'Sign?' Hugo considered. 'It depends what you mean by sign. You know what old John is. One of these strong, silent fellows who looks on all occasions like a stuffed frog.'
'He doesn't.'
'Pardon me,' said Hugo firmly. 'Have you ever seen a stuffed frog? Well, I have. I had one for years when I was a kid. And John has exactly the same power of expressing emotion. You can't go by what he says or the way he looks. You have to keep an eye out for much subtler bits of evidence. Now, last night he was explaining the rules of cricket to this girl and answering all her questions on the subject, and, as he didn't at any point in the proceeding punch her on the nose, one is entitled to deduce, I consider, that he must be strongly attracted by her. Ronnie thinks so too. So what I'm asking you to do . . .'
'Good-bye,' said Pat. They had reached the gate of the little drive that led to her house, and she turned sharply.
'Eh?'
'Good-bye.'
'But just a moment,' insisted Hugo. 'Will you . . .'
At this point he stopped in mid-sentence and began to walk quickly up the road; and Pat, puzzled to conjecture the reason for so abrupt a departure, received illumination a moment later when she saw her father coming down the drive. Colonel Wyvern had been dealing murderously with snails in the shadow of a bush, and the expression on his face seemed to indicate that he would be glad to extend the treatment to Hugo.
He gazed after that officious young man with a steely eye. The second post had arrived a short time before, and it had included among a number of bills and circulars a letter from his lawyer, in which the latter regretfully gave it as his opinion that an action against Mr Lester Carmody in the matter of that dynamite business would not lie. To bring such an action would, in the judgement of Colonel Wyvern's lawyer, be a waste both of time and money.
The communication was not calculated to sweeten the Colonel's temper, nor did the spectacle of his daughter in apparently pleasant conversation with one of the enemy help to cheer him up.
'What were you talking about to that fellow?' he demanded. It was rare for Colonel Wyvern to be the heavy father, but there are times when heaviness in a father is excusable. 'Where did you meet him?'
His tone disagreeably affected Pat's already harrowed nerves, but she replied to the questions equably.
'I met him on the bridge. We were talking about John.'
'Well, kindly understand that I don't want you to hold any communication whatsoever with that young man or his cousin John or his infernal uncle or any of that Hall gang. Is that clear?'
Her father was looking at her as if she were a snail which he had just found eating one of his lettuce-leaves, but Pat still contrived with some difficulty to preserve a pale, saintlike calm.
'Quite clear.'
'Very well, then.'
There was a silence.
'I've known Johnnie fourteen years,' said Pat in a small voice.
'Quite long enough,' grunted Colonel Wyvern.
Pat walked on into the house and up the stairs to her room. There, having stamped on the basket and reduced it to a state where it would never again carry seed cake to ex-cooks, she sat on her bed and stared, dry-eyed, at her reflection in the mirror.
What with Dolly Molloy and Hugo and her father, the whole aspect of John Carroll seemed to be changing for her. No longer was she able to think of him as Poor Old Johnnie. He had the glamour now of something unattainable and greatly to be desired. She looked back at a night, some centuries ago, when a fool of a girl had refused the offer of this superman's love, and shuddered to think what a mess of things girls can make.
And she had no one to confide in. The only person who could have understood and sympathized with her was Hugo's glass-eyed moneylender. He knew what it was to change one's outlook.
II
Mr Alexander (Chimp) Twist stood with his shoulders against the mantelpiece in Mr Carmody's study and, twirling his waxed moustache thoughtfully, listened with an expressionless face to Soapy Molloy's synopsis of the events which had led up to his being at the Hall that morning. Dolly reclined in a deep armchair. Mr Carmody was not present, having stated that he would prefer to leave the negotiations entirely to Mr Molloy.
Through the open window the sounds and scents of summer poured in, but it is unlikely that Chimp Twist was aware of them. He was a man who believed in concentration, and his whole attention now was taken up by the remarkable facts which his old acquaintance and partner was placing before him.
