All this, however, Jane could have forgiven, had he but come through with a red-hot scheme for retrieving the fateful letter from Mrs Gedge. But if it is true that the Hour produces the Man, it is also true that it remorselessly reveals the wash-out. As a schemer, Blair Eggleston had proved entirely negligible. He had no constructive policy of any kind to put forward. He might just as well not have been there.
Reluctantly, Jane came to the conclusion that what she needed in a predicament like this was somebody more on the lines of Packy Franklyn. There, she felt, was a man of action, a man who could be relied on at least to try to start something instead of just loafing about and wasting his time complaining because somebody had thrown a little oatmeal at him. She thought wistfully of Packy. With a sudden whole-hearted intensity she wished that he were here now, and, looking up, saw that he was. He was at that very moment coming down the path towards her. Quick service, decided Jane, and jumped perhaps two inches and a quarter in her astonishment at this miracle. She felt a little as Aladdin might have done if he had rubbed his lamp by accident.
'You!'
She had said the same word to him on a previous occasion. Then it had had something of the effect of a Mills bomb. Now it brought to his face a gratified smile. A connoisseur of 'You's!' Packy had recognized this one for what it was, a welcoming, even an ecstatically welcoming 'You!', the sort of 'You!' it did a fellow good to hear.
'What... Why...What...'
Packy was pressing her little hand. A purist might have said that for an engaged man he was pressing it perhaps just the slightest shade too fondly.
'It's quite all right.'
In a few simple words he explained the situation. He related the interview with the Vicomte de Blissac, the more recent interview with Mr Gedge. Forestalling any possible question as to how, now that he was in the Château, he proposed to open a locked safe, he spoke of Mr Slattery and Mr Slattery's gratitude, showing that he had a skilled assistant who would do all that sort of thing for him. All that had to be done, he pointed out, was to wait till Mrs Gedge returned and then leave a handy window open, and Mr Slattery would do the rest.
'So there you are,' said Packy.
Jane Opal breathed deeply. If she had not been an exceptionally pretty girl, one might have said that she snorted. There was a light in her eyes which Packy had not seen there before. It was a light he liked, and once more he was aware of a feeling of regret that a girl like this was throwing herself away on a man so obviously one of Nature's prunes as Blair Eggleston.
'But how splendid of you!'
'Oh, no, really.'
There was no necessity for him to have taken her hand again and pressed it, but he did so.
'But why should you be doing this for me?'
She had touched on a point which from time to time had a little perplexed Packy himself It was, of course, absurd to suppose that any slight physical attraction which this girl might possess could have had any influence on a man who was engaged to Lady Beatrice Bracken. He was compelled to put it down to some innately noble quality in his character. You came across fellows like that occasionally – fine, big-hearted, selfless altruists, men who with no motive of personal gain simply raced about the place doing good to all and sundry. He supposed he was one of them.
Too modest to advance this theory, he waved a deprecating hand.
'Well, it struck me that you might be needing a little help. I rather gathered from what you said over the telephone that evening that you weren't expecting very solid results from Eggleston.'
Jane sighed.
'Blair's been no good at all.'
'I feared as much.'
'He can't seem to take his mind off that oatmeal.'
'What oatmeal?'
'Well, it was like this. It happened the first morning we were here. Father wanted his breakfast in bed, so Blair brought him his breakfast in bed, and naturally the cook, knowing Father was American, took it for granted he would want oatmeal, so she fixed oatmeal. And then it turned out that oatmeal was a thing Father doesn't like.'
'Many people don't.'
'Yes, but he didn't just say so. That wouldn't be Father. No! He waited till Blair had put the tray down by his bed, and then he lifted the cover off the dish and said, "What is this? Oatmeal?" and Blair said, "Yes, oatmeal," and Father said in quite a mild, gentle sort of way, "Ah! Oatmeal?" and Blair started to leave the room and suddenly something hot and squashy hit him on the back of the head, and there was Father sitting up in bed, digging the spoon in the oatmeal; and Blair was just wondering what it was all about, because the back of his head was all covered with oatmeal, when Father dug the spoon out again and it was full of oatmeal, and Father held it at the bottom with his left hand and at the top with two fingers, and then he let fly rather like one of those old catapults you read about in stories where ancient towns are besieged, and Blair got it all – in the face this time.'
A slight shudder shook Packy's wiry frame. He was recalling that incident of the hair-cutting and realizing the risks which he, a gay, heedless boy, had so recklessly taken with this oatmeal-jerking Senator. He shivered to think what Ambrose Opal could have done on that occasion had he had a blanc-mange or a couple of bowls of soup handy.
'So there was Blair with oatmeal on the back of his head and oatmeal all over his face, practically a mass of oatmeal, you might say, and then Father smiled a quiet, affectionate kind of smile and said, "I don't like oatmeal." And the whole thing has rather preyed on Blair's mind. He's a little cross about it, I'm afraid. He says I ought to have warned him what he was letting himself in for when he became Father's valet.'
'I don't see how you could have known.'
'Well, Father did tell me his valets never stayed with him more than a week or so, but he said he thought it must be due to this Bolshevist spirit that you see springing up on all sides. It's a great pity, of course, because it has made Blair a little peevish, and I don't think he's very happy.'
