“Now that'll do, Mr. Bredon. What will my boys think if they hear you making fun of me? Really, though, some of these people are too trying. But I must stand up for my women, Mr. Bredon, and for my boys. There isn't one of them that I wouldn't trust, and it isn't right to bring accusations with nothing to support them.”
“It's simply foul,” agreed Mr. Bredon. “Who's been bringing accusations?”
“Well, I don't know if I ought to tell tales out of school,” said Mrs. Johnson, “but it's really only justice to poor Mrs. Crump to say–”
Naturally, in five minutes' time, the insinuating Mr. Bredon was in possession of the whole story.
“But you needn't go and spread it all round the office,” said Mrs. Johnson.
“Of course I needn't,” said Mr. Bredon. “Hullo! is that the lad with our coffee?”
He sprang alertly from his perch and hastened into the typists' room, where Miss Parton was detailing to a prick-eared audience the more juicy details of the morning's scene with Mr. Armstrong.
“That's nothing,” announced Mr. Bredon. “You haven't heard the latest development.”
“Oh, what is it?” cried Miss Rossiter.
“I've promised not to tell,” said Mr. Bredon.
“Shame, shame!”
“At least, I didn't exactly promise. I was asked not to.”
“Is it about Mr. Tallboy's money?”
“You do know, then? What a disappointment!”
“I know that poor little Mrs. Crump was crying this morning because Mr. Tallboy had accused her of taking some money out of his desk.”
“Well, if you know that,” said Mr. Bredon artlessly, “in justice to Mrs. Crump–”
His tongue wagged busily.
“Well, I think it's too bad of Mr. Tallboy,” said Miss Rossiter. “He's always being rude to poor old Copley. It's a shame. And it's rotten to accuse the charwomen.”
“Yes, it is,” agreed Miss Parton, “but I've no patience with that Copley creature. He's a tiresome old sneak. He went and told Hankie once that he'd seen me at the dog-races with a gentleman friend. As if it was any business of his what a girl does out of business hours. He's too nosey by half. Just because anybody's a mere typist it doesn't mean one's a heathen slave. Oh! here's Mr. Ingleby. Coffee, Mr. Ingleby? I say, have you heard about old Copley pinching Mr. Tallboy's fifty quid?”
“You don't say so,” exclaimed Mr. Ingleby, shooting a miscellaneous collection of oddments out of the waste-paper basket as a preliminary to up-turning it and sitting upon it. “Tell me quickly. Golly! what a day we're having!”
“Well,” said Miss Rossiter, lusciously taking up the tale, “somebody sent Mr. Tallboy fifty pounds in a registered envelope–”
“What's all this?” interrupted Miss Meteyard, arriving with some sheets of copy in one hand and a bag of bulls' eyes in the other. “Here are some lollipops for my little ones. Now let's hear it all from the beginning. I only wish people would send me fifty pounds in registered envelopes. Who was the benefactor?”
“I don't know. Do you know, Mr. Bredon?”
“Haven't the foggiest. But it was all in currency notes, which is suspicious, for a start.”
“And he brought them to the office, meaning to take them to the Bank.”
“But he was busy,” chimed in Miss Parton, “and forgot all about them.”
“Catch me forgetting about fifty pounds,” said Miss Parton's bosom-friend from the Printing.
“Oh, we're only poor hardworking typists. Fifty pounds or so is nothing to Mr. Tallboy, obviously. He put them in his desk–”
“Why not in his pocket?”
“Because he was working in his shirt-sleeves, and didn't like to leave all that wealth hanging on a coat-peg–”
“Nasty suspicious nature the man's got–”
“Yes; well, he forgot them at the lunch-hour. And in the afternoon, he found that the blockmaker had done something silly with the Nutrax block–”
“Was that what delayed it?” inquired Mr. Bredon.
“Yes, that was it. And, I say, I've found out something else. Mr. Drew–”
“Who's Mr. Drew?”
