'All straight?'
'All straight.'
'Then shoot,' said Mr Carlisle.
CHAPTER 16
1
IT was the fact that the Château Blissac was being run on lines of the strictest teetotalism that had taken Senator Opal to the town this lovely afternoon. Accustomed as he was in private life to deviate somewhat from those principles which he upheld so eloquently in public, the Château's aridity had occasioned him a good deal of inconvenience, necessitating as it did a tiresome series of daily visits to the cocktail bar of the Hotel des Etran-gers, where more liberal views prevailed. It had become a practice of his to drop in there of an evening for the modest refresher which his system demanded, and it was thither that he had repaired after leaving Mr Carlisle.
As a rule, it was his habit to pass through the lobby to his destination at the speed and with something of the look of a steer approaching a water-hole in the Painted Desert; but this afternoon his progress was arrested by the sudden appearance of Packy. The latter, having stowed Mr Gedge away on the Flying Cloud and moored the motor-boat to the jetty, had proceeded to the Hotel to communicate the latest developments to Soup Slattery. His arrival in the lobby coincided with that of the Senator.
The Senator, who preferred to be alone on these occasions, was not too pleased at the encounter.
Ah, Franklyn,' he said with a touch of reserve.
'Hullo, Senator,' said Packy. 'What brings you here?'
'I have just remembered an important cable which must be dispatched to New York without delay. I came down here to send it.'
'I've come to see Soup.'
'Soup?'
'My colleague. Mr Slattery. The man who's going to bust the safe for us.'
Senator Opal brightened.
'Capital! Have you – ah – made any plans?'
'Oh, yes. Everything's fine. Nobody will be sleeping in Mrs Gedge's room. The coast will be quite clear. You'll have that letter to-morrow.'
It was not only indignation that had the power to turn Senator Opal's face purple. Sudden joy could do it. As he extended his right hand to clasp Packy's and laid the other affectionately on his shoulder, rather in the manner of the president of the firm in a magazine advertisement congratulating a promising junior on having had the resourcefulness to take a Correspondence Course of Business Training, he was mauve to the roots of his hair.
'My dear boy!'
'I thought you'd be pleased.'
'Is this man in the hotel?'
'Yes. I'd better go and ask for him at the desk. I'll tell you all about everything later.'
'Quite right. Do not waste a moment.'
With feelings too deep for words, he watched Packy approach the clerk. A fear that he had had that on a fine afternoon like this the expert of whom he was in search might not be at home, vanished as he saw the young man cross the lobby towards the elevator. Feeling that if ever an occasion justified an extra cocktail this was it, Senator Opal was turning to resume his journey when a voice spoke behind him.
'I beg your pardon.'
The Senator wheeled round, and for a space stood breathless. The voice had been a musical one, but it had not prepared him for its owner's overwhelming beauty. This was the loveliest girl Senator Opal had ever seen, and in an instant he was all courtliness and gallantry. Thirty years had passed since he had been really at the top of his form with beautiful girls, but in the flourish with which he removed his hat and the polished reverence of his bow there was a good deal of the old pep.
'I saw you talking to Mr Franklyn. Can you tell me where he is staying? They say at the desk that he is not at the hotel.'
If anybody had told Senator Opal a moment before that he would shortly be regretting having met this outstandingly handsome girl, he would have ridiculed the idea. Yet, as he heard these words, there did come to him a definite feeling that he was sorry their paths had crossed. The last thing he desired at this very critical point in his affairs was the arrival of persons aware of Packy's identity.
He choked a little. Then, recovering, he prepared to lie stoutly.
'Mr Franklyn?'
'You were talking to him just now.'
'Not to any Mr Franklyn, my dear young lady. To the best of my recollection, I do not know anyone of the name of Franklyn. My recent companion was the Vicomte de Blissac.'
'What!'
The Vicomte de Blissac,' said the Senator firmly. A very old French family.'
