CHAPTER IX
MRS. PETT IS SHOCKED
At five o'clock in the afternoon some ten days after her returnto America, Mrs. Pett was at home to her friends in the house onRiverside Drive. The proceedings were on a scale that amounted toa reception, for they were not only a sort of officialnotification to New York that one of its most prominent hostesseswas once more in its midst, but were also designed to entertainand impress Mr. Hammond Chester, Ann's father, who had beenspending a couple of days in the metropolis preparatory todeparting for South America on one of his frequent trips. He wasvery fond of Ann in his curious, detached way, though he neverceased in his private heart to consider it injudicious of her notto have been born a boy, and he always took in New York for a dayor two on his way from one wild and lonely spot to another, if hecould manage it.
The large drawing-room overlooking the Hudson was filled almostto capacity with that strange mixture of humanity which Mrs. Pettchiefly affected. She prided herself on the Bohemian element inher parties, and had become during the past two years a humandrag-net, scooping Genius from its hiding-place and bringing itinto the open. At different spots in the room stood the sixresident geniuses to whose presence in the home Mr. Pett had suchstrong objections, and in addition to these she had collected somany more of a like breed from the environs of Washington Squarethat the air was clamorous with the hoarse cries of futuristpainters, esoteric Buddhists, _vers libre_ poets, interiordecorators, and stage reformers, sifted in among the moreconventional members of society who had come to listen to them.Men with new religions drank tea with women with new hats.Apostles of Free Love expounded their doctrines to persons whohad been practising them for years without realising it. All overthe room throats were being strained and minds broadened.
Mr. Chester, standing near the door with Ann, eyed the assemblagewith the genial contempt of a large dog for a voluble pack ofsmall ones. He was a massive, weather-beaten man, who looked verylike Ann in some ways and would have looked more like her but forthe misfortune of having had some of his face clawed away by anirritable jaguar with whom he had had a difference some yearsback in the jungles of Peru.
"Do you like this sort of thing?" he asked.
"I don't mind it," said Ann.
"Well, I shall be very sorry to leave you, Ann, but I'm glad I'mpulling out of here this evening. Who are all these people?"
Ann surveyed the gathering.
"That's Ernest Wisden, the playwright, over there, talking toLora Delane Porter, the feminist writer. That's ClaraWhat's-her-name, the sculptor, with the bobbed hair. Next toher--"
Mr. Chester cut short the catalogue with a stifled yawn.
"Where's old Pete? Doesn't he come to these jamborees?"
Ann laughed.
"Poor uncle Peter! If he gets back from the office before thesepeople leave, he will sneak up to his room and stay there tillit's safe to come out. The last time I made him come to one ofthese parties he was pounced on by a woman who talked to him foran hour about the morality of Finance and seemed to think thatmillionaires were the scum of the earth."
"He never would stand up for himself." Mr. Chester's gaze hoveredabout the room, and paused. "Who's that fellow? I believe I'veseen him before somewhere."
A constant eddying swirl was animating the multitude. Wheneverthe mass tended to congeal, something always seemed to stir it upagain. This was due to the restless activity of Mrs. Pett, whoheld it to be the duty of a good hostess to keep her guestsmoving. From the moment when the room began to fill till themoment when it began to empty she did not cease to plough her wayto and fro, in a manner equally reminiscent of a hawk swooping onchickens and an earnest collegian bucking the line. Her guestswere as a result perpetually forming new ententes andcombinations, finding themselves bumped about like those littlemoving figures which one sees in shop-windows on Broadway, whichrevolve on a metal disc until, urged by impact with anotherlittle figure, they scatter to regroup themselves elsewhere. Itwas a fascinating feature of Mrs. Pett's at-homes and one whichassisted that mental broadening process already alluded to thatone never knew, when listening to a discussion on the sincerityof Oscar Wilde, whether it would not suddenly change in themiddle of a sentence to an argument on the inner meaning of theRussian Ballet.
Plunging now into a group dominated for the moment by an angularwoman who was saying loud and penetrating things about thesuffrage, Mrs. Pett had seized and removed a tall, blonde youngman with a mild, vacuous face. For the past few minutes thisyoung man had been sitting bolt upright on a chair with his handson his knees, so exactly in the manner of an end-man at aminstrel show that one would hardly have been surprised had heburst into song or asked a conundrum.
Ann followed her father's gaze.
"Do you mean the man talking to aunt Nesta? There, they've goneover to speak to Willie Partridge. Do you mean that one?"
