'Is there a car in your garage?' he asked.
'Sure there's a car in my garage,' said Chimp. 'Your car.'
'What!'
'Certainly.'
'But that girl went off in it.'
'She sent it back.'
So overwhelming was the joy of these tidings that John found himself regarding Chimp almost with liking. His car was safe after all. His Arab Steed! His Widgeon Seven!
Any further conversation after this stupendous announcement would, he felt, be an anti-climax. Without a word he darted to the door and passed through leaving the two partners staring after him blankly.
'Well, what do you know about that?' said Chimp.
Mr Molloy's comment on the situation remained unspoken, for even as his lips parted for the utterance of what would no doubt have been a telling and significant speech, there came from the corridor outside a single, thunderous 'Oo-er!' followed immediately by a sharp, smacking sound, and then a noise that resembled the delivery of a ton of coals.
Mr Molloy stared at Chimp. Chimp stared at Mr Molloy.
'Gosh!' said Chimp, awed.
'Gosh!' said Mr Molloy.
'That was Flannery!' said Chimp, unnecessarily.
'"Was",' said Mr Molloy, 'is right.'
It was not immediately that either found himself disposed to leave the room and institute inquiries – or more probably, judging from that titanic crash, a post-mortem. When eventually they brought themselves to the deed and crept palely to the head of the stairs they were enabled to see, resting on the floor below, something which from its groans appeared at any rate for the moment to be alive. Then this object unscrambled itself and, rising, revealed the features of Sergeant-Major Flannery.
Mr Flannery seemed upset about something.
'Was it you, sir,' he inquired in tones of deep reproach. 'Was it you, Mr Twist, that unlocked that Case's door?'
'I wanted to have a talk with him,' said Chimp, descending the stairs and gazing remorsefully at his assistant.
'I have the honour to inform you,' said Mr Flannery formally, 'that the Case has legged it.'
'Are you hurt?'
'In reply to your question, sir,' said Mr Flannery in the same formal voice, 'I am hurt.'
It would have been plain to the most casual observer that the man was speaking no more than the truth. How in the short time at his disposal John had managed to do it was a mystery which baffled both Chimp and his partner. An egg-shaped bump stood out on the Sergeant-Major's forehead like a rocky promontory, and already he was exhibiting one of the world's most impressive black eyes. The thought that there but for the grace of God went Alexander Twist filled the proprietor of Healthward Ho with so deep a feeling of thankfulness that he had to clutch at the banister to support himself.
A similar emotion was plainly animating Mr Molloy. To have been shut up in a room with a man capable of execution like that – a man, moreover, nurturing a solid and justifiable grudge against him – and to have escaped uninjured was something that seemed to him to call for celebration. He edged off in the direction of the study. He wanted a drink, and he wanted it quick.
Mr Flannery, pressing a hand to his wounded eye, continued with the other to hold Chimp rooted to the spot. It was an eye that had much of the quality of the Ancient Mariner's, and Chimp did not attempt to move.
'If you had listened to my advice, sir,' said Mr Flannery coldly, 'this would never have happened. Did I or did I not say to you, Mr Twist, did I or did I not repeatedly say that it was imperative and essential that that Case be kept securely under lock and key? And then you go asking for it, sir, begging for it, pleading for it, by opening the door and giving him the opportunity to roam the 'ouse at his sweet will and leg it when so disposed. I 'ad just reached the 'ead of the stairs when I see him. I said Oo-er! I said, and advanced smartly at the double to do my duty, that being what I am paid for an' what I draw my salary for doing, and the next thing I know I'd copped it square in the eye and him and me was rolling down the stairs together. I bumped my 'ead against the woodwork at the bottom or it may have been that chest there, and for a moment all went black and I knew no more.' Mr Flannery paused. 'All went black and I knew no more,' he repeated, liking the phrase. 'And when I come to, as the expression is, the Case had gone. Where he is now, Mr Twist, 'oo can say? Murdering the patients as like as not or . . . '
He broke off. Outside on the drive, diminishing in the distance, sounded the engine of a car.
'That's him,' said Mr Flannery. 'He's gorn!'
