15
Lady Wetherby was feeling battered. She had not realized howseriously Roscoe Sherriff took the art of publicity, nor whatwould be the result of the half-hour he had spent at the telephoneon the night of the departure of Eustace.
Roscoe Sherriff's eloquence had fired the imagination of editors.There had been a notable lack of interesting happenings thissummer. Nobody seemed to be striking or murdering or havingviolent accidents. The universe was torpid. In these circumstances,the escape of Eustace seemed to present possibilities. Reportershad been sent down. There were three of them living in the housenow, and Wrench's air of disapproval was deepening every hour.
It was their strenuousness which had given Lady Wetherby thatbattered feeling. There was strenuousness in the air, and sheresented it on her vacation. She had come to Long Island tovegetate, and with all this going on round her vegetation wasimpossible. She was not long alone. Wrench entered.
'A gentleman to see you, m'lady.'
In the good old days, when she had been plain Polly Davis, of thepersonnel of the chorus of various musical comedies, Lady Wetherbywould have suggested a short way of disposing of this untimelyvisitor; but she had a position to keep up now.
'From some darned paper?' she asked, wearily.
'No, m'lady. I fancy he is not connected with the Press.'
There was something in Wrench's manner that perplexed LadyWetherby, something almost human, as if Wrench were on the pointof coming alive. She did not guess it, but the explanation wasthat Bill, quite unwittingly, had impressed Wrench. There was thatabout Bill that reminded the butler of London and dignifiedreceptions at the house of the Dowager Duchess of Waveney. It wasdeep calling unto deep.
'Where is he?'
'I have shown him into the drawing-room, m'lady.'
Lady Wetherby went downstairs and found a large young man awaitingher, looking nervous.
Bill was feeling nervous. A sense of the ridiculousness of hismission had come upon him. After all, he asked himself, what onearth had he got to say? A presentiment had come upon him that hewas about to look a perfect ass. At the sight of Lady Wetherby hisnervousness began to diminish. Lady Wetherby was not a formidableperson. In spite of her momentary peevishness, she brought withher an atmosphere of geniality and camaraderie.
'It's about your monkey,' he said, coming to the point at once.
Lady Wetherby brightened.
'Oh! Have you seen it?'
He was glad that she put it like that.
'Yes. It came round our way last night.'
'Where is that?'
'I am staying at a farm near here, a place they call Flack's. Themonkey got into one of the rooms.'
'Yes?'
'And then--er--then it got out again, don't you know.'
Lady Wetherby looked disappointed.
'So it may be anywhere now?' she said.
In the interests of truth, Bill thought it best to leave thisquestion unanswered.
'Well, it's very good of you to have bothered to come out and tellme,' said Lady Wetherby. 'It gives us a clue, at any rate. Thankyou. At least, we know now in which direction it went.'
There was a pause. Bill gathered that the other was looking on theinterview as terminated, and that she was expecting him to go, andhe had not begun to say what he wanted to say. He tried to thinkof a way of introducing the subject of Claire that should not seemtoo abrupt.
'Er--' he said.
'Well?' said Lady Wetherby, simultaneously.
'I beg your pardon.'
'You have the floor,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Shoot!'
It was not what she had intended to say. For months she had beentrying to get out of the habit of saying that sort of thing, butshe still suffered relapses. Only the other day she had toldWrench to check some domestic problem or other with his hat, andhe had nearly given notice. But if she had been intending to putBill at his ease she could not have said anything better.
'You have a Miss Fenwick staying with you, haven't you?' he said.
Lady Wetherby beamed.
'Do you know Claire?'
'Yes, rather!'
'She's my best friend. We used to be in the same company when Iwas in England.'
'So she has told me.'
'She was my bridesmaid when I married Lord Wetherby.'
'Yes.'
Lady Wetherby was feeling perfectly happy now, and when LadyWetherby felt happy she always became garrulous. She was one ofthose people who are incapable of looking on anybody as a strangerafter five minutes' acquaintance. Already she had begun to regardBill as an old friend.
'Those were great days,' she said, cheerfully. 'None of us had abean, and Algie was the hardest up of the whole bunch. After wewere married we went to the Savoy for the wedding-breakfast, andwhen it was over and the waiter came with the check, Algie said hewas sorry, but he had had a bad week at Lincoln and hadn't theprice on him. He tried to touch me, but I passed. Then he had a goat the best man, but the best man had nothing in the world but onesuit of clothes and a spare collar. Claire was broke, too, so theend of it was that the best man had to sneak out and pawn my watchand the wedding-ring.'
The room rang with her reminiscent laughter, Bill supplying a bassaccompaniment. Bill was delighted. He had never hoped that itwould be granted to him to become so rapidly intimate withClaire's hostess. Why, he had only to keep the conversation inthis chummy vein for a little while longer and she would give himthe run of the house.
'Miss Fenwick isn't in now, I suppose?' he asked.
'No, Claire's out with Dudley Pickering. You don't know him, doyou?'
'No.'
'She's engaged to him.'