"Yes. Who is he?"
"Well, I like that!" said Ann. "Considering that you introducedhim to us! That's Lord Wisbeach, who came to uncle Peter with aletter of introduction from you. You met him in Canada."
"I remember now. I ran across him in British Columbia. We campedtogether one night. I'd never seen him before and I didn't seehim again. He said he wanted a letter to old Pete for somereason, so I scribbled him one in pencil on the back of anenvelope. I've never met any one who played a better game of drawpoker. He cleaned me out. There's a lot in that fellow, in spiteof his looking like a musical comedy dude. He's clever."
Ann looked at him meditatively.
"It's odd that you should be discovering hidden virtues in LordWisbeach, father. I've been trying to make up my mind about him.He wants me to marry him."
"He does! I suppose a good many of these young fellows here wantthe same thing, don't they, Ann?" Mr. Chester looked at hisdaughter with interest. Her growing-up and becoming a beauty hadalways been a perplexity to him. He could never rid himself ofthe impression of her as a long-legged child in short skirts. "Isuppose you're refusing them all the time?"
"Every day from ten to four, with an hour off for lunch. I keepregular office hours. Admission on presentation of visitingcard."
"And how do you feel about this Lord Wisbeach?"
"I don't know," said Ann frankly. "He's very nice. And--what ismore important--he's different. Most of the men I know are allturned out of the same mould. Lord Wisbeach--and one otherman--are the only two I've met who might not be the brothers ofall the rest."
"Who's the other?"
"A man I hardly know. I met him on board ship--"
Mr. Chester looked at his watch.
"It's up to you, Ann," he said. "There's one comfort in beingyour father--I don't mean that exactly; I mean that it is acomfort to me AS your father--to know that I need feel nopaternal anxiety about you. I don't have to give you advice.You've not only got three times the sense that I have, but you'renot the sort of girl who would take advice. You've always knownjust what you wanted ever since you were a kid. . . . Well, ifyou're going to take me down to the boat, we'd better bestarting. Where's the car?"
"Waiting outside. Aren't you going to say good-bye to auntNesta?"
"Good God, no!" exclaimed Mr. Chester in honest concern. "What!Plunge into that pack of coyotes and fight my way through to her!I'd be torn to pieces by wild poets. Besides, it seems silly tomake a fuss saying good-bye when I'm only going to be away ashort time. I shan't go any further than Colombia this trip."
"You'll be able to run back for week-ends," said Ann.
She paused at the door to cast a fleeting glance over hershoulder at the fair-haired Lord Wisbeach, who was now inanimated conversation with her aunt and Willie Partridge; thenshe followed her father down the stairs. She was a littlethoughtful as she took her place at the wheel of her automobile.It was not often that her independent nature craved outsidesupport, but she was half conscious of wishing at the presentjuncture that she possessed a somewhat less casual father. Shewould have liked to ask him to help her decide a problem whichhad been
vexing her for nearly three weeks now, ever since LordWisbeach had asked her to marry him and she had promised to givehim his answer on her return from England. She had been back inNew York several days now, but she had not been able to make upher mind. This annoyed her, for she was a girl who liked swiftdecisiveness of thought and action both in others and in herself.She was fond of Mr. Chester in much the same unemotional,detached way that he was fond of her, but she was perfectly wellaware of the futility of expecting counsel from him. She saidgood-bye to him at the boat, fussed over his comfort for awhilein a motherly way, and then drove slowly back. For the first timein her life she was feeling uncertain of herself. When she hadleft for England, she had practically made up her mind to acceptLord Wisbeach, and had only deferred actual acceptance of himbecause in her cool way she wished to re-examine the position ather leisure. Second thoughts had brought no revulsion of feeling.She had not wavered until her arrival in New York. Then, for somereason which baffled her, the idea of marrying Lord Wisbeach hadbecome vaguely distasteful. And now she found herself fluctuatingbetween this mood and her former one.
She reached the house on Riverside Drive, but did not slacken thespeed of the machine. She knew that Lord Wisbeach would bewaiting for her there, and she did not wish to meet him just yet.She wanted to be alone. She was feeling depressed. She wonderedif this was because she had just departed from her father, anddecided that it was. His swift entrances into and exits from herlife always left her temporarily restless. She drove on up theriver. She meant to decide her problem one way or the otherbefore she returned home.