The latter's conversation on the telephone some two hours ago had left Chimp Twist with an open mind. He was hopeful, but cautiously hopeful. Soapy had insisted that there was a big thing on, but he had reserved his enthusiasm until he should learn the details. The thing, he felt, might seem big to Soapy, but to Alexander Twist no things were big things unless he could see in advance a substantial profit for A. Twist in them.
Mr Molloy, concluding his story, paused for reply. The visitor gave his moustache a final twirl, and shook his head.
'I don't get it,' he said.
Mrs Molloy straightened herself militantly in her chair. Of all masculine defects, she liked slowness of wit least; and she had never been a great admirer of Mr Twist.
'You poor, nut-headed swozzie,' she said with heat. 'What don't you get? It's simple enough, isn't it? What's bothering you?'
'There's a catch somewhere. Why isn't this guy Carmody able to sell the things?'
'It's the law, you poor fish. Soapy explained all that.'
'Not to me he didn't,' said Chimp. 'A lot of words fluttered out of him, but they didn't explain anything to me. Do you mean to say there's a law in this country that says a man can't sell his own property?'
'It isn't his own property.' Dolly's voice was shrill with exasperation. 'The things belong in the family and have to be kept there. Does that penetrate, or have we got to use a steam drill? Listen here. Old George W. Ancestor starts one of these English families going – way back in the year G.X. something. He says to himself, "I can't last forever, and when I go then what? My son Freddie is a good boy, handy with the battle-axe and okay at mounting his charger, but he's like all the rest of these kids – you can't keep him away from the hock-shop as long as there's anything in the house he can raise money on. It begins to look like the moment I'm gone my collection of old antiques can kiss itself good-bye." And then he gets an idea. He has a law passed saying that Freddie can use the stuff as long as he lives but he can't sell it. And Freddie, when his time comes, he hands the law on to his son Archibald, and so on, down the line till you get to this here now Carmody. The only way this Carmody can realize on all these things is to sit in with somebody who'll pinch them and then salt them away somewheres, so that after the cops are out of the house and all the fuss has quieted down they can get together and do a deal.'
Chimp's face cleared.
'Now I'm hep,' he said. 'Now I see what you're driving at. Why couldn't Soapy have put it like that before? Well, then, what's the idea? I sneak in and swipe the stuff. Then what?'
'You salt it away.'
'At Healthward Ho?'
'No!' said Mr Molloy.
'No!' said Mrs Molloy.
It would have been difficult to say which spoke with the greater emphasis, and the effect was to create a rather embarrassing silence.
'It isn't that we don't trust you, Chimpie,' said Mr Molloy, when this silence had lasted some little time.
'Oh?' said Mr Twist, rather distantly.
'It's simply that this bimbo Carmody naturally don't want the stuff to go out of the house. He wants it where he can keep an eye on it.'
'How are you going to pinch it without taking it out of the house?'
'That's all been fixed. I was talking to him about it this morning after I 'phoned you. Here's the idea. You get the stuff and pack it away in a suitcase . . .'
'Stuff that there's only enough of so's you can put it all in a suitcase is a hell of a lot of use to anyone,' commented Mr Twist disparagingly.
Dolly clutched her temples. Mr Molloy brushed his hair back from his forehead with a despairing gesture.
'Sweet potatoes!' moaned Dolly. 'Use your bean, you poor sap, use your bean. If you had another brain you'd just have one. A thing hasn't got to be the size of the Singer Building to be valuable, has it? I suppose if someone offered you a diamond you'd turn it down because it wasn't no bigger than a hen's egg.'
'Diamond?' Chimp brightened. 'Are there diamonds?'
'No, there aren't. But there's pictures and things, any one of them worth a packet. Go on, Soapy. Tell him.'
Mr Molloy smoothed his hair and addressed himself to his task once more.
'Well, it's like this, Chimpie,' he said. 'You put the stuff in a suitcase and you take it down into the hall where there's a closet under the stairs. . . .'
'We'll show you the closet,' interjected Dolly.
'Sure we'll show you the closet,' said Mr Molloy generously. 'Well, you put the suitcase in this closet and you leave it lay there. The idea is that later on I give old man Carmody my cheque and he hands it over and we take it away.'