The girl was staring at him, and he was sorry to observe that her stare was the stare of incredulity However, he stuck to it bravely
'These close resemblances are, I believe, not uncommon. Everyone has had experience of them from time to time. I myself... I remember once in Washington...'
The duty of a chronicler to his readers is to sift and select. Whatever of his material is not, in his opinion, of potential interest he must exclude. Out, therefore, in toto goes the story of what Senator Opal remembered in Washington. It would not grip. It was very long and inexpressibly tedious. Its only merit was that it served to give his narrator the breathing-space he so sorely needed. By the time it had wound to its conclusion, the mere sound of his own voice had made him his calm, comfortably pompous self once more.
'And that sort of thing,' he concluded, 'is happening all the time. I have no doubt that there must exist a very striking resemblance between the Vicomte and your friend, Mr Franklyn, but I can assure you that the young man you have just seen is the Vicomte and no other. I am in a position, I may add, to speak authoritatively on the point, for he is engaged to be married to my daughter.'
'Engaged to your daughter!'
'Precisely.'
'Are you sure?'
Of all the remarks which she could have made, this struck Senator Opal as perhaps the silliest. He chuckled fatly.
'You would not ask that if you had seen them together. It is beautiful in these cynical modern days to witness affection like theirs. They are completely wrapped up in one another. Never seem to be happy unless they are kissing one another all the time. And I like to see it,' said Senator Opal warmly. 'If two young people are in love, let them conduct themselves accordingly. That's what I say. I'm sick to death of this idiotic fashion that seems to be the thing nowadays of engaged couples behaving as if they were bored to extinction with one another. There's nothing of that about my daughter and the Vicomte.'
'It must be charming.'
'It is charming.'
'Well, I seem to have made a mistake. I must apologize.'
'My dear young lady!'
'I wonder if you could tell me where the writing-room is? I suppose there would be no objection to my writing a letter there?'
'None whatever. It is through those curtains.'
'Thank you.'
She bowed slightly and left him. Senator Opal, with a faint yearning pang for the years that were no more – years when he would certainly not have permitted a girl like that to pass out of his life without a struggle, proceeded on his way to seek that source of consolation which the philanthropic Monsieur Gus-tave affords to men who, even if they have passed the age when Love is king, can still swallow.
2
Soup Slattery was sitting up in bed, reading Alice in Wonderland. As Packy entered, he sneezed and turned to refresh himself from a glass of hot whisky.
'Hello,' he said. He held the book up. 'Ever read this?'
'Often. Where did you get it?'
'Found it downstairs in the lobby. Must belong to someone, I guess. Say, perhaps you can tell me. This White Rabbit. I don't get him. What's his racket?'
'Wasn't he going to tea with the Queen, or something?'
'But he's wearing a business suit and carrying a clock.'
'Yes.'
'Well,' said Mr Slattery, shaking his head, 'it don't seem possible to me.'
He sneezed again, and Packy looked at him with some concern.
'You've caught cold.'
'I certainly have.'
'I'm so
rry,' said Packy. 'This complicates matters. I came to tell you that I wanted you to bust that safe for me to-night.'
Mr Slattery was of Spartan mould.
'Cheese!' he said lightly. 'You don't think a little thing like a cold is going to stop me? Sure, I'll bust it for you. Then you got the Gedge dame out of that room?'
'Not only that, but Gedge won't be there, either.'
'Good enough. How did you work it?'
'Oh, it's a long story,' said Packy deprecatingly. 'I showed extraordinary sagacity and resource. If you care to call it genius, it will be all right with me. Mrs Gedge will be in Mr Gedge's room, and Mr Gedge is in dead storage elsewhere. I'll leave the drawing-room window open for you, and all you'll have to do is walk in and collect. A soft job.'
'Well,' confessed Mr Slattery, 'they can't come too soft for me nowadays. Used to be the tougher an evening's work was the better I'd like it. Julia would razz me about it sometimes. All for a quiet life now. Getting old, I guess. If I could grab me a little bit of capital, enough to buy a farm, I'd retire. There's something about a farm. All those cows and chickens.'