He brooded for a moment.
'Gorn!' he resumed. 'Gorn to range the countryside and maybe 'ave 'alf a dozen assassinations on his conscience before the day's out. And you'll be responsible, Mr Twist. On that Last Awful Day, Mr Twist, when you and I and all of us come up before the Judgment Seat, do you know what'll 'appen? I'll tell you what'll 'appen. The Lord God Almighty will say, angry-like, "'Oo's responsible for all these corpses I see laying around 'ere?" and 'E'll look at you sort of sharp, and you'll have to rise up and say "It was me, Lord! I'm responsible for them corpses. If I'd of done as Sergeant-Major Flannery repeatedly told me and kep' that Case under lock and key, as the saying is, there wouldn't have been none of these poor murdered blokes." That's what you'll 'ave to rise and say, Mr Twist. I will now leave you, sir, as I wish to go into the kitchen and get that young Rosa to put something on this nasty bruise and eye of mine. If you have any further instructions for me, Mr Twist, I'll be glad to attend to them. If not, I'll go up to my room and have a bit of a lay down. Good morning, sir.'
The Sergeant-Major had said his say. He withdrew in good order along previously prepared lines of retreat. And Chimp, suddenly seized with the same idea which had taken Soapy to the study, moved slowly off down the passage.
In the study he found Mr Molloy, somewhat refreshed, seated at the telephone.
'What are you doing?' he asked.
'Playing the flute,' replied Mr Molloy shortly.
'Who are you 'phoning to?'
'Dolly, if you want to know. I've got to tell her about all this business going bloo-ey, haven't I? I've got to break it to her that after all her trouble and pains she isn't going to get a cent out of the thing, haven't I?'
Chimp regarded his partner with disfavour. He wished he had never seen Mr Molloy. He wished he might never see him again. He wished he were not seeing him now.
'Why don't you go up to London and tell her?' he demanded sourly. 'There's a train in twenty minutes.'
'I'd rather do it on the 'phone,' said Mr Molloy.
14 NEWS FOR JOHN
I
The sun whose rays had roused Sergeant-Major Flannery from his slumbers at Healthward Ho that morning had not found it necessary to perform the same office for Lester Carmody at Rudge Hall. In spite of the fact that he had not succeeded in getting to sleep till well on in the small hours, Mr Carmody woke early. There is no alarm clock so effective as a disturbed mind.
And Mr Carmody's mind was notably disturbed. On the previous night he had received shock after shock, each more staggering than the last. First, Bolt, the chauffeur, had revealed the fact that he had given the fateful ticket to John. Then Sturgis, after letting fall in the course of his babblings the information that Mr Molloy knew that John had the ticket, had said that that young man, when last seen, had been going off in the company of Dolly Molloy. And finally, John had not only failed to appear at dinner but was not to be discovered anywhere on the premises at as late an hour as midnight.
Having breakfasted, contrary to the habit of years, quickly and sketchily, Mr Carmody, who had haunted the stable-yard till midnight, went there again in the faint hope of finding that his nephew had returned. But except for Emily, who barked at him, John's room was empty. Mr Carmody wandered out into the grounds, and for some half-hour paced the gravel paths in growing desolation of soul. Then, his tortured nerves becoming more and more afflicted by the behaviour of one of the under-gardeners who, full of the feudal spirit, insisted on
touching his hat like a clockwork toy every time his employer passed, he sought refuge in his study.
It was there, about an hour later, that John found him.
Mr Carmody's first emotion on beholding his long-lost nephew was one of ecstatic relief.
'John!' he cried, bounding from his chair.
Then, chilling his enthusiasm, came the thought that there might be no occasion for joy in this return. Probably, he reflected, John, after being drugged and robbed of the ticket, had simply come home in the ordinary course of events. After all, there would have been no reason for those scoundrels to detain him. Once they had got the ticket, John would have ceased to count.
'Where have you been?' he asked in a flatter voice.
A rather peculiar smile came and went on John's face.
'I spent the night at Healthward Ho,' he said. 'Were you worried about me?'
'Extremely worried.'