'He thinks Soapy owns a museum in America,' explained Dolly. 'He thinks Soapy's got all the money in the world.'
'Of course, long before the time comes for giving any cheques, we'll have got the stuff away.'
Mr Chimp digested this.
'Who's going to buy it when you do get it away?' he asked.
'Oh, gee!' said Dolly. 'You know as well as I do there's dozens of people on the other side who'll buy it.'
'And how are you going to get it away? If it's in a closet in Carmody's house and Carmody has the key . . .'
'Now there,' said Mr Molloy, with a deferential glance at his wife, as if requesting her permission to reopen a delicate subject, 'the madam and I had a kind of an argument. I wanted to wait till a chance came along sort of natural, but Dolly's all for quick action. You know what women are. Impetuous.'
'If you'd care to know what we're going to do,' said Mrs Molloy definitely, 'we're not going to hang around waiting for any chances to come along sort of natural. We're going to slip a couple of knock-out drops in old man Carmody's port one night after dinner and clear out with the stuff while . . .'
'Knock-out drops?' said Chimp, impressed. 'Have you got any knock-out drops?'
'Sure we've got knock-out drops. Soapy never travels without them.'
'The madam always packs them in their little bottle first thing before even my clean collars,' said Mr Molloy proudly. 'So you see, everything's all arranged, Chimpie.'
'Yeah?' said Mr Twist, 'and how about me?'
'How do you mean, how about you?'
'It seems to me,' pointed out Mr Twist, eyeing his business partner in rather an unpleasant manner with his beady little eyes, 'that you're asking me to take a pretty big chance. While you're doping the old man I'll be twenty miles away at Healthward Ho. How am I to know you won't go off with the stuff and leave me to whistle for my share?'
It is only occasionally that one sees a man who cannot believe his ears, but anybody who had been in Mr Carmody's study at this moment would have been able to enjoy that interesting experience. A long minute of stunned and horrified amazement passed before Mr Molloy was able to decide that he really had heard correctly.
'Chimpie! You don't suppose we'd double-cross you?'
'Ee-magine!' said Mrs Molloy.
'Well, mind you don't,' said Mr Twist coldly. 'But you can't say I'm not taking a chance. And now, talking turkey for a moment, how do we share?'
'Equal shares, of course, Chimpie.'
'You mean half for me and half for you and Dolly?'
Mr Molloy winced as if the mere suggestion had touched an exposed nerve.
'No, no, no, Chimpie! You get a third, I get a third, and the madam gets a third.'
'Not on your life!'
'What!'
'Not on your life. What do you think I am?'
'I don't know,' said Mrs Molloy acidly. 'But, whatever it is, you're the only one of it.'
'Is that so?'
'Yes, that is so.'
'Now, now, now,' said Mr Molloy, intervening. 'Let's not get personal. I can't figure this thing out, Chimpie. I can't see where your kick comes in. You surely aren't suggesting that you should ought to have as much as I and the wife put together?'
'No, I'm not. I'm suggesting I ought to have more.'
'What!'
'Sixty–forty's my terms.'
A feverish cry rang through the room, a cry that came straight from a suffering heart. The temperamental Mrs Molloy was very near the point past which a sensitive woman cannot be pushed.
'Every time we get together on one of these jobs,' she said, with deep emotion, 'we always have this same fuss about the divvying up. Just when everything looks nice and settled you start this thing of trying to hand I and Soapy the nub end of the deal. What's the matter with you that you always want the earth? Be human, why can't you, you poor lump of Camembert.'
'I'm human all right.'
'You've got to prove it to me.'
'What makes you say I'm not human?'
'Well, look in the glass and see for yourself,' said Mrs Molloy offensively.
The pacific Mr Molloy felt it time to call the meeting to order once more.
'Now, now, now! All this isn't getting us anywheres. Let's stick to business. Where do you get that sixty–forty stuff, Chimp?'
'I'll tell you where I get it. I'm going into this thing as a favour, aren't I? There's no need for me to sit in at this game at all, is there? I've got a good, flourishing, respectable business of my own, haven't I? A business that's on the level. Well, then.'
