CHAPTER VIII.
AN ARTIST MAKES AN EXHIBITION
OF HIMSELF
No man has ever understood a woman, for the simple reason that woman is unintelligible even to her own kind. If she were not, and if she were susceptible to explanation by her own sisters, be sure that her own sisters would lose no time in telling the first man she met all about her.
Lady Moya Felton possessed that rare combination of talents, beauty and acumen. She dressed well, she spoke well, and she looked well. She was a product of Newnham, an institution which, more often than not, gives the world a being which is something less than a woman and something more than a babu. This being is crammed with erudition and for many years fights life with a textbook. Sometimes she continues to the end, very self-assured, very confident of the facts she has culled from the printed page and very determined that she will never surrender her mechanical facts or her machine-made values. Sometimes, she succumbs to the humanising influences which daily contact with the verities of life bring to her and develops into a useful and charming member of society.
Moya had absorbed just as much of life as she thought was necessary to her comfort. She stopped short of the supreme lesson which finds expression in cheerful sacrifice but she was an eminently pleasing person and never discussed biological justice or gave forth as her own the shoddy philosophies she had acquired in hall. Therefore, she was bearable. Moreover, by realising—here her instinct served her—that Newnham had turned her out fit for nothing better than a church-going school ma’am, she conveyed an impression of her education rather than declaimed the fact.
Practical as she was, she had a guilty secret, not only a very dear one, to be hugged tight to her heart, but one which evoked the unusual emotion of profound disapproval in the more ordered compartments of her mind. Moya was a dreamer, a cold-blooded romanticist who had wonderful adventures with wonderful people whenever she walked or rode abroad. In the privacy of her big limousine, she would be absorbed in events of her own creation, wholly monopolised by men and women who bore no likeness to and had no relation with any person in her somewhat extensive list of acquaintances. She would often find herself in situations so absurdly impossible that even the penny novelette reader would have rejected them with the scorn which their crudity deserved. She did not dream of living people, the mere mental suggestion—for the roving mind has a trick of taking charge at times—that any of her visionary heroes had his prototype in flesh and blood ensured the ejection of the offending dream-man and the substitution of another, more wildly improbable but at the same time more unlikely to challenge relationship with anybody in the material world.
She could dream and yet accept the cold practicality of a Ralph Sapson and calmly consider a marriage so hopelessly prosaic.
That was inexplicable.
For an engaged lover Ralph had been singularly remiss. He had called once since his unemotional declaration of love. To do him justice he had skipped the tender demonstrations which usually accompany even the most formal engagements and had got down to the question of settlement in the shortest space of time. This was as Moya could wish, for she also was embarrassed at the thought that a human being might possibly approach—suffering in comparison—the extravagance, wordless and intangible as it was, of her shadowy friends.
It is a remarkable circumstance that romance in concrete form did not come to Moya, until the very week she engaged herself to marry Sir Ralph Sapson. It came in a curious way. She had driven to Leicester Square to see an exhibition of pictures. It was one of those collections which dawn upon London, bringing in its wake a name which has never been heard before, save in a very select circle and is never heard again outside of that circle; an orbit which swings beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.
She went into the gallery and found it a veritable desert. Save for a young man and a small, pinched and preoccupied girl, wearing a large pendant in which was inserted the photograph of her uninteresting fiancé, the place was empty. The girl with the pendant carried her excuse in her hand, in the shape of a bunch of catalogues. There was less excuse for the young man for he was healthy in appearance and it was not raining.
Moya began a conscientious inspection of the pictures, chiefly remarkable for their colouring and for the atmosphere which the artist had managed to secure. Indeed, the pictures were all atmosphere. The girl made a slow progress along the wall, comparing each framed atrocity with her catalogue and striving to sense, dimly, something of the artist’s honourable intentions.
She looked around once to discover what effect the pictures had upon her fellow sightseer. He was standing before a long panel representing, if the catalogue had been rightly compiled, “A Blue Wind on a Green Hill.” His face bore an expression of the deepest gloom, his hat was tilted to the back of his head and his hands were thrust deeply into his trousers pockets. The longer he looked at the “Blue Wind on the Green Hill” the more morose and unhappy did he appear.