It is an ironical fact that Lady Wetherby was by nature one of thefirmest believers in existence in the policy of breaking thingsgently to people. She had a big, soft heart, and she hated hurtingher fellows. As a rule, when she had bad news to impart to any oneshe administered the blow so gradually and with such mystery as tothe actual facts that the victim, having passed through thevarious stages of imagined horrors, was genuinely relieved, whenshe actually came to the point, to find that all that had happenedwas that he had lost all his money. But now in perfect innocence,thinking only to pass along an interesting bit of information, shehad crushed Bill as effectively as if she had used a club for thatpurpose.
'I'm tickled to death about it,' she went on, as it were over herhearer's prostrate body. It was I who brought them together, youknow. I wrote telling Claire to come out here on the _Atlantic,_knowing that Dudley was sailing on that boat. I had an idea theywould hit it off together. Dudley fell for her right away, and shemust have fallen for him, for they had only known each otherfor a few weeks when they came and told me they were engaged.It happened last Sunday.'
'Last Sunday!'
It had seemed to Bill a moment before that he would never again becapable of speech, but this statement dragged the words out ofhim. Last Sunday! Why, it was last Sunday that Claire had brokenoff her engagement with him!
'Last Sunday at nine o'clock in the evening, with a full moonshining and soft music going on off-stage. Real third-act stuff.'
Bill felt positively dizzy. He groped back in his memory forfacts. He had gone out for his walk after dinner. They had dinedat eight. He had been walking some time. Why, in Heaven's name,this was the quickest thing in the amatory annals of civilization!His brain was too numbed to work out a perfectly accurateschedule, but it looked as if she must have got engaged to thisPickering person before she met him, Bill, in the road that night.
'It's a wonderful match for dear old Claire,' resumed LadyWetherby, twisting the knife in the wound with a happy unconsciousness.'Dudley's not only a corking good fellow, but he has thirty milliondollars stuffed away in the stocking and a business that brings himin a perfectly awful mess of money every year. He's the Pickering ofthe Pickering automobiles, you know.'
Bill got up. He stood for a moment holding to the back of hischair before speaking. It was almost exactly thus t
hat he had feltin the days when he had gone in for boxing and had stoppedforceful swings with the more sensitive portions of his person.
'That--that's splendid!' he said. 'I--I think I'll be going.'
'I heard the car outside just now,' said Lady Wetherby. 'I thinkit's probably Claire and Dudley come back. Won't you wait and seeher?'
Bill shook his head.
'Well, good-bye for the present, then. You must come round again.Any friend of Claire's--and it was bully of you to bother aboutlooking in to tell of Eustace.'
Bill had reached the door. He was about to turn the handle whensomeone turned it on the other side.
'Why, here is Dudley,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Dudley, this is afriend of Claire's.'
Dudley Pickering was one of those men who take the ceremony ofintroduction with a measured solemnity. It was his practice tograsp the party of the second part firmly by the hand, hold it,look into his eyes in a reverent manner, and get off some littlespeech of appreciation, short but full of feeling. The openingpart of this ceremony he performed now. He grasped Bill's handfirmly, held it, and looked into his eyes. And then, havingperformed his business, he fell down on his lines. Not a wordproceeded from him. He dropped the hand and stared at Billamazedly and--more than that--with fear.
Bill, too, uttered no word. It was not one of those chattymeetings.
But if they were short on words, both Bill and Mr Pickering werelong on looks. Bill stared at Mr Pickering. Mr Pickering stared atBill.
Bill was drinking in Mr Pickering. The stoutness of Mr Pickering--theorderliness of Mr Pickering--the dullness of Mr Pickering--all thesethings he perceived. And illumination broke upon him.
Mr Pickering was drinking in Bill. The largeness of Bill--theembarrassment of Bill--the obvious villainy of Bill--none of thesethings escaped his notice. And illumination broke upon him also.
For Dudley Pickering, in the first moment of their meeting, hadrecognized Bill as the man who had been lurking in the grounds andpeering in at the window, the man at whom on the night when he hadbecome engaged to Claire he had shouted 'Hi!'
'Where's Claire, Dudley?' asked Lady Wetherby.
Mr Pickering withdrew his gaze reluctantly from Bill.
'Gone upstairs.'
I'll go and tell her that you're here, Mr--You never told me yourname.'
Bill came to life with an almost acrobatic abruptness. There weremany things of which at that moment he felt absolutely incapable,and meeting Claire was one of them.
'No; I must be going,' he said, hurriedly. 'Good-bye.'
He came very near running out of the room. Lady Wetherby regardedthe practically slammed door with wide eyes.
'Quick exit of Nut Comedian!' she said. 'Whatever was the matterwith the man? He's scorched a trail in the carpet.'
Mr Pickering was trembling violently.
'Do you know who that was? He was the man!' said Mr Pickering.
'What man?'
'The man I caught looking in at the window that night!'
'What nonsense! You must be mistaken. He said he knew Claire quitewell.'
'But when you suggested that he should meet her he ran.'
This aspect of the matter had not occurred to Lady Wetherby.
'So he did!'