Lord Wisbeach, meanwhile, was talking to Mrs. Pett and Willie,its inventor, about Partridgite. Willie, on hearing himselfaddressed, had turned slowly with an air of absentself-importance, the air of a great thinker disturbed inmid-thought. He always looked like that when spoken to, and therewere those--Mr. Pett belonged to this school of thought--who heldthat there was nothing to him beyond that look and that he hadbuilt up his reputation as a budding mastermind on a foundationthat consisted entirely of a vacant eye, a mop of hair throughwhich he could run his fingers, and the fame of his late father.
Willie Partridge was the son of the great inventor, DwightPartridge, and it was generally understood that the explosive,Partridgite, was to be the result of a continuation ofexperiments which his father had been working upon at the time ofhis death. That Dwight Partridge had been trying experiments inthe direction of a new and powerful explosive during the lastyear of his life was common knowledge in those circles which areinterested in such things. Foreign governments were understood tohave made tentative overtures to him. But a sudden illness,ending fatally, had finished the budding career of Partridgiteabruptly, and the world had thought no more of it until aninterview in the _Sunday Chronicle_, that store-house ofinformation about interesting people, announced that Willie wascarrying on his father's experiments at the point where he hadleft off. Since then there had been vague rumours of possiblesensational developments, which Willie had neither denied norconfirmed. He preserved the mysterious silence which went so wellwith his appearance.
Having turned slowly so that his eyes rested on Lord Wisbeach'singenuous countenance, Willie paused, and his face assumed theexpression of his photograph in the _Chronicle_.
"Ah, Wisbeach!" he said.
Lord Wisbeach did not appear to resent the patronage of hismanner. He plunged cheerily into talk. He had a pleasant, simpleway of comporting himself which made people like him.
"I was just telling Mrs. Pett," he said, "that I shouldn't besurprised if you were to get an offer for your stuff from ourfellows at home before long. I saw a lot of our War Office menwhen I was in England, don't you know. Several of them mentionedthe stuff."
Willie resented Partridgite as being referred to as "the stuff,"but he made allowance. All Englishmen talked that way, hesupposed.
"Indeed?" he said.
"Of course," said Mrs. Pett, "Willie is a patriot and would haveto give our own authorities the first chance."
"Rather!"
"But you know what officials are all over the world. They are sosceptical and they move so slowly."
"I know. Our men at home are just the same as a rule. I've got apal who invented something-or-other, I forget what, but it was amost decent little contrivance and very useful and all that; andhe simply can't get them to say Yes or No about it. But, all thesame, I wonder you didn't have some of them trying to put outfeelers to you when you were in London."
"Oh, we were only in London a few hours. By the way, LordWisbeach, my sister--"--Mrs. Pett paused; she disliked to have tomention her sister or to refer to this subject at all, butcuriosity impelled her--"my sister said that you are a greatfriend of her step-son, James Crocker. I didn't know that youknew him."
Lord Wisbeach seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"He's not coming over, is he? Pity! It would have done him aworld of good. Yes, Jimmy Crocker and I have always been greatpals. He's a bit of a nut, of course, . . . I beg your pardon!. . . I mean . . ." He broke off confusedly, and turned to Willieagain to cover himself. "How are you getting on with the jollyold stuff?" he asked.
If Willie had objected to Partridgite being called "the stuff,"he was still less in favour of its being termed "the jolly oldstuff." He replied coldly.
"I have ceased to get along with the jolly old stuff."
"Struck a snag?" enquired Lord Wisbeach sympathetically.
"On the contrary, my experiments have been entirely successful. Ihave enough Partridgite in my laboratory to blow New York tobits!"
"Willie!" exclaimed Mrs. Pett. "Why didn't you tell me before?You know I am so interested."
"I only completed my work last night."
He moved off with an important nod. He was tired of LordWisbeach's society. There was something about the young man whichhe did not like. He went to find more congenial company in agroup by the window.
Lord Wisbeach turned to his hostess. The vacuous expression haddropped from his face like a mask. A pair of keen and intelligenteyes met Mrs. Pett's.
"Mrs. Pett, may I speak to you seriously?"
Mrs. Pett's surprise at the alteration in the man prevented herfrom replying. Much as she liked Lord Wisbeach, she had nevergiven him credit for brains, and it was a man with brains andkeen ones who was looking at her now. She nodded.
"If your nephew has really succeeded in his experiments, youshould be awfully careful. That stuff ought not to lie about inhis laboratory, though no doubt he has hidden it as carefully aspossible. It ought to be in a safe somewhere. In that safe inyour library. News of this kind moves like lightning. At thisvery moment, there may be people watching for a chance of gettingat the stuff."