“That stout man from the Cormorant Press. He said to Mr. Tallboy he thought the headline was a bit hot. And Mr. Tallboy said he had a nasty mind and anyhow, everybody had passed it and it was too late to alter it then–”
“Jiminy!” said Mr. Garrett, suddenly bursting into speech, “it's a good thing Copley didn't get hold of that. He'd have rubbed it in, all right. I must say, I think Tallboy ought to have done something about it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Wedderburn. Drew asked him about it this morning. Said he noticed they'd thought better of it after all.”
“Well, get on with the story.”
“By the time Mr. Tallboy had had the block put right, the Bank was shut. So he forgot about it again, and went off, leaving the fifty quid in his desk.”
“Does he often do that sort of thing?”
“Goodness knows. And old Copley was working late on his jellies–”
Clack, clack, clack. The story lost nothing in the telling.
“–poor old Mrs. Crump was weeping like a sponge–”
“–Mrs. Johnson was in such a bait–”
“–making a most awful row. Mr. Bredon heard them. What did he call him, Mr. Bredon?”
“–accused him of stealing the money–”
“–thief and scoundrel–”
“–what Mr. Brotherhood must have thought–”
“–give them the sack, I shouldn't wonder–”
“–my dear, the thrills we get in this place!”
“And, by the way,” observed Mr. Ingleby, maliciously, “I pulled Barrow's leg all right about that sketch.”
“You didn't tell him what Mr. Armstrong said?”
“No. At least, I didn't tell him Mr. Armstrong said it. But I gave him a hint to that effect off my own bat.”
“You are awful!”
“He's out for the blood of this department–especially Copley's.”
“Because Copley went to Hankie last week about a Jamboree display and complained that Barrow didn't follow his directions, and so now he thinks this business is a plot of Copley's to–”
“Shut up!”
Miss Rossiter leapt at her type-writer and began to pound the keys deafeningly.
Amid a pointed silence of tongues, Mr. Copley made his entrance.
“Is that Jelly copy of mine ready, Miss Rossiter? There doesn't seem to be much work being done here this morning.”
“You've got to take your turn, Mr. Copley. I have a report of Mr. Armstrong's to finish.”
“I shall speak to Mr. Armstrong about the way the work is done,” said Mr. Copley. “This room is a bear-garden. It's disgraceful.”
“Why not give Mr. Hankin a turn?” snapped Miss Parton, unpleasantly.
“No, but really, Copley, old sport,” pleaded Mr. Bredon, earnestly. “You mustn't let these little things get your goat. It's not done, old thing. Positively not done. You watch me squeeze copy out of Miss Parton. She eats out of my hand. A little kindness and putting her hair in papers will work wonders with her. Ask her nicely and she'll do anything for you.”
“A man of your age, Bredon, should know better,” said Mr. Copley, “than to hang round here all day. Am I the only person in this office with work to do?”
“If you only knew it,” replied Mr. Bredon, “I'm working away like anything. Look here,” he added, as the unhappy Mr. Copley withdrew, “do the poor old blighter's muck for him. It's a damned shame to tease him. He's looking horribly green about the gills.”
“Right-ho!” said Miss Parton, amiably, “I don't mind if I do. May as well get it over.”
The typewriters clacked again.
CHAPTER IX
UNSENTIMENTAL MASQUERADE OF A HARLEQUIN
Dian de Momerie was holding her own. True, the big Chrysler and the Bentley ahead of her
had more horsepower, but young Spenlow was too drunk to last out, and Harry Thorne was a notoriously rotten driver. She had only to tail them at a safe distance till they came to grief. She only wished “Spot” Lancaster would leave her alone. His clumsy grabs at her waist and shoulders interfered with her handling of the car. She eased the pressure of her slim sandal on the accelerator, and jabbed an angry elbow into his hot face.
“Shut up, you fool! you'll have us into the ditch, and then they'd beat us.”
“I say!” protested Spot, “don't do that. It hurts.”