This then was the attitude which the new colourist school demanded, one of fierce but approving antagonism if the paradox be permitted.
She moved up till she was almost by his side, never thinking that in the presence of the girl with the programmes and the photographic miniature, he would dare address her. Yet he did.
“What do you think of that one?” he asked without turning his head.
She was taken aback and was prepared to be chilly and non-committal. She looked at his face and the nearer view was a pleasing one. He was very fair, very good-looking and had the bluest eyes she had ever seen in a man. He was also unshaven and his collar was not clean, but he was well dressed enough and his tone was wholly Oxford—and Balliol at that.
“I think it is rather weird,” she said.
“So do I,” he nodded vigorously. “I think it is—‘weird’ is the word. As a work of art how does it strike you?”
She hesitated. She had a full range of studio jargon which she had acquired in the course of her after-education and could speak glibly on atmosphere, tone and light. She knew that it was possible to refer to a still-life study of a bunch of bananas as being “full of movement” without being guilty of an absurdity. In fact, she knew enough about art to have occupied a position on any average newspaper as a critic.
“As a work of art,” she said, “it is original and a little eccentric.”
“Frankly?” he demanded fiercely.
All the time he spoke he was glaring at the picture and had not turned his head toward her.
“Frankly,” she replied, “I think these are monstrosities.”
He nodded again.
“I agree with you,” he said, “and I know better than anybody else how monstrous they are—I painted ’em!”
Moya gasped.
“I am awfully sorry,” she began.
“I am sorry, too—that I painted them,” he replied. “I am not sorry that I exhibited them, because all my friends told me that they were wonderful and naturally I get some satisfaction from proving that my friends are mentally deficient.”
He turned round and looked at her and was in turn surprised.
“Hello,” he said, staring at her with his blue eyes wide open, “I thought you were much older.”
She laughed.
“The fact is I didn’t look at you,” he confessed; “how can anybody look at anything with these beastly things staring one in the face—Hi! Emma!”
Fortunately the programme girl was looking his way and realised that he was speaking to her.
“Your name is Emma, I suppose.”
“No, sir,” said the girl impressively, “my name is Evangeline.”
He turned to the girl.
“Here is an Evangeline whom I thought was an Emma; and here are my Emmas that I thought were Evangelines,” he said despairingly. “What made you come to this exhibition?”
“I saw a criticism of the pictures in yesterday’s papers.”
“In the Megaphone,” he said accusingly.
“Yes—it was a very flattering criticism, I thought,” said the girl.
He nodded.
“I wrote it myself,” he said without shame.
He turned to the programme girl.
“Tell your master to shut up the gallery, have the pictures packed away and sent home.”
“But,” said Moya in alarm, “I hope my stupid views won’t influence you.”
“It isn’t your stupid view,” he said, “it is my original stupid view. You see, I can’t paint really. I know not the slightest thing about art, I have never had an artistic education or served under any master. I am a genius. These works are works of a genius. The frames cost a lot of money and the amount of paint I have used is prodigious. There is everything there,” he waved his hand to the covered walls, “except the know-how.”
She murmured a conventional expression of sympathy, but he did not invite sympathy, he invited condemnation and seemed to find a comfort in his own misfortune and was obviously all the happier, that he had reached a decision on his own merits.
They walked out of the gallery together and Moya wondered at herself. That she had in so brief a space of time entered into the aspirations and disappointments of a perfect stranger so that she felt something of his chagrin was truly amazing.
“I know you,” he said, breaking off in the midst of a sardonic dissertation on art, “you are Lady Moya Melton or Pelton.”
“Felton,” she suggested, amused.
“Oh, yes, Felton,” he nodded. “I saw your portrait in the academy, a very bad portrait too.”
“People thought it was rather good,” she demurred.
“Idealised, but Lord, what do I know about art? This char-a-banc de luxe is yours, I presume,” he pointed to the big limousine.
“It does happen to be mine,” she said; “my father gave it to me on my twenty-first birthday.”
He inspected it critically.
“I wonder if I know as much about motor-cars as I know about painting,” he said. “I used to think I knew something about both, but here, at any rate, is something real, it is a very nice car.”
