After a little more thought, he went along to Willis' room.
“Oh, I say, Willis,” he said, “am I disturbing you?”
“No. Come in.”
Willis looked up from a sheet of paper which bore the engaging headlines: “MAGNOLIA-WHITE, MAGNOLIA-SOFT–that's what they'll say of your hands.” He looked depressed and ill.
“See here, Willis,” said Bredon, “I want your advice. I know we don't seem to hit it off very well–”
“No–it's my fault,” said Willis. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, and then brought his words out with a rush, as though they had been violently forced from him: “I fancy I owe you some sort of apology. I appear to have been mistaken.”
“What exactly did you have against me? I never could make out what it was, to tell you the truth.”
“I thought you belonged to Victor Dean's beastly doping and drinking crowd, and thought you were trying to get Pamela–Miss Dean–in among them again. She tells me that's not the case. But I saw you there with her, and now she tells me it's my fault that you–that you–oh, hell!”
“What is the matter?”
“I'll tell you what's the matter,” said Willis, violently. “You went and forced yourself on Miss Dean–God knows what you told her, and she won't tell me. You made out you were a friend of her brother's, or something–was that true, to start with?”
“Not quite, as you put it. I made Miss Dean's acquaintance over a matter connected with her brother, but I had never met him, and she knows that.”
“What had it got to do with him, then?”
“I'm afraid I can't tell you that.”
“It sounds damned queer to me,” said Willis, his face darkening with suspicion. Then he seemed to recollect that he was supposed to be making an apology, and went on:
“Well, anyway, you took her to that disgusting place down there by the river.”
“That's not altogether true, either. I asked her to take me, because I couldn't very well have got in without an introduction.”
“That's a lie; I got in all right.”
“Miss Dean told them to let you in.”
“Oh!” Willis was disconcerted for a moment. “Well, in any case, you had no business to ask a decent girl to do anything of the kind. That was exactly what Dean and I had trouble about. A house like that is no fit place for her, and you know it.”
“I do; and I regretted the necessity which compelled me to ask her to go there. You may have noticed that I took care nothing should happen to her.”
“I don't know that,” grumbled Willis.
“You aren't a very good detective,” said Bredon with a smile. “You must take my word for it that she was quite safe.”
“I won't take your word, but I'd take hers. She says so, and I suppose I've got to believe it. But if you're not an out-and-out rotter yourself, why did you want to be taken there?”
“That's another thing I can't tell you. But I can offer you one or two reasonable explanations that might fit the case. I might be a journalist, commissioned to write an inside story about the newest kind of night-club. Or I might be a detective, engaged in tracking down dope-smugglers. Or I might be a zealot with a new brand of religion, trying to save the souls of post-war society sinners. Or I might be in love with somebody–say, if you like, the notorious Dian de Momerie–and threatening to commit suicide unless I got an introduction to her. I present you with those four solutions on the spur of the moment, and I dare say I could think of others, if I was put to it.”
“You might be a dope-merchant yourself,” said Willis.
“I hadn't thought of that. But if I were, I doubt if I should need Miss Dean's introduction to that particular crowd.”
Willis muttered something unintelligible.
“But I gather,” said Bredon, “that Miss Dean has more or less absolved me of being anything hopelessly corrupt. So what's the trouble?”
“The trouble is,” groaned Willis, “that you've–my God! you swine–you've thrown her over and she says it's my fault.”
“You oughtn't to say a thing like that, old son,” said Bredon, really distressed. “It's not done.”
“No–I dare say I'm not quite a gentleman. I've never been–”
“If you tell me you've never been to a public school,” said Bredon, “I shall scream. What with Copley and Smayle, and all the other pathetic idiots who go about fostering inferiority complexes, and weighing up the rival merits of this place and that place, when it doesn't matter a damn anyway, I'm fed up. Pull yourself together. Anybody, wherever he's been educated, ought to know better than to say a thing like that about any girl. Particularly when there isn't the slightest foundation for it.”