'I can quite see how he might not be. Personally, I'd sooner be somebody living in Chicago that Al Capone didn't much like than your father's valet.'
He would have gone on to develop this theme, but at this moment there was a puffing noise and round the corner came Senator Opal in person.
On seeing Packy, the Senator halted abruptly. A look of concern came into his face. He had been much worried of late, and worry, he knew, breeds hallucinations. Then he saw that this phantasm was holding his daughter's hand and that she appeared to be aware of his presence, and he felt a little reassured. And when the girl turned to him and said, 'Oh, hullo, Father. Here's Mr Franklyn!' his last doubts disappeared and what had been the chill of apprehension turned into righteous wrath.
'Only' proceeded Jane, as his colour began gradually to deepen and memories of old hair-cuts lit the flame in the eyes which he was fixing on Packy, 'you must remember to call him the Vicomte de Blissac.'
Nothing, as Shakespeare appreciated, is more tedious than a twice-told tale, but in Jane's demeanour as Packy for the second time related the events which had led up to his being at the Château in another's name there was no suggestion of boredom. She stood there with sparkling eyes, interjecting an occasional 'Isn't that great!' and from time to time a 'Get this, Father, it's good!'
Nor was the Senator an unemotional audience. Gradually, as he listened, the purple flush faded from his face and into it came that awed, reverential look which had come a short while before into the face of his daughter and a short while before that into the face of Mr Gedge. As the story drew to its conclusion, he stood for a while puffing. Then he gave tongue with the air of one who now saw all things clearly.
'So this is the fellow!'
'What, Father?'
'This is the fellow you were telling me about in London. Fellow you want to marry.'
A little gasp escaped Jane. The mistake was a natural, even an inevitable one, but this made it none the less disconcerting. She looked at Packy, her face reddening.
I
n Packy's gaze, also, there was a certain embarrassment. But he winked quickly, a wink that said, 'Humour him. It is better so.' To explain, he realized, would merely be to introduce the Blair Eggleston motif, and his intuition told him, as Jane's had told her on an earlier occasion, that to do this would not be wise.
'Yessir,' he said, with a faint echo of Mr Gedge. 'That's right.'
Senator Opal was all genial cordiality. He patted Packy's shoulder in the heartiest possible manner.
'You get that letter back, and you won't find any kick coming from me. Franklyn? ... Franklyn? ... You aren't the football Franklyn, are you?'
'I did play football at Yale.'
'Played football at Yale! You made the All-American.'
'Yes, I did, as a matter of fact.'
'I'm a Yale man myself. Why, dammit, I know all about you. Somebody left you two or three million a few years ago.'
'My uncle.'
Senator Opal regarded his daughter in a manner that suggested that he was uneasy about her sanity.
'A Yale man... An Ail-American half-back... A fellow with three million dollars... Why you wanted to have all this secrecy and hole-in-the-corner business is more than I can imagine. Why you couldn't have told me straight out...' He turned to Packy and the severity of his demeanour softened to a sort of mellow unction. He looked like a Victorian father about to bestow a blessing. 'You're simply exactly the very son-in-law I've always been hoping for. Kiss her!'
If there had been a touch of embarrassment in Packy's manner before, there was more than a touch now. He was not a young man who blushed readily. Indeed, many of his friends looked upon him as one who had forgotten how to blush at the age of six or thereabouts. Nevertheless, there undoubtedly stole into the healthy tan of his face at this point a faint pink, turning it to a rather pretty crushed strawberry.
'Oh, that's all right, sir,' he said, backing a little and averting his gaze from the now incandescent Jane.
Senator Opal was a man who, when he issued instructions, liked to see them obeyed with a snap. He had, moreover, wholesome, old-fashioned views on how young lovers should behave towards one another. The geniality in his face waned.
'You hear what I said? You kiss her.'
'But...'
'Come on, come on, come on!'
It is not easy to bestow a kiss with a warmth sufficient to satisfy a father who likes his kisses emotional and at the same time to convey to the party of the second part a suggestion of deep and respectful apology. But Packy did his best.
'Right!' said Senator Opal briskly, apparently passing the salute as adequate. And you can do that as often as you like. And now about this letter. Do you know where I'm off to?' he asked, staring impressively from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
'You aren't going, Father?' said Jane, with some concern.
'Yes, I am going, and I'll tell you where I'm going. Now that this young man has come, we can get action. And the first thing to do is to find out where that infernal woman will put that letter of mine. She's sure to bring it back with her. Women are like that. If a man had a thing of that sort, he'd put it in a safe-deposit box. But women, poor fools, like to keep their valuables by them, so that they can take them out every two minutes and gloat over them.'
'Quite true,' said Packy.
'Of course it's quite true. And that's what this Gedge woman will do. I know that from the way she's always acted about her jewellery. I used to tell her to keep it at the bank, but she never would. This letter is going to be put in a safe, and I'm ready to bet that safe is in her bedroom. I'll go and see. Meet me on the terrace in twenty minutes.'
He stumped off, and Jane and Packy started to walk back to the Château. They walked in silence, each a little pensive.