He opened the door for her and she offered her hand.
“I am so sorry about the pictures,” she said.
“Don’t worry,” he replied cheerfully.
She thought for a moment.
“Can I drop you anywhere?”
He fingered his unshaven chin.
“If you know of a nice deep pond where a man may drown himself without interference I should be obliged,” he said gravely, then, seeing the look of alarm in her eyes he laughed. “You probably don’t know my name,” he said.
As a matter of fact she did not and had been trying throughout the interview to take a surreptitious look at the catalogue. She knew it was something like Brixel.
“Fonso Blaxton—” he said shortly. “Fonso stands for Alphonso, a perfectly rotten name, isn’t it? It would be quite all right for an artist. If there’s any need to send flowers, my address is Oxford Chambers.”
He shook hands abruptly, handed her into the car and closed the door. He waited only the briefest spell and had lifted his hat and vanished before the car had started.
Moya drove back with so much to occupy her thoughts that she forgot to dream. So preoccupied was she, that she passed Sir Ralph Sapson and his chic companion turning into the park before she was aware that he was bowing to her or had time to note anything more about the lady than that she was very beautifully gowned and that her sunshade was tilted at such an angle that it was impossible to see her face.
“Who is your friend?”
Sir Ralph turned with a smirk.
“That, Princess,” he said, “is Lady Moya Felton.”
“Oh, your fiancée,” said the girl, “isn’t it a bore being in London incognito; I should so much like to have met her.”
“Perhaps some day,” said Ralph.
“I should dearly love to,” murmured the girl; “but please go on, you interest me so much. I am beginning to realise why you English are so successful. You seem to know every detail of your business.”
“Oh, dear no,” protested Sir Ralph good-humoredly. “I am rather a dunce if the truth be told, but one must know something of the details.”
“Something!” said the girl, raising her eye-brows. “I think you are very modest. Why, you seem to know the workings of your railway system from beginning to end.”
Sir Ralph stroked his moustache thoughtfully.
“One has to go into things,” he said vaguely, “and of course one takes a lot of credit for things which one is not entitled to take credit for. But the gold train was my idea altogether.”
“I never thought there was so much romance in business,” said the Princess, then suddenly, “do you mind telling the driver to turn about, I am tired of the park now.”
He leaned forward and instructed the chauffeur and the big car circled round.
“I am glad you suggested that,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Did you notice a man in a grey felt hat talking to a lady in a victoria?”
She shook her head.
“He’s a weird bird,” said Sir Ralph; “he is a policeman, Michael Pretherston, Lord Pretherston’s brother. I don’t want to meet him, apart from the fact that he might recognize you, even through that veil of yours which would deny him so much happiness,” he added gallantly.
“Tell me some more about the gold train,” she said.
Nothing loath Sir Ralph explained. He told the story of the Seahampton Docks and the big liners which would be coming in and the new services he had inaugurated to meet the increased traffic.
“We shall carry practically the whole of the gold which comes from the Rand mines,” he said impressively. “Naturally we have to be very careful although there is not much danger in England. The gold train is really two big safes on wheels. To outward appearance, they are just like ordinary closed railway trucks. In reality they are steel boxes, burglar proof and fire proof. Of course, nothing can go wrong and even if we had a smash the cars would be uninjured. But I have the best men on the system to run the train.”
“How very fascinating,” she said intensely interested. “I suppose you have a most elaborate time-table?”
“I have worked out every detail myself,” he said.
He took a note-book from his pocket.
“I will show you, Princess,” he said impressively.
He turned the gilt-edged leaves until he came to two pages covered with his fine writing.
“You will get some idea of the work involved in the running of a special train,” he said; “here are the times. There is the driver’s name, the fireman’s name, the assistant fireman’s name, the names of the two guards.”
She looked at the book.
“I cannot read your writing very well,” she laughed; “you must not forget that my family was very old fashioned and my dear father never allowed us to learn the Roman alphabet until we were quite grown up. But I can see what a very difficult business it is.”
She handed the book back to him with a little sigh.