“Ah, but there is,” said Willis. “You don't realize it, but I do. I know a man's a man for a' that and all the rest of it, but people like you have a sort of glamour about them and women fall for it, every time. I know I'm as good a man as you are, but I don't look it, and that's where it is.”
“I can only assure you, Willis–”
“I know, I know. You've never made love to Miss Dean–that's what you're going to say–never by word, look or deed and so forth and so on, given her the slightest ground–bah! I know it. She admits it. It makes it all the worse.”
“I am afraid,” said Mr. Bredon, “that you are a very foolish pair of people. And I really think you must be quite mistaken in Miss Dean's feelings.”
“That's damned likely.”
“I think so. In any case, you oughtn't to have said anything to me about it. And in any case, there's nothing I can do.”
“She asked me,” said Willis, miserably, “to apologize to you and bring you–and ask you–and put the matter right.”
“There's nothing to put right. Miss Dean knows quite well that my interviews with her were merely a matter of business. And all I can say is, Willis, if you accepted any such commission, she must think you as soft as a pancake. Why on earth didn't you tell her you'd see me at the devil first? That's probably what she expected you to do.”
“Do you think so?”
“Sure of it,” said Bredon, who was not sure at all, but thought it best to appear so. “You mustn't go about creating intolerable situations, you know. It's very awkward for me, and I'm sure Miss Dean would be horribly upset if she knew what you'd been saying about her. All she meant was, I expect, that you'd taken quite a wrong view of a perfectly ordinary business acquaintanceship and been unnecessarily antagonistic and so on, and that she wanted you to put the thing straight, so that, if I needed her help again, there wouldn't be any awkwardness about it. Isn't that, in other words, what she said to you?”
“Yes,” said Willis. It was a lie, and he knew that Bredon knew that it was a lie, but he lied manfully. “Of course that was what she actually said. But I'm afraid I put another interpretation on it.”
“All right,” said Bredon, “that's settled. Tell Miss Dean that my business is progressing very well, and that when I need her kind help again I shall have no hesitation in calling her to my assistance. Now, is that all?”
“Yes, that's all.”
“You're sure–while you are about it–that there's nothing else you want to get off your chest?”
“N-no.”
“You don't sound very sure about it. You've been trying to say all this to me for some time, I dare say.”
“No, not very long. A few days.”
“Since the day of the monthly tea-party, shall we say?”
Willis started violently. Bredon, with a wary eye on him, followed up his advantage.
“Was that what you came round to Great Ormond Street that night to tell me?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I didn't know, I guessed. As I have said before, you would not make a good detective. You lost a pencil on that occasion, I believe?”
He drew the pencil from his pocket and held it out.
“A pencil? Not that I know of. Where did you find that?”
“In Great Ormond Street.”
“I don't think it's mine. I don't know. I think I've still got mine.”
“Well, never mind. You came round that night intending to apologize?”
“No–I didn't. I came round to have an explanation with you. I wanted to bash your face in, if you must know. I went round there just before ten–”
“Did you ring the bell of my flat?”
“No, I didn't. I'll tell you why. I looked in your letter-box, and I saw a letter there from Miss Dean, and I–I didn't dare go upstairs. I was afraid I might let myself go. I felt like murdering you. So I went off and wandered about till I was too done-up to think.”
“I see. You didn't make any attempt to get hold of me at all?”
“No.”
“Oh, well, that's that.” Bredon dismissed the matter with a wave of the hand. “It's quite all right. It doesn't matter. I was only a little bit puzzled about the pencil.”
“The pencil?”
“Yes. I found it on the top landing, you see, just outside my door. I couldn't quite understand how it got there, that's all.”
“It wasn't me. I didn't go upstairs.”
“How long did you stay in the house?”
“Only a few minutes.”
“In the front hall downstairs all the time?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, well then, it can't have been your pencil. It's very odd, because those pencils aren't on the market, as you know.”