He mused wistfully. Then some unpleasant thought seemed to intrude itself on his dreams, for his eye kindled.
'Say, I've been meaning to ask you. About that Chatty-o.'
'What about it?'
'Who would a guy up there be with white hair and black eyebrows? Sort of thick-set bird.'
'Oh, have you met him? That's Senator Opal.'
Packy paused, surprised. A whistling breath had escaped his companion. It might be pneumonia, but it had sounded much more like a strong man's wrath.
'What's the matter?'
Mr Slattery was still breathing in that odd, laboured way.
'Senator Opal? The fellow you want to get this copperizing letter for?'
'That's the man.'
'Brother,' said Mr Slattery, 'the whole thing's off. I won't do it.'
'What!'
'No, sir, not even to oblige you. Me get that white-haired bird out of a jam? Say, the worse jam he's in, the better it suits me. If he was drowning, the only thing I'd throw him would be a flat-iron.'
Packy was bewildered. He could make nothing of this startlingly unexpected display of feeling.
'But...'
'No, sir,' repeated Mr Slattery firmly. 'If that guy's in a spot, I'm glad of it. After what he done to me...'
And in crisp, telling sentences, to which an occasional sneeze merely lent additional impressiveness, he proceeded to relate the story of his night in the open. He told it well. You could see the window-sill, hear the cold breeze whistling about his dangling ankles. Packy, listening, found hopelessness creeping over him. After what had occurred, it was plainly not going to be easy to mollify this injured man.
'Tough,' he agreed.
'Tough,' said Mr Slattery, sneezing moodily, 'is right.'
'But surely you aren't going to get sore at a little thing like that?'
'Did you,' asked Mr Slattery, 'say "little thing"?'
'It was just his fun.'
'I don't like that sort of fun.'
Packy felt that he had tried the wrong line of reasoning. He struck a more personal note.
'But think of me. You wouldn't let me down, would you?'
Mr Slattery seemed to be puzzled.
'Say, just where do you come in on this? It's had me guessing right along. Why are you so steamed up about it? If this palooka has been writing letters he shouldn't have written, it's his funeral, not yours. I can't see what you're doing in the act.'
'Senator Opal has a daughter. She is naturally very much upset about this thing. I want to help her.'
'Are you stuck on her?'
'Certainly not,' said Packy.
It annoyed him that the purely Platonic friendliness which he felt towards Jane Opal should be so consistently misinterpreted. He himself knew, of course, that there was nothing between them except, on his side, a chivalrous desire to be of assistance to a distressed acquaintance and, on hers, a natural gratitude for such assistance. True, once or twice he had had occasion to pat her hand and, indeed, to hold it for a brief moment or two; but that had been the merest civility, such as he would have shown towards an aunt, had he had an aunt in trouble.
He endeavoured to impress this upon Mr Slattery now
'Nothing of the kind. I'm just sorry for her.'
'Well, you'd best be sorry for old Opal.'
'Then you won't help us out?'
'No, sir.'
Packy regarded him reproachfully.
'I can't believe it is really Soup Slattery – good, trusty old Soup Slattery – who is talking like this.'
'It is,' Mr Slattery assured him.
'You really refuse?'
'Yes, sir.'
Packy turned to the door. He knew when he was beaten.
'Well,' he said with infinite sadness, 'this has broken me all up. I don't suppose I shall ever have another shock like this in my life.'
He was wrong. He had one almost immediately. It occurred when he stepped out of the elevator into the lobby and recognized in the lovely girl who advanced towards him his fiancée, Lady Beatrice Bracken.
3
The emotions of a young man who, separated from the beautiful girl to whom his troth is plighted, suddenly finds himself quite unexpectedly reunited to her ought to be unmix-edly ecstatic. Packy's could scarcely have been so described. In a situation which has furnished a congenial theme for more than one poet, he merely felt as if some muscular acquaintance had just punched him solidly on the nose.