“I am afraid I am very stupid,” she said; “figures always bother me and I can see that you revel in them. I hate writing, but by the way your book is filled, it seems that you revel in it! I cannot understand people who like to write. It is always an agony for me to compose an ordinary letter. My thoughts come so much faster than my poor hand can move.”
She took a pad and pencil from the silver mounted stationery case in front of her.
“I will show you something,” she said.
She wrote rapidly, resting the pad on her knee and he watched her in astonishment as she proceeded to fill the sheet.
“There,” she said triumphantly, “that is what I can do best.”
“It looks like shorthand,” he said.
“It is something like Russian shorthand,” said the girl, “and I am such a lazy person that I always use it whenever I want to write a note. My secretary, who is the only person in the world who understands it, transcribes it. I do it because I hate writing.”
“So you are clever, after all, Princess.”
She reached out her little hand and patted his arm.
“You don’t know how clever I am,” she said and they both laughed together.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SHAREHOLDERS AND AN INTERRUPTION
Colonel Westhanger looked at his watch.
“She’s twenty minutes late already,” he said.
Gregori rolled another cigarette and looked enquiringly at Dr. Philip Garon who was fingering his trim beard and talking with some animation to the middle-aged pallid man, who was known to the world as Mr. Cunningham and to the police as an expert safe breaker.
All Crime Street, with the exception of the admirable Mr. Millet, was present. The Bishop with his large placid face was playing bezique with Francis Stockmar. Colling Jacques, who had the appearance of a prosperous butler who had settled down to the management of his own private hotel, was reading the newspaper. Mr. Mulberry, that respectable man with his grey side-whiskers and his sad dog-like eyes, was discussing Renaissance architecture with the other Stockmar and the Colonel, pacing the room impatiently, stopped now and again to fling a word to one or the other.
Presently there was a slight sound in the hall below and the Colonel went to the door of the room.
“She is here,” he said and passed out to the landing to meet Kate.
She was wearing a dark coat-dress and a big black fox wrap which she loosened and flung off as she came into the room. It was notable that the Colonel, who had every right to complain of her unpunctuality, did not attempt to criticize her for her late arrival, other than to make mild reference to the fact that he had expected her earlier.
She looked around the room.
“Where is Millet?” she asked.
“Millet is working on the telegrams,” he said and she nodded, satisfied.
“Everything is ready now,” she said. “Did you see Boltover, Mr. Mulberry?”
He rose and came toward her with that noiseless step of his.
“A most amiable young man,” he said in his unctuous sing-song voice, “such a pleasant young man! We had a very long talk together.”
“And?”
“We arranged everything.”
He took a long envelope from his pocket, pulled out a stiff parchment and handed it to her with the gravity and deference of an ambassador delivering a treaty to his sovereign lady. She ran her eyes quickly over the document, turned its crinkling page and read rapidly to the last flourishing signatures.
“That’s all right,” she said and returned the document.
The long table had been placed in the middle of the room and to this, without instructions, the whole of the company had drawn. Colonel Westhanger sat at one end and Kate at the other. From her bag she took a thick roll of manuscript, cut the strings that fastened it and smoothed the sheets out before her. One by one she called their names at the same time handing them, in some cases one, in other cases two or three sheets covered with writing.
“You have a week to master all this,” she said, “and in a week’s time we will meet again and I will see that everybody understands.”
She caught Jacques’ eye.
“About men?” she said. “How many have you arranged for?”
“Sixty,” he said; “I have been bringing them into England for the past month.”
“Will sixty be enough?” she asked dubiously. “How many did we use for the Bank of Edinburgh?”
“That was a different job,” said Jacques; “we had to cut through thirty feet of concrete. I used two hundred and twenty in relays of thirty.”
“Sixty will be quite enough,” she said after a moment’s thought. “You will see that I have allowed only for fifty, but if they are the right kind of people—”
“They are all good men, most of them from Italy, a few of them from France and one Portuguese. They are the pick of my men and represent years of organisation.”
“You have full details there, Cunningham,” she said, turning to that dour man. “I took a shorthand note about the gold train, the driver and the officials who will be on the train and I have all their addresses except one. You will find a cross against that; I think the address is Berne Street, Seahampton, but I had no time to verify it.”