'I'm sorry. Doctor Twist is a hospitable chap. He wouldn't let me go.'
Mr Carmody, on the point of speaking, checked himself. His position, he suddenly saw, was a delicate one. Unless he were prepared to lay claim to the possession of special knowledge, which he certainly was not, anything in the nature of agitation on his part must inevitably seem peculiar. To those without special knowledge Mr Twist, Mr Molloy and Dolly were ordinary respectable persons and there was no reason for him to exhibit concern at the news that John had spent the night at Health-ward Ho.
'Indeed?' he said carefully
'Yes,' said John. 'Most hospitable he was. I can't say I liked him, though.'
'No?'
'No. Perhaps what prejudiced me against him was the fact of his having burgled the Hall the night before last.'
More and more Mr Carmody was feeling, as Ronnie Fish had no doubt felt at the concert, that he had been forced into playing a part to which he was not equal. It was obviously in the rôle that at this point he should register astonishment, and he did his best to do so. But the gasp he gave sounded so unconvincing to him that he hastened to supplement his words.
'What! What are you saying? Doctor Twist?'
'Doctor Twist.'
'But...But...!'
'It's come as quite a surprise to you, hasn't it?' said John. And for the first time since this interview had begun Mr Carmody became alive to the fact that in his nephew's manner there was a subtle something which he did not like, something decidedly odd. This might, of course, simply be due to the circumstance that the other's chin was bristling with an unsightly growth and that his eyes were red about the rims. Perhaps it was merely his outward appearance that gave the suggestion of the sinister. But Mr Carmody did not think so. He noted now that John's eyes, besides being red, were strangely keen. Their expression seemed, to his sensitive conscience, accusing. The young man was looking at him – yes, undoubtedly the young man was looking at him most unpleasantly.
'By the way,' said John, 'Bolt gave me this ticket yesterday to give to you. I forgot about it till it was too late.'
The relatively unimportant question of whether or not there was a peculiar look in his nephew's eyes immediately ceased to vex Mr Carmody. All he felt at this instant was an almost suffocating elation. He stretched out an unsteady hand.
'Oh, yes,' he heard himself saying. 'That ticket. Quite so, of course. Bolt left a bag for me at Shrub Hill station.'
'He did.'
'Give me the ticket.'
'Later,' said John, and put it back in his pocket.
Mr Carmody's elation died away. There was no question now about the peculiar look in his companion's eye. It was a grim look. A hard, accusing look. Not at all the sort of look a man with a tender conscience likes to have boring into him.
'What – what do you mean?'
John continued to regard him with that unpleasantly fixed stare.
'I hear you have offered a reward of a thousand pounds for the recovery of those things that were stolen, Uncle Lester.'
'Er – yes. Yes.'
'I'll claim it.'
'What!'
'Uncle Lester,' said John, and his voice made a perfect match for his eye, 'before I left Healthward Ho I had a little talk with Mr Twist and his friend Mr Molloy. They told me a lot of interesting things. Do you get my meaning, or shall I make it plainer?'
Mr Carmody, who had bristled for a moment with the fury of a parsimonious man who sees danger threatening his cheque-book, sank slowly back into his chair like a balloon coming to rest.
'Good!' said John. 'Write out a cheque and make it payable to Colonel Wyvern.'
'Colonel Wyvern?'
'I am passing the reward on to him. I have a particular reason for wanting to end all that silly trouble between you two, and I think this should do it. I know he is simply waiting for you to make some sort of advance. So you're going to make an advance – of a thousand pounds.'
Mr Carmody gulped.
'Wouldn't five hundred be enough?'
'A thousand.'
'It's such a lot of money.'
'A nice round sum,' said John.
Mr Carmody did not share his nephew's views as to what constituted niceness and roundness in a sum of money, but he did not say so. He sighed deeply and drew his cheque-book from its drawer.
It was as if some malignant fate had brooded over him, he felt, ever since this business had started. From the very first, life had been one long series of disbursements. All the expense of entertaining the Molloy family, not to mention the unspeakable Ronnie Fish. . . . The car going to and fro between Healthward Ho and Rudge at six shillings per trip. . . . The five hundred pounds he had had to pay to get Hugo out of the house. . . . And now this appalling, devastating sum. Money going out all the time! Money . . . money . . . money. . . . And all for nothing!