Every nerve in Mrs. Pett's body, every cell of a brain which hadfor years been absorbing and giving out sensational fiction,quivered irrepressibly at these words, spoken in a low, tensevoice which gave them additional emphasis. Never had shemisjudged a man as she had misjudged Lord Wisbeach.
"Spies?" she quavered.
"They wouldn't call themselves that," said Lord Wisbeach. "SecretService agents. Every country has its men whose only duty it isto handle this sort of work."
"They would try to steal Willie's--?" Mrs. Pett's voice failed.
"They would not look on it as stealing. Their motives would bepatriotic. I tell you, Mrs. Pett, I have heard stories fromfriends of mine in the English Secret Service which would amazeyou. Perfectly straight men in private life, but absolutelyunscrupulous when at work. They stick at nothing--nothing. If Iwere you, I should suspect every one, especially every stranger."He smiled engagingly. "You are thinking that that is odd advicefrom one who is practically a stranger like myself. Never mind.Suspect me, too, if you like. Be on the safe side."
"I would not dream of doing such a thing, Lord Wisbeach," saidMrs. Pett horrified. "I trust you implicitly. Even supposing sucha thing were possible, would you have warned me like this, if youhad been--?"
"That's true," said Lord Wisbeach. "I
never thought of that.Well, let me say, suspect everybody but me." He stopped abruptly."Mrs. Pett," he whispered, "don't look round for a moment.Wait." The words were almost inaudible. "Who is that man behindyou? He has been listening to us. Turn slowly."
With elaborate carelessness, Mrs. Pett turned her head. At firstshe thought her companion must have alluded to one of a smallgroup of young men who, very improperly in such surroundings,were discussing with raised voices the prospects of the clubscompeting for the National League Baseball Pennant. Then,extending the sweep of her gaze, she saw that she had beenmistaken. Midway between her and this group stood a singlefigure, the figure of a stout man in a swallow-tail suit, whobore before him a tray with cups on it. As she turned, this mancaught her eye, gave a guilty start, and hurried across the room.
"You saw?" said Lord Wisbeach. "He was listening. Who is thatman? Your butler apparently. What do you know of him?"
"He is my new butler. His name is Skinner."
"Ah, your _new_ butler? He hasn't been with you long, then?"
"He only arrived from England three days ago."
"From England? How did he get in here? I mean, on whoserecommendation?"
"Mr. Pett offered him the place when we met him at my sister's inLondon. We went over there to see my sister, Eugenia--Mrs.Crocker. This man was the butler who admitted us. He asked Mr.Pett something about baseball, and Mr. Pett was so pleased thathe offered him a place here if he wanted to come over. The mandid not give any definite answer then, but apparently he sailedon the next boat, and came to the house a few days after we hadreturned."
Lord Wisbeach laughed softly.
"Very smart. Of course they had him planted there for thepurpose."
"What ought I to do?" asked Mrs. Pett agitatedly.
"Do nothing. There is nothing that you can do, for the present,except keep your eyes open. Watch this man Skinner. See if he hasany accomplices. It is hardly likely that he is working alone.Suspect everybody. Believe me . . ."
At this moment, apparently from some upper region, there burstforth an uproar so sudden and overwhelming that it might wellhave been taken for a premature testing of a large sample ofPartridgite; until a moment later it began to resemble morenearly the shrieks of some partially destroyed victim of thatdeath-dealing invention. It was a bellow of anguish, and itpoured through the house in a cascade of sound, advertising toall beneath the roof the twin facts that some person unknown wassuffering and that whoever the sufferer might be he had excellentlungs.
The effect on the gathering in the drawing-room was immediate andimpressive. Conversation ceased as if it had been turned off witha tap. Twelve separate and distinct discussions on twelve highlyintellectual topics died instantaneously. It was as if the lasttrump had sounded. Futurist painters stared pallidly at _verslibre_ poets, speech smitten from their lips; and stage performerslooked at esoteric Buddhists with a wild surmise.
The sudden silence had the effect of emphasising the strangenoise and rendering it more distinct, thus enabling it to carryits message to one at least of the listeners. Mrs. Pett, after amoment of strained attention in which time seemed to her to standstill, uttered a wailing cry and leaped for the door.
"Ogden!" she shrilled; and passed up the stairs two at a time,gathering speed as she went. A boy's best friend is his mother.