“This will be easy,” said Cunningham, reading his instructions; “these times won’t be altered, I suppose?”
“If they are, I shall know all about it,” said the girl. “Everyone must make a note of those instructions in your own code and you must do it pretty quickly.”
“What’s the hurry?” asked Westhanger, who, alone of the men about the table, had received no paper.
“I want to see every sheet burnt before we leave the room,” she said.
The Colonel frowned.
“But—” he began.
“I want all the papers burnt before we leave the room,” she said again emphatically.
Her uncle growled but the others knew her well enough to realize that she had an excellent reason. Each man in his own way, some in note-books, some on the back of loose sheets of paper faithfully transcribed the instructions, using their own pet abbreviations, their own particular symbols and one by one, as fast as they completed their copies, the girl collected the papers, heard the instructions read over, corrected one, amended another and finally gathering all the sheets in her hand, she walked to the fireplace, deposited them in the grate and set a lighted match to them.
She watched them burn until they were black ash and put her foot upon them crushing the embers to dust.
“Are you nervous?” asked the Colonel sarcastically.
“Are you?” she asked coolly.
“Well it does seem a little—”
From the corner of the room came a soft but insistent purr.
The men jumped to their feet.
“Put away the tables quickly,” said the girl under her breath.
They separated the table into three parts. With an agility remarkable in one of his years the Colonel flung a cloth over each, lifted a pot of flowers on to one, arranged a photograph on another and left the third to the bezique players. The girl seated herself at the piano, opened it and began a soft movement from “Rigoletto.”
“Sing,” she said under her breath.
The obedient Mr. Mulberry shuffled up to her side. He had a pleasing voice and the girl picked up the strain.…
“I am sorry to disturb the harmony,” said Michael Pretherston from the doorway.
“May I ask what is the meaning of this intrusion?” demanded Colonel Westhanger haughtily as half-a-dozen Scotland Yard men crowded into the room behind their chief.
“It is what is vulgarly known as a raid,” said Michael. “Everybody will remain where he is while I run a foot rule over him. Parsons, you will take these gentlemen one by one into an adjoining room and search him most thoroughly. Mrs. Gray,” he called to the door and a stout middle-aged woman with a pleasant face appeared, “you will perform the same kind office for Miss Westhanger.”
“Why not ‘Kate’?” asked the girl scornfully. “You are getting polite in your old age, Mike.”
“Miss Westhanger,” he repeated suavely.
“Suppose I refuse to be searched?”
“Then I shall convey you to a vulgar police station,” said Michael, “and the process of search will be carried out in uncongenial surroundings.”
“I take it that you have a warrant?” demanded Colonel Westhanger.
“My dear Colonel!” said Michael. “Do you imagine I should come without having gone through that little formality?”
He produced the document.
“Signed by two stipendary magistrates to be absolutely sure,” he said flippantly; “impound all documents you find, Parsons.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man and led away the first of his victims which happened to be the docile Mr. Mulberry.
“It is an unpleasant business,” sighed Michael as he watched the girl pass from the room followed by her searcher, “but then, you will understand, Colonel, that our profession is full of heartrending moments. You are still on ticket of leave, I understand?”
“Expired,” growled Colonel Westhanger.
“Pardon me,” said Michael. “I have been misinformed. I would like a word with you.”
He led the other to the corner of the room out of earshot and the good humor died out of his voice as he confronted the older man.
“Westhanger,” he said, “who was the tutor of this girl?”
“I don’t quite get you?” said the other insolently.
“Who taught Kate to be a thief—is that plain enough for you?”
“If she is a thief it is a matter of aptitude. I deny that she is a thief or that she is a party to any illegal act of which my unfortunate friends may have been guilty—nobody taught her.”
“You are a queer fellow,” said Michael. “I suppose you are just unmoral.”
“My personal character—” began the other.
“By unmoral, I mean you have no sense of meum and teum. In other words, you are a born thief. You forgive me, but subtlety seems to be wasted on you. I ask you again, who educated Kate?”
The Colonel smiled.
