CHAPTER ELEVEN
"That's right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you're young,Sam, work while you're young." He regarded his son's bent head withaffectionate approval. "What's the book to-day?"
"Widgery on Nisi prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up.
"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as anovel--some novels. There's a splendid bit on, I think, page twohundred and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold andCustomary Estates. It's a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears--butI won't spoil it for you. Mind you don't skip to see how it all comesout in the end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed animaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag.For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weeklyfoursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of aviolent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!"
"Well?"
"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead ofoverlapping the little finger of the right hand ... Oh, by the way, Sam."
"Yes?"
"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clientswill be coming in and asking for advice, and you'll find yourself indifficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You'dbetter lock the outer door."
"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading.He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which, as of courseyou know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding insocage.
Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.
"Well, I'll have to be going. See you later, Sam."
"Good-bye."
Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk andtwining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of concentration tohis grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle wasan even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam's mind,numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legalphraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a momentlater his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, dartedoff and began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.
Since they had last met, Sam had told himself perhaps a hundred timesthat he cared nothing about Billie, that she had gone out of his lifeand was dead to him; but unfortunately he did not believe it. A mantakes a deal of convincing on a point like this, and Sam had neversucceeded in convincing himself for more than two minutes at a time. Itwas useless to pretend that he did not still love Billie more thanever, because he knew he did; and now, as the truth swept over him forthe hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly and gave himself up tothe gray despair which is the almost inseparable companion of young menin his position.
So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the lightfootstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by atap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to thefact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken hisfather's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was somefrightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something,and Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him.
Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, theblighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he openedthe door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. Hedropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk.Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.
There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened.Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed tohim that he was going to bring this delicate operation off withsuccess. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in asimilar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; onlyNapoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inchesof trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all whoentered.
"Good morning," said a voice.
Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It wasthe voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his wakinghours.
"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots.
Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.
"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.
He pulled himself with an effort that was like a physical exercise. Hestared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he invited her to sitdown, and seated himself at the desk.
"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again.
"Yes?" said Billie.
"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib."
"Yes?"
"A broad gold nib," went on Sam, with the painful exactitude whichcomes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication.
"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely thatthis would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenlyoccurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the resultof his struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, andfelt a trifle more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowesnow began to assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort toappear as little of a fool as possible in this girl's eyes. And whateyes they were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in....
However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoatand became cold and business-like--the dry young lawyer.
"Er--how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in hisvoice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled thisperformance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished hehad some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth."Miss Bennett, I believe?"
Billie drew herself up stiffly.
"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me."
"I have a good memory."
"How nice! So have I!"
There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travelcasually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staringfurtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwroughtcondition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmenwere mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with thatred hair peeping out beneath her hat and ... However!
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voiceWidgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small manwith bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file.
"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby."
"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath.Cannot I act as his substitute?"
"Do you know anything about the law?"
"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know--!Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in."
"Oh, were you?" said Billie interested. "Do you always read on thefloor."
"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly.
"And of course you couldn't read without that! Well, as a matter offact, this has nothing to do with Nisi--what you said."
"I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know thelaw in all its branches."
"Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrionwhen you wanted to get to sleep?"
"The orchestrion?"
"Yes."
"The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H'm!" said Sam.
"You still haven't made it quite clear," said Billie.
"I was thinking."
"Oh, if you want to think!"
"Tell me the facts," said Sam.
"Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in thecountry, and for some reason or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr.Mortimer is doing everything he can to make father uncomfortable.Yesterday afternoon father wanted to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer startedhis orchestrion just to annoy him."
"I think--I'm not quite sure--I think that's a tort," said Sam.
"A what?"
"Either a tort or a misdemean
our."
"Why, you do know something about it after all!" cried Billie, startledinto a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words andthe sight of her quick smile Sam's professional composure reeled on itsfoundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up andbabbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflectioncame to him that this girl had once said that she considered himridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think himridiculous? He sagged back into his seat and at that moment there cameanother tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face ofthe holiday-making Peters.
"Good morning, Mr. Samuel," said Jno. Peters. "Good morning, MissMilliken. Oh!"