“Perhaps you dropped it yourself.”
“Well, perhaps I did. That seems the likeliest explanation, doesn't it? It's not of any importance.”
There was a short and rather uncomfortable pause. Willis broke it by asking in a constrained tone:
“What did you want to ask my advice about?”
“About the old subject,” said Bredon; “perhaps, now that we've had this little explanation, you may find it easier to tell me what I want to know. Circumstances have brought me up against the Dean family, and I feel a certain amount of curiosity about the late lamented Victor. From his sister I gather that he was a good, kind brother, but unfortunately a little wild in his morals–which means, I take it, that he became infatuated with Dian de Momerie. According to her, he took his sister to various places to meet the fair Dian; you interfered; Miss Dean then realized what the situation was, and withdrew from the association, while quite naturally and illogically resenting your interference; and finally Dian de Momerie shut down on Victor and sent him off home. That's true, as far as it goes, I imagine?”
“Yes,” said Willis, “except that I don't believe Dean ever was really infatuated with the de Momerie woman. I think he was flattered, and I think he thought he could make something out of her. As a matter of fact, he was a mean little beast.”
“Did she give him money?”
“Yes, she did; but he didn't get much out of that, because he found that crowd so expensive to run with. He wasn't naturally one of that sort. He didn't enjoy gambling, though he had to do it, to keep in with them; and he wasn't a drinker. In some ways, I'd have liked him better if he had been. He wouldn't dope, either. I expect that's why Miss de Momerie got tired of him. The worst of that crowd, you know, is that they can't rest till they've made everybody they have to do with as bad as themselves. If they'd only drug themselves into their graves and have done with it, the sooner they did it the better it would be for every one. I'd cheerfully hand the stuff over to them by the cartload. But they get hold of quite decent people and ruin them for life. That's why I got so worried about Pamela.”
“But you say that Victor managed to remain undefiled.”
“Yes, but Pamela's different. She's rather impulsive and easily–no, not easily led, but easily excited about things. She's high-spirited and likes to try everything once. If she once gets a sort of enthusiasm for a person, she wants to do the same as they do. She needs somebody–well, never mind that. I don't want to discuss Pamela. I only mean that Victor was just the opposite. He was very careful of himself, and he had a very good eye for the main chance.”
“Do you mean that he was the sort of man who makes what he can out of his friends?”
“He was the kind of man who never has his own cigarettes, and never happens to be there, if he can help it, when it's his turn to stand the drinks. And he'd pick your brains every time.”
“He must have had a pretty good reason, then, for going round with Dian de Momerie's lot. As you say, they're expensive.”
“Yes; he must have seen something remunerative in the distance. And when it came to sacrificing his sister–”
“Exactly. Well, that's all rather by the way. What I wanted to know from you was this: supposing he found out that somebody–say somebody in this office–as it might be yourself–had a skeleton in the closet, to use the pretty old metaphor, was Victor Dean the kind of fellow to–er–to dispose of that skeleton to an anatomist?”
“Blackmail, do you mean?” asked Willis, bluntly.
“That's a strong word. But call it that.”
“I don't quite know,” said Willis, after a few moments' consideration. “It's a devil of a thing to suggest about anybody, isn't it? But I can only say that the question gives me no shock. If you were to tell me that he had blackmailed somebody, it wouldn't surprise me very much. Only, as it's a pretty serious offence, it would have to be a very safe kind of blackmail, with the sort of victim who couldn't possibly afford to face a court of law. Mind you, I haven't the least reason to suppose he ever did anything of the kind. And he certainly never seemed to be particularly flush of cash. Not that that's much to go by, with a careful fellow like him. He wouldn't have let wads of bank-notes I come tumbling out his desk.”
“You think the tumbling about of notes affords a presumption of innocence?”
“Not a bit. Only of carelessness, and Dean certainly wasn't careless.”
“Well, thanks for speaking so frankly.”