Dolly sniffed. Her husband's soothing intervention had failed signally to diminish her animosity.
'I don't know what your idea was in starting that Healthward Ho joint,' she said, 'but I'll bet my diamond sunburst it isn't on the level.'
'Certainly it's on the level. A man with brains can always make a good living without descending to anything low and crooked. That's why I say that if I go into this thing it will simply be because I want to do a favour to two old friends.'
'Old what?'
'Friends was what I said,' repeated Mr Twist. 'If you don't like my terms, say so and we'll call the deal off. It'll be all right by me. I'll simply get along back to Healthward Ho and go on running my good, flourishing, respectable business. Come to think of it, I'm not any too sold on this thing, anyway. I was walking in my garden this morning and a magpie come up to me as close as that.'
Mrs Molloy expressed the view that this was tough on the magpie, but wanted to know what the bird's misfortune in finding itself so close to Mr Twist that it could not avoid taking a good, square look at him had to do with the case.
'Well, I'm superstitious, same as everyone else. I saw the new moon through glass, what's more.'
'Oh, stop stringing the beads and talk sense,' said Dolly wearily.
'I'm talking sense all right. Sixty per cent or I don't come in. You wouldn't have asked me to come in if you could have done without me. Think I don't know that? Sixty's moderate. I'm doing all the hard work, aren't I?'
'Hard work?' Dolly laughed bitterly. 'Where do you get the idea it's going to be hard work? Everybody'll be out of the house on the night of this concert thing they're having down in the village, there'll be a window left open, and you'll just walk in and pack up the stuff. If that's hard, what's easy? We're simply handing you slathers of money for practically doing nothing.'
'Sixty,' said Mr Twist. 'And that's my last word.'
'But, Chimpie . . .' pleaded Mr Molloy.
'Sixty.'
'Have a heart!'
'Sixty.'
'It isn't as though . . .'
'Sixty.'
Dolly threw up her hands despairingly.
'Oh, give it him,' she said. 'He won't be happy if you don't. If a guy's middle name is Shylock, where's the use wasting time trying to do anything about it?'
III
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Mrs Molloy's prediction that on the night of Rudge's annual dramatic and musical entertainment the Hall would be completely emptied of its occupants was not, as it happened, literally fulfilled. A wanderer through the stable-yard at about the hour of ten would have perceived a light in an upper window: and had he taken the trouble to get a ladder and climb up and look in would have beheld John Carroll seated at his table, busy with a pile of accounts.
In an age so notoriously avid of pleasure as the one in which we live it is rare to find a young man of such sterling character that he voluntarily absents himself from a village concert in order to sit at home and work: and, contemplating John, one feels quite a glow. It was not as if he had been unaware of what he was missing. The vicar, he knew, was to open the proceedings with a short address: the choir would sing old English glees: the Misses Vivien and Alice Pond-Pond were down on the programme for refined coon songs: and, in addition to other items too numerous and fascinating to mention, Hugo Carmody and his friend Mr Fish would positively appear in person and render that noble example of Shakespeare's genius, the Quarrel Scene from Julius Caesar. Yet John Carroll sat in his room, working. England's future cannot be so dubious as the pessimists would have us believe while her younger generation is made of stuff like this.
John was finding in his work these days a good deal of consolation. There is probably no better corrective of the pangs of hopeless love than real, steady application to the prosaic details of an estate. The heart finds it difficult to ache its hardest while the mind is busy with such items as Sixty-one pounds, eight shillings and fivepence, due to Messrs Truby and Gaunt for Fixing Gas Engine, or the claim of the Country Gentlemen's Association for eight pounds eight and fourpence for seeds. Add drains, manure, and feed of pigs, and you find yourself immediately in an atmosphere where Romeo himself would have let his mind wander. John, as he worked, was conscious of a distinct easing of the strain which had been on him since his return to the Hall. And if at intervals he allowed his eyes to stray to the photograph of Pat on the mantelpiece, that was the sort of thing that might happen to any young man, and could not be helped.