'What did he tell you that showed he knew Claire?'
'Well, now that I come to think of it, he didn't tell me anything.I did the talking. He just sat there.'
Mr Pickering quivered with combined fear and excitement andinductive reasoning.
'It was a trick!' he cried. 'Remember what Sherriff said thatnight when I told you about finding the man looking in at thewindow? He said that the fellow was spying round as a preliminarymove. To-day he trumps up an obviously false excuse for gettinginto the house. Was he left alone in the rooms at all?'
'Yes. Wrench loosed him in here and then came up to tell me.'
'For several minutes, then, he was alone in the house. Why, he hadtime to do all he wanted to do!'
'Calm down!'
'I am perfectly calm. But--'
'You've been seeing too many crook plays, Dudley. A man isn'tnecessarily a burglar because he wears a decent suit of clothes.'
'Why was he lurking in the grounds that night?'
'You're just imagining that it was the same man.'
'I am absolutely positive it was the same man.'
'Well, we can easily settle one thing about him, at any rate. Herecomes Claire. Claire, old girl,' she said, as the door opened, 'doyou know a man named--Darn it! I never got his name, but he's--'
Claire stood in the doorway, looking from one to the other.
'What's the matter, Dudley?' she said.
'Dudley's gone clean up in the air,' explained Lady Wetherby,tolerantly. 'A friend of yours called to tell me he had seenEustace--'
'So that was his excuse, was it?' said Dudley Pickering. 'Did hesay where Eustace was?'
'No; he said he had seen him; that was all.'
'An obviously trumped-up story. He had heard of Eustace's escapeand he knew that any story connected with him would be a passportinto the house.'
Lady Wetherby turned to Claire.
'You haven't told us yet if you know the man. He was a big, tall,broad gazook,' said Lady Wetherby. 'Very English.'
'He faked the English,' said Dudley Pickering. 'That man was nomore an Englishman than I am.'
'Be patient with him, Claire,' urged Lady Wetherby. 'He's beengoing to the movies too much, and thinks every man who has had histrousers pressed is a social gangster. This man was the mostEnglish thing I've ever seen--talked like this.'
She gave a passable reproduction of Bill's speech. Claire started.
'I don't know him!' she cried.
Her mind was in a whirl of agitation. Why had Bill come to thehouse? What had he said? Had he told Dudley anything?
'I don't recognize the description,' she said, quickly. 'I don'tknow anything about him.'
'There!' said Dudley Pickering, triumphantly.
'It's queer,' said Lady Wetherby. 'You're sure you don't know him,Claire?'
'Absolutely sure.'
'He said he was living at a place near here, called Flack's.'
'I know the place,' said Dudley Pickering. 'A sinister, tumbledownsort of place. Just where a bunch of crooks would be living.'
'I thought it was a bee-farm,' said Lady Wetherby. 'One of thetradesmen told me about it. I saw a most corkingly pretty girlbicycling down to the village one morning, and they told me shewas named Boyd and kept a bee-farm at Flack's.'
'A blind!' said Mr Pickering, stoutly. 'The girl's the man'saccomplice. It's quite easy to see the way they work. The girlcomes and settles in the place so that everybody knows her. That'sto lull suspicion. Then the man comes down for a visit and goesabout cleaning up the neighbouring houses. You can't get away fromthe fact that this summer there have been half a dozen burglariesdown here, and nobody has found out who did them.'
Lady Wetherby looked at him indulgently.
'And now,' she said, 'having got us scared stiff, what are yougoing to do about it?'
'I am going,' he said, with determination, 'to take steps.'
He went out quickly, the keen, tense man of affairs.
'Bless him!' said Lady Wetherby. 'I'd no idea your Dudley had somuch imagination, Claire. He's a perfect bomb-shell.'
Claire laughed shakily.
'It is odd, though,' said Lady Wetherby, meditatively, 'that thisman should have said that he knew you, when you don't--'
Claire turned impulsively.
'Polly, I want to tell you something. Promise you won't tellDudley. I wasn't telling the truth just now. I do know this man. Iwas engaged to him once.'
'What!'
'For goodness' sake don't tell Dudley!'
'But--'
'It's all over now; but I used to be engaged to him.'
'Not when I was in England?'
'No, after that.'
'Then he didn't know you are engaged to Dudl
ey now?'
'N-no. I--I haven't seen him for a long time.'
Lady Wetherby looked remorseful.
'Poor man! I must have given him a jolt! But why didn't you tellme about him before?'
'Oh, I don't know.'
'Oh, well, I'm not inquisitive. There's no rubber in mycomposition. It's your affair.'
'You won't tell Dudley?'
'Of course not. But why not? You've nothing to be ashamed of.'
'No; but--'
'Well, I won't tell him, anyway. But I'm glad you told me abouthim. Dudley was so eloquent about burglars that he almost had megoing. I wonder where he rushed off to?'
Dudley Pickering had rushed off to his bedroom, and was examininga revolver there. He examined it carefully, keenly. Preparednesswas Dudley Pickering's slogan. He looked rather like a stoutsheriff in a film drama.