobby took Mudd aside.
"What's the matter with my uncle, Mudd?" asked Bobby in a tragic half-whisper.
"Matter!" said Mudd, wildly alarmed. "What's he been a-doing of?"
"I've got him in a cab outside," said Bobby.
"Oh, thank God!" said Mudd. "He's not hurt, is he?"
"No; only three sheets in the wind."
Mudd broke away for the door, followed by the other.
Simon was still asleep.
They got him out, and between them they brought him in, Bobby paying the fare with the last of his sovereign.
Arrived at the room, Mudd turned on the electric light, and then, between them, they got the reveller to bed. Folding his coat, Mudd, searching in the pockets, found a brass door-knocker. "Good Lord!" murmured Mudd. "He's been a-takin' of knockers."
He hid the knocker in a drawer and proceeded. Two pounds ten was all the money to be found in the clothes, but Simon had retained his watch and chain by a miracle.
Bobby was astonished at Simon's pyjamas, taken out of a drawer by Mudd; blue and yellow striped silk, no less.
"He'll be all right now, and I'll have another look at him," said Mudd. "Come down, Mr. Robert."
"Mudd," said Bobby, when they were in the hall again, "what is it?"
"He's gone," said Mudd; "gone in the head."
"Mad?"
"No, not mad; it's a temporary abrogation. Some of them new diseases, the doctor says. It's his youth come back on him, grown like a wisdom tooth. Yesterday he was as right as you or me; this morning he started off for the office as right as myself. It must have struck him sudden. Same thing happened last year and he got over it. It took a month, though."
"Good heavens!" said Bobby. "I met him in a bar, by chance. If he's going on like this for a month you'll have your work cut out for you, Mudd."
"There's no name to it," said Mudd. "Mr. Robert, this has to be kept close in the family and away from the office; you've got to help with him."
"I'll do my best," said Bobby unenthusiastically, "but, hang it, Mudd, I've got my living to make now. I've no time to hang about bars and places, and if to-night's a sample——"
"We've got to get him away to the country or somewhere," said Mudd, "else it means ruin to the business and Lord knows what all. It's got to be done, Mr. Robert, and you've got to help, being the only relative."
"Couldn't that doctor man take care of him?"
"Not he," said Mudd; "he's given meinstructions. The master is just to be let alone in reason; any thwarting or checking might send him clean off. He's got to be led, not driven."
Bobby whistled softly and between his teeth. He couldn't desert Uncle Simon. He never remembered that Uncle Simon had deserted him for just such conduct, or even less, for Bobby, stupid as he was, had rarely descended to the position he had found Uncle Simon in a little while ago.
Bobby was young, generous, forgetful and easy to forgive, so the fact that the Relative had deserted him and cut him off with a shilling never occurred to his open soul at this critical moment.
Uncle Simon had to be looked after. He felt the truth of Mudd's words about the office. If this thing were known it would knock the business to pieces. Bobby was no fool, and he knew something of Simon's responsibilities; he administered estates, he had charge of trust-money, he was the most respected solicitor in London. Heavens! if this were known, what a rabbit-run for frightened clients Old Serjeants' Inn would become within twenty-four hours!
Then, again, Bobby was a Ravenshaw. The Ravenshaws were much above the Pettigrews. The Ravenshaws were a proud race, and the oldAdmiral, his father, who lost all his money in Patagonian Bonds, was the proudest of the lot, and he had handed his pride to his son.
Yes, leaving even the office aside, Uncle Simon must be looked after.
Now if U. S. had been a lunatic the task would have been abominable but simple, but a man who had suddenly developed extraordinary youth, yet was, so the doctor said, sane—a man who must be just humoured and led—was a worse proposition.
Playing bear-leader to a young fool was an entirely different thing to being a young fool oneself. Even his experience of an hour ago told Bobby this; that short experience was his first sharp lesson in the disgustingness of folly. He shied at the prospect of going on with the task. But Uncle Simon must be looked after. He couldn't get over or under that fence.