She ignored him, keeping her eye on the road. Everything was perfect tonight. There had been a most stimulating and amusing row at Tod Milligan's, and Tod had been very definitely told where he got off. All the better. She was getting tired of Tod's hectoring. She was keyed up just enough and not too much. The hedges flashed and roared past them; the road, lit by the raking headlights, showed like a war-worn surface of holes and hillocks, which miraculously smoothed themselves out beneath the spinning wheels. The car rode the earth-waves like a ship. She wished it were an open car and not this vulgar, stuffy saloon of Spot's.
The Chrysler ahead was lurching perilously, thrashing her great tail like a fighting salmon. Harry Thorne had no business with a car like that; he couldn't hold it on the road. And there was a sharp S-bend coming. Dian knew that. Her senses seemed unnaturally sharpened–she could see the road unrolled before her like a map. Thorne was taking the first bend–far too wide–and young Spenlow was cutting in on the left. The race was hers now–nothing could prevent it. Spot was drinking again from a pocket-flask. Let him. It left her free. The Chrysler, wrenched brutally across the road, caught the Bentley on the inner edge of the bend, smashing it against the bank and slewing it round till it stood across the road. Was there room to pass? She pulled out, her off wheels bumping over the grass verge. The Chrysler staggered on, swaying from the impact–it charged the bank and broke through the hedge. She heard Thorne yell–saw the big car leap miraculously to earth without overturning, and gave an answering cry of triumph. And then the road was suddenly lit up as though by a searchlight, whose powerful beam swallowed her own headlights like a candle in sunlight.
She leant over to Spot.
“Who's that behind us?”
“Dunno,” grunted Spot, twisting ineffectually to stare through the small pane at the rear of the car. “Some blighter or other.”
Dian set her teeth. Who the hell, who the hell had a car like that? The driving mirror showed only the glare of the enormous twin lights. She drove the accelerator down to its limit, and the car leaped forward. But the pursuer followed easily. She swung out on the crown of the road. Let him crash if he wanted to. He held on remorselessly. A narrow, hump-backed bridge sprang out of the darkness. She topped it and seemed to leap the edge of the world. A village, with a wide open square. This would be the man's chance. He took it. A great dark shape loomed up beside her, long, low and open. Out of the tail of her eye she sought the driver. For five seconds he held beside her, neck and neck, and she saw the black mask and skull-cap and the flash of black and silver. Then, in the narrowing of the street, he swept ahead. She remembered what Pamela Dean had told her:
“You will see him when you least expect him.”
Whatever happened, she must hold on to him. He was running ahead now, lightly as a panther, his red tail-lamp tantalizingly only a few yards away. She could have cried with exasperation. He was playing with her.
“Is this all your beastly Dutch-oven will do?”
Spot had fallen asleep. His head rolled against her arm and she shook it off violently. Two miles, and the road plunged beneath over-arching trees, with a stretch of woodland on either side. The leading car turned suddenly down a side-road and thence through an open gate beneath the trees; it wound its way into the heart of the wood, and then abruptly stopped; all its lights were shut off.
She jammed on her brakes and was out upon the grass. Overhead the treetops swung together in the wind. She ran to the other car; it was empty.
She stared round. Except for the shaft of light thrown by her own headlamps, the darkness was Egyptian. She stumbled over her long skirts among briars and tufts of bracken. She called:
“Where are you? Where are you hiding? Don't be so silly!”
There was no answer. But presently, far off and mockingly, there came the sound of a very high, thin fluting. No jazz tune, but one which she remembered from nursery days:
Tom, Tom the piper's son
Learned to play when he was young,
And the only tune that he could play
Was: “Over the hills and far away–”
“It's too stupid,” said Dian.
Over the hills and a great way off
The wind is blowing my top-knot off.