He blotted the cheque and held it out.
'Don't give it to me,' said John. 'You're coming with me now to Colonel Wyvern's house, to hand it to him in person with a neat little speech.'
'I shan't know what to say.'
'I'll tell you. And after that,' said John, 'you and he are going to be like two love-birds.' He thumped the desk. 'Do you understand? Love-birds.'
'Very well.'
There was something in the unhappy man's tone as he spoke, something so crushed and forlorn, that John could not but melt a little. He paused at the door. It crossed his mind that he might possibly be able to cheer him up.
'Uncle Lester,' he said, 'how did you get on with Sergeant-Major Flannery at Healthward Ho?'
Mr Carmody winced. Unpleasant memories seemed to be troubling him.
'Just before I left,' said John, 'I blacked his eye and we fell downstairs together.'
'Downstairs?'
'Right down the entire flight. He thumped his head against an oak chest.'
On Mr Carmody's drawn face there hovered for an instant a faint flickering smile.
'I thought you'd be pleased,' said John.
II
Colonel Wyvern hitched the celebrated eyebrows into a solid mass across the top of his nose, and from beneath them stared hideously at Jane, his parlourmaid. Jane had just come into the morning-room, where he was having a rather heated conversation with his daughter, Patricia, and had made the astounding statement that Mr Lester Carmody was waiting in his front hall.
'Who?' said Colonel Wyvern, rumbling like a thunder-cloud.
'Sir, please, sir, Mr Carmody.'
'Mr Carmody?'
'And Mr Carroll, sir.'
Pat, who had been standing by the French windows, caught in her breath with a little click of her firm white teeth.
'Show them in, Jane,' she said.
'Yes, Miss.'
'I will not see that old thug,' said Colonel Wyvern.
'Show them in, Jane,' repeated Pat, firmly. 'You must, father,' she said as the door closed. 'He may have come to apologize about that dynamite thing.'
'Much more likely he's come about that business of yours. Well, I've told you already and I say it again that nothing will i
nduce me...'
'All right, father. We can talk about that later. I'll be out in the garden if you want me.'
She went out through the French windows, and almost simultaneously the door opened and John and his uncle came in.
John paused in the doorway, gazing eagerly towards the garden.
'Was that Pat?' he asked.
'I beg your pardon,' said Colonel Wyvern.
'Was that Pat I thought I caught a glimpse of, going into the garden?'
'My daughter has just gone into the garden,' said Colonel Wyvern with cold formality.
'Oh?' said John. He seemed about to follow her but a sudden bark from the owner of the house brought him to a halt.
'Well?' said Colonel Wyvern, and the monosyllable was a verbal pistol-shot. It brought John back instantly from dreamland, and, almost more than the spectacle of his host's eyebrows, told him that life was stern and life was earnest.
'Oh, yes,' he said.
'What do you mean, "Oh, yes"?'
John advanced to the table, meeting the Colonel's gaze with a steady eye. There is this to be said for being dosed with knockout drops and shut up in locked rooms and having to take your meals through bars from the hands of a Sergeant-Major whom only a mother could love – it fits a normally rather shy and diffident young man for the battles of life as few other experiences would be able to fit him. The last time he and this bushy-eyebrowed man had met John had quailed. But now mere eyebrows meant nothing to him. He felt hardened, like one who has been through the furnace.
'I suppose you are surprised to see us here?'
'More surprised than pleased.'
'My uncle was anxious to have a few words with you.'
'I have not the slightest desire . . .'
'If you will just let me explain . . .'
'I repeat, I have not the slightest desire . . .'
'SIT DOWN!' said John.
Colonel Wyvern sat down, rather as if he had been hamstrung. The action had been purely automatic, the outcome of that involuntary spasm of acquiescence which comes upon most people when someone speaks very loudly and peremptorily in their presence. His obsequiousness was only momentary, and he was about to inquire of John what the devil he meant by speaking to him like that, when the other went on.