Beatrice was the first to speak.
'Well,' she said. 'You don't seem very pleased to see me.'
The words had the effect of causing Packy's stunned faculties in a certain measure to function again. He was still feeling far from tranquil, but Reason, limping back to her throne, told him that he ought to be exhibiting at least a modicum of hearty rapture. He endeavoured to do so. His brain was still numbed by this unbelievable disaster, but he contrived to smile tenderly.
'I'm tickled to death,' he said. 'It's simply wonderful, seeing you. But I didn't expect... I mean, I hadn't a notion
'No. I suppose you hadn't.'
'When did you arrive?'
'This afternoon.'
Packy began to regain his proper form. The one thing he must avoid, he recognized, was the display of anything that might suggest a guilty conscience. After all, things were not so bad as they might have been. Fortunately, he had his boat as an alibi. There was no reason why she should ever know that he had not been living on the Flying Cloud ever since his arrival.
His manner, though still not assured, became easier.
'How fine that you were able to come over. I hoped you would when I wrote and told you I was coming here. But I was afraid you might be tied up at your father's for weeks. How was the house-party, by the way?'
'Quite nice.'
'Lots of interesting people there?'
'Quite a number.'
'And how is everybody at home?'
'Quite well.'
'How's your father?'
'Quite well.'
'How's your mother?'
'Quite well.'
'How's your aunt Gwendolyn?'
This detailed solicitude, instead of touching Lady Beatrice Bracken, seemed to make her rather restless.
'Wouldn't it save time,' she said, 'if you simply accepted my assurance that everybody at Worbles is quite well?'
Packy recognized the reasonableness of the suggestion.
'Well, it's wonderful your having been able to get over here,' he said, abandoning the theme. 'I suppose you had some difficulty finding me, as I wasn't at any of the hotels. You see, I came over on a boat. You remember my saying I might charter... or did I tell you in my letter?'
'No. In your letter you simply mentioned that you were leaving for St Rocque.'
'Well, I chartered a yawl. She's lying in the harbour now.'
'Are you living on board?'
>
'That's right. Yes. Living on board.'
'Oh?' said Beatrice. 'I understood you were at this Château, passing yourself off as the Vicomte de Blissac.'
Once again, Packy experienced the sensation of having been punched on the nose. It seemed to him, moreover, that his unseen assailant, not satisfied with this buffet, had also brought his right up with a swing and got home on the point of the jaw. Through an enveloping mist he heard Beatrice continue.
'I happen to know that the Vicomte de Blissac is staying at his mother's Château with some Americans named Gedge. And I met an old man just now who told me that you were the Vicomte de Blissac and that you were engaged to his daughter. Don't you think, perhaps, that you had better explain?'
One of the drawbacks to Life is that it contains moments when one is compelled to tell the truth. Such a moment, Packy realized, had arrived now There were few things he would not have preferred to telling the truth, but it seemed unavoidable.
'I'll tell you all about that.'
'I am longing to hear.'
'That old man was Senator Opal.'
'So you are engaged to Miss Opal?'
'No, no, no! He only thinks I am.'
'From what he told me, you seem to have given him very good reason to think so.'
'Senator Opal wrote a letter.'
'A curious coincidence. I have just written a letter.'
'It was a compromising letter, and Mrs Gedge got hold of it and talks of giving it to the papers, so he wants to get it back. I happened to meet his daughter...'
'How was that?'
'Well, it's a long story. I was cutting the old man's hair...'
'Doing what?'
'I can't go into that now. But while I was cutting his hair I met his daughter and she told me about this letter, so naturally I offered to get it back for her. And this, of course, gave old Opal the idea that I was Blair Eggleston.'
'What!'
Packy paused to marshal his thoughts. He felt he was not making this as clear as he should.
'When I say he thought I was Blair Eggleston, I mean that Jane...'
'Jane!'
'Her name is Jane. He thought I was the man to whom Miss Opal was engaged. She's really engaged to Blair Eggleston.'