He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what hehad taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and thatthe junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behindhim a momentary silence.
"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a littlegasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at firstsight.
"I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently.
"What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!"
For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one ofhis Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend,Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for histrip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was itsuggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minutehe sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often hadbrain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy.
"Who is he?" asked Billie. "He seemed to know you? And who," shedemanded after a slight pause, "is Miss Milliken?"
Sam drew a deep breath.
"It's rather a sad story," he said. "His name is John Peters. He usedto be clerk here."
"But isn't he any longer?"
"No." Sam shook his head. "We had to get rid of him."
"I don't wonder. A man looking like that...."
"It wasn't that so much," said Sam. "The thing that annoyed father wasthat he tried to shoot Miss Milliken."
Billie uttered a cry of horror!
"He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!"
"He did shoot her--the third time," said Sam warming to his work. "Onlyin the arm, fortunately," he added. "But my father is rather a sterndisciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn't keep him afterthat."
"Good gracious!"
"She used to be my father's stenographer, and she was thrown a gooddeal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love withher. She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair.Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had givenhim to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one daythat she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off hisonion--I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that heconcealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of hiscondition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as Isay, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk.Still, it wouldn't do. It wasn't only that he tried to shoot MissMilliken. That wouldn't have mattered so much, as she left after he hadmade his third attempt, and got married. But the thing became anobsession with him, and we found that he had a fixed idea that everyred-haired woman who came into the office was the girl who had deceivedhim. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so fashionablenowadays."
"My hair is red!" whispered Billie pallidly.
"Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade asMiss Milliken's. It's rather fortunate that I happened to be here withyou when he came."
"But he may be lurking out there still!"
"I expect he is," said Sam carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is. Would youlike me to go and send him away? All right."
"But--but is it safe?"
Sam uttered a light laugh.
"I don't mind taking a risk or two for your sake," he said, andsauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followedhim with worshipping eyes.
Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himselffor more comfortable perusal of the copy of _Home Whispers_ whichhe had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm beingtoo busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in theseries of chats with Young Mothers.
"Hullo, Peters," said Sam. "Want anything?"
"Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to saygood-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken upall the week. I have to go down to the country to get some finalinstructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over.I'm sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel."
"Yes, this is his golf day, I'll tell him you looked in."
"Is there anything I can do before I go?"
"Do?"
"Well--"--Jno. Peters coughed tactfully--"I see that you are engagedwith a client, Mr. Samuel, and was wondering if any little point of lawhad arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable ofcoping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance."
"Oh, that lady," said Sam. "That was Miss Milliken's sister."
"Indeed? I didn't know Miss Milliken had a sister."
"No?" said Sam.
"She is not very like her in appearance."
"No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright,intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before youcame in, and she was most interested. It's a pity you haven't got itwith you now, to show to her."
"Oh, but I have! I have, Mr. Samuel!" said Peters, opening a smallhandbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, atongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. "I was on my wayto the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad toshow it to her."
"Well, wait here a minute or two," said Sam, "I'll have finishedtalking business in a moment."
He returned to the inner office.
"Well?" cried Billie.
"Eh? Oh, he's gone," said Sam. "I persuaded him to go away. He was alittle excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we weretalking about. You say...." He broke off with an exclamation, andglanced at his watch. "Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. Ipromised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the nextcourt. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen withone of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can youspare me for a short while? I shan't be more than ten minutes."
"Certainly."
"Here is something you may care to look at while I'm gone. I don't knowif you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting."
He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_.
"You can go in now," said Sam.
"Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly."
Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_, and sat down with hisfeet on the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read thesynopsis.
In the inner room, Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshmentoffered by Widgery, and was engaged in making a tour of the office,looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to bethe Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows and Applebys mentioned on thecontents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back.She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously.
Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man ofrepellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was oneof those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling,a cruel, cunning smile--at least, she thought he was; Mr. Petershimself was under the impression that his face was wreathed in abenevolent simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seenoutside a motion picture studio.
"How do you do, Miss Milliken?" he said.