Packy was feeling mildly surprised that, considering how deeply in love he was with Beatrice, the recent embrace had not revolted him more. He had not enjoyed it, of course. He could scarcely have been expected to do that. But it had not really revolted him. He was, however, conscious of a feeling of relief that Beatrice had not been an eyewitness of the episode.
Jane was thinking rather along the same lines. It would be too much, naturally, to say that she had derived any pleasure from Packy's kiss. On the other hand, it had not jarred every fibre of her being. But she was glad that Blair had not happened to be looking on at the moment.
They came meditatively in view of the house.
'How funny these old French Châteaux are,' said Jane.
'Very funny,' said Packy.
'All those turrets and things.'
'Yes, all those turrets.'
They began to discuss mediaeval French architecture in a guarded way.
CHAPTER 8
1
IT was some fifteen minutes later that the garden door of the Château was flung exuberantly open and Senator Opal came bounding out with quite a juvenile jauntiness in his step. His quest had been completely successful. The briefest of explorations of the Venetian Suite had shown him the safe, let into the wall beside the bed. He was feeling pleased with himself and his manner showed it.
During these last days, Senator Opal had been dwelling in the shadows. There are few less agreeable experiences for a man of proud and autocratic temperament than to find himself tied hand and foot and at the mercy of a woman for whom he has always felt a definite dislike. And what had added to Senator Opal's bitterness was the fact that there was absolutely nobody else to blame. To his carelessness, and to his carelessness alone, the disaster had been due.
But now everything was splendid once more. Mrs Gedge, when she returned to the Château, would bring the letter with her. She would put it in the safe. He had located the safe. And that excellent young fellow, Franklyn, of whom he was beginning to approve more highly every moment, knew a man who could open safes and had promised to open one for him any time he gave the word.
Rendered quite lissom with relief, Senator Opal began positively to frisk up and down the terrace. And as he frisked he suddenly became aware of a young woman approaching him. It was Medway, Mrs Gedge's maid. In one hand she carried a book, in the other a half-smoked cigar.
This surprised the Senator. He was far from being an anti-tobacconist, nor had he any prejudice against the fashionable modern addiction of women to the weed. But he could not remember ever having seen a woman with a cigar.
Medway drew closer. Halting, she fixed him with a respectful eye and extended the cigar-stump between dainty fingers.
'Would you be requiring this any further, sir?'
'Eh?'
'You left it in moddom's room, and I thought perhaps you would be needing it.'
2
A good deal of Senator Opal's effervescence evaporated. An almost automatic and unconscious smoker, he had forgotten that he had been half-way through a cigar when he embarked on that search of his. A well-defined feeling of constriction in the muscles of his throat caused him to utter a faint sound like the gurgle of a dying duck.
'You weren't there!'
'Yes, sir.'
'I didn't see you.'
'No, sir.'
The Senator cleared his throat noisily. There were several i35 questions he would have liked to ask this calm-browed girl, but he felt that the asking would be injudicious. The salient fact, the one that must be dealt with immediately, was that she had seen him nosing about in the Venetian Suite. Where she had been concealed was a side issue.
'H'r'r'mph!' he said awkwardly.
Medway awaited his confidences with quiet respect. And yet, the Senator asked himself as he gazed into it, was that eye of hers quite so respectful as he had supposed? A demure girl. Difficult to know just what she was thinking.
'I dare say,' he said, 'it seemed a little strange to you that I should be in Mrs Gedge's room?'
Medway did not speak.
'The fact is, I am a man with a hobby. I am much interested in antiques.'
Medway remained quiescent.
'An old place like this... a historic old h
ouse like this... a real old-world Château like this, full of interesting objects, is – er – interesting to me. It interests me. I am interested in it. Most interested. It – er – interests me to – ah – potter around. I find it interesting.'
A fly settled on his snowy hair. Medway eyed it in silence. He cleared his throat again. He was feeling that he would have to do a little better than this.
'But I can quite see,' he proceeded, contriving now to achieve a faint suggestion of the orotundity which so impressed visiting delegates at Washington, 'I can quite understand that Mrs Gedge might not like ... might object ... might view with concern the fact that in her absence I have been visiting her – ah – sanctum sanctorum. It might strike her as ... in fact, just so. I should be greatly obliged to you, therefore, my good girl, if you would say nothing to her about the matter. Here,' said Senator Opal, getting down to business and bringing paper money out of his pocket. He hoped it was not a milk, but he did not dare to stop and look. 'You take this and say nothing about it.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'You understand? Not a word.'
'Yes, sir.'
'It is not that ... It is not that I feel ... On the other hand, there is no doubt that I ought to have waited until Mrs Gedge returned and was able to conduct me in person about the Château. ... But as ... er ... seeing that ... Well, in short, I think it will be best if you ... ah ... h'r'r'mph ... just so.'
'Very good, sir.'
The girl's docility charmed the Senator. Her tactful behaviour in what might have been a situation of some embarrassment had completely restored his sense of well-being. He did not mind now if it had been a mille. He felt thoroughly kindly-disposed towards her, and it seemed to him that a little affability of a strictly paternal nature would now not be out of place.