“That's all right. Only, for goodness' sake, don't let Pamela know what I've been saying about Victor. I've had trouble enough about that.”
Bredon assured him that he need not fear any such fantastic indiscretion, and took his leave, polite but still puzzled.
Mr. Tallboy was lying in wait for him at the end of the passage.
“Oh, Bredon, I'm very much obliged to you, of course. I'm sure I can rely on you not to spread the thing any further than it's gone already. All quite absurd, of course. That fool Tompkin seems to have lost his head completely. I've ticked him off properly.”
“Oh, yes, absolutely,” replied Bredon. “Just so. Much ado about nothing. No real necessity for me to have butted in at all. But you never know. I mean to say, if you'd been detained and Miss Vavasour had got tired of waiting or–well, you know what I mean.”
“Yes.” Tallboy licked his dry lips. “It might have been very awkward. When girls get hysterical and so on, they sometimes say more than they mean. I've been a bit of a fool, as I dare say you've gathered. I'm cutting it all out now. I've settled everything all right. Worrying, of course, but nothing really desperate.” He laughed uncomfortably.
“You're looking a bit over-done.”
“I feel it. The fact is, I was up all night. My wife–well, the fact is, my wife had a baby last night. That was partly why–oh, hell, what's it matter, anyhow?”
“I quite understand,” said Bredon. “Very wearing business. Why didn't you take the day off?”
“I didn't want to do that. It's my busy day. Much better to occupy one's mind. Besides, there wasn't any necessity. Everything went all right. I suppose you think I'm an awful swine.”
“You're not the first, by any means,” said Bredon.
“No–it's rather usual, I believe. It's not going to happen again, I can tell you.”
“It must have put you in a hell of a hole–all this.”
“Yes–at least–not so bad. As you say, I'm not the only man it's ever happened to. It doesn't do to let one's self be ups
et, does it? Well, as I said, thanks very much and–that's all, isn't it?”
“Absolutely. There's nothing whatever to thank me about. Well, sonnie, what do you want?”
“Any letters to go, sir?”
“No, thanks,” said Bredon.
“Oh, stop a minute,” said Tallboy. “Yes, I've got one.” He searched in his breast-pocket and pulled out an envelope, all ready sealed. “Lend me a pen one moment, Bredon. Here, boy, take this penny-halfpenny and run along to Miss Rossiter and ask her for a stamp.”
He took the pen Bredon held out, and bending over the desk addressed the envelope hurriedly to “T. Smith, Esq.” Bredon, idly watching him, was caught by his eye in the act, and apologized.
“I beg your pardon; I was snooping. Beastly habit. One catches it in the typists' room.”
“All right–it's only a note to a stockbroker.”
“Lucky man to have anything to stockbroke.”
Tallboy laughed, stamped the letter and tossed it to the waiting boy.
“And so ends an exhausting day,” he observed.
“Toule very tiresome?”
“Not more so than usual. He turned down 'Like Niobe, all Tears.' Said he didn't know who Niobe was and he didn't suppose anybody else did either. But he passed this week's 'Tears, Idle Tears,' because when he was a boy his father used to read Tennyson aloud to the family circle.”
“That's one saved from the wreck, anyhow.”
“Oh, yes. He liked the general idea of the poetical quotations. Said he thought they gave his advertisements class. You'll have to think up some more. He likes the ones that illustrate well.”
“All right. 'Like Summer Tempest came her Tears.' That's Tennyson, too. Picture of the nurse of ninety years setting his babe upon her knee. Babies always go well. (Sorry, we don't seem able to get off babies.) Start the copy, 'Tears are often a relief to overwrought nerves, but when they flow too often, too easily, it is a sign that you need Nutrax.' I'll do that one. Bassanio and Antonio: 'I know not Why I am so Sad.' Carry the quote on into the copy. 'Causeless depression, like Antonio's, wearies both the sufferer and his friends. Go to the root of the matter and tone up the overstrung Nerves with Nutrax.' I can do that sort of thing by the hour.”