The sound was so bodiless that it seemed to have no abiding-place. She ran forward, and it grew fainter; a thick bramble caught her, tearing her ankles and her sheer silk stockings. She wrenched herself pettishly away and started off in a new direction. The piping ceased. She suddenly became afraid of the trees and the darkness. The good, comforting drinks were taking back the support they gave and offering her instead a horrible apprehensiveness. She remembered Spot's pocket-flask and began scrambling back towards the car. Then the beaconing lights went out, leaving her alone with the trees and the wind.
The high spirits induced by gin and cheerful company do not easily survive siege by darkness and solitude. She was running now, desperately, and screaming as she ran. A root, like a hand about her ankles, tripped her, and she dropped, cowering.
The thin tune began again.
Tom, Tom the piper's son–
She sat up.
“The terror induced by forests and darkness,” said a mocking voice from somewhere over her head, “was called by the Ancients, Panic fear, or the fear of the great god Pan. It is interesting to observe that modern progress has not altogether succeeded in banishing it from ill-disciplined minds.”
Dian gazed upwards. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the night, and in the branches of the tree above her she caught the pale gleam of silver.
“What do you want to behave like an idiot for?”
“Advertisement, chiefly. One must be different. I am always different. That is why, my dear young lady, I am the pursued and not the pursuer. You may say it is a cheap way of producing an effect, and so it is; but it is good enough for gin-soaked minds. On such as you, if you will pardon my saying so, subtlety would be wasted.”
“I wish you would come down.”
“Possibly. But I prefer to be looked up to.”
“You can't stay there all night. Think how silly you would look in the morning.”
“Ah! but by comparison with yourself I shall retain an almost bandbox perfection of appearance. My costume is better suited than yours to acrobatic exercise in a wood at midnight.”
“Well, what are you doing it for, anyway?”
“To please myself–which is the only reason you would admit for doing anything.”
“Then you can sit up there and do it all alone. I'm going home.”
“Your shoes aren't very suitable for a long walk–but if it amuses you, go home by all means.”
“Why should I have to walk?”
“Because I have the ignition keys of both cars in my pocket. A simple precaution, my dear Watson. Nor do I think it will be very much good to try to send a message by your companion. He is plunged in the arms of Morpheus–an ancient and powerful god, though not so ancient as Pan.”
“I hate you,” said Dian.
“Then you are on the high road to loving me–which is only natural. We needs must love the highest when we see it. Can you see me?”
“Not very well. I could see you better if you came down.”
“And love me better, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then I am safer where I am. Your lovers have a knack of coming to bad ends. There was young Carmichael??
?”
“I couldn't help that. He drank too much. He was an idiot.”
“And Arthur Barrington–”
“I told him it wasn't any good.”
“Not a bit of good. But he tried, all the same, and blew his brains out. Not that they were very good brains, but they were all the brains he had. And Victor Dean–”
“The little rotter! That wasn't anything to do with me.”
“Wasn't it?”
“Why, he fell down a staircase, didn't he?”
“So he did. But why?”
“I haven't the faintest idea.”
“Haven't you? I thought you might have. Why did you send Victor Dean about his business?”
“Because he was a silly little bore and just like all the rest.”
“You like them to be different?”
“I like everything to be different.”
“And when you find them different, you try to make them all alike. Do you know anybody who is different?”
“Yes; you're different.”
“Only so long as I stay on my branch, Circe. If I come down to your level, I should be just like all the rest.”
“Come down and try.”
“I know when I am well off. You had better come up to me.”
“You know I can't.”
“Of course you can't. You can only go down and down.”
“Are you trying to insult me?”
“Yes, but it's very difficult.”
“Come down, Harlequin–I want you here.”
“That's a new experience for you, isn't it? To want what you can't get. You ought to be grateful to me.”
“I always want what I can't get.”
“What do you want?”
“Life–thrills–”
“Well, you're getting them now. Tell me all about Victor Dean.”
“Why do you want to know about him?”
“That's a secret.”
“If I tell you, will you come down?”
“Perhaps.”
“What a funny thing to want to know about.”
“I'm famous for being funny. How did you pick him up?”