“Kate has much to thank me for,” he said smugly. “I have been a father and more than a father to that child and I assure you, Mr. Pretherston, that you are altogether wrong when you think that she is a thief. Why do you ask?” he demanded, suddenly breaking off.
“Because,” said Michael looking him steadily in the eye, “I believe that you have deliberately set yourself to exploit the genius of a clever child for your own profit. I believe that you, and you only, have so distorted her viewpoint that you have destroyed her soul. I am not sure yet,” he admitted, “but when I am—”
“When you are,” sneered the Colonel.
“On one charge or another, I shall put you into prison,” said Michael simply, “and I shall keep you in prison until you are dead. I will set myself the agreeable task of ensuring your end in a prison infirmary—which, I understand, is not a very cheerful place.”
The Colonel shuddered. There was something fateful, there was something malignant, a scarcely suppressed expression of hate in the police officer’s tone. For a second the older man wilted and shrunk back beneath the fierce intensity in Michael’s voice and then, like the weakling that he was, he burst into a torrent of abuse which was founded in fear and energised by rage.
“Damn you,” he hissed; “threaten me! … I will have your coat off your back, you damned policeman! … You sneaking slop! … Kate’s what she is. She will beat you and all your flat-footed pals! If she’s bad, you can’t make her anything else. I made her, yes, I made her! She is going to beat you, do you hear, and you will never catch her or me. I made her! You can’t scare me… !”
His shrill voice trembled with anger, he was shaking from head to foot and the bony fist which shivered in Michael’s face was so tightly clenched that the knuckles stood out whitely.
“She is not the kind you can cure with psalms, Mr. Policeman! You can’t pray over her because she has nothing to pray to, do you hear that? You caught me. You sent me to that hell at Wandsworth and I am going to get back on you, you and all people like you. Kate’s the biggest thing you have handled and she is going to break you, break you!”
“Uncle!”
He turned round to meet the white face of the girl.
“Are you mad?” she asked quietly.
He dropped his eyes before hers.
“He got me rattled,” he muttered.
Michael looked at the searcher and the woman shook her head.
With a nod he dismissed her.
“Not guilty!” he said flippantly.
He looked at the trembling man in front of him with a calm intensity.
“I shall remember a lot of what you said, Westhanger, and you will hear from me one of these days.”
He walked over to the fireplace, for out of the tail of his eye he had seen the burnt paper. He thrust a finger gently through the ash.
“Still warm,” he said. “I gather we were a little late.”
He scooped out a handful of the ash and carried it to the light. A word or two of the burnt instructions was still faintly visible but there was nothing to assist him. Nevertheless he had the whole of the ashes carefully deposited in a box and carried away—he himself being the last of the police to leave.
He stood in the centre of the room carefully smoothing the nap of his felt hat and Crime Street waited for the inevitable warning. In this they were disappointed, for Michael addressed himself solely to Kate.
“I will give you a chance, Miss Westhanger,” he said and they wondered why he did not employ the more familiar style of address. “You are about to commit a crime which will render every one of you liable to long terms of penal servitude. What that crime is, I don’t know, but I am certain it is what Stockmar would call ‘kolossal.’ It would not matter to me if everyone of you rotted in prison for the rest of your lives.”
“Tank you,” said Mr. Stockmar, “dat is fery goot of you!”
“When I say everyone of you,” said Michael, “I exclude Kate. She is a young girl and if there is one of you who has any pretensions to manhood, you will get her out of this gang before you go any farther. If there is one of you who has a mother or a sister or any woman in the world for whom he has the slightest respect, he will try to save that child from herself. That is all.”
The meek Mr. Mulberry stood by the piano, his plump fingers ranged across the keys producing a melancholy symphony.
“We will now sing Hymn 847,” he said, in his melancholy oily voice and it was in the burst of laughter that this sally provoked, that Michael Pretherston took his leave, followed at a respectful distance down the stairs by Colonel Westhanger, who did not breathe freely until the front door had clanged behind his unwelcome visitor and until the oiled bolts shot home in their sockets.
“Where’s Kate?” he asked on his return.
“Such nonsense,” growled the elder Stockmar, “she has to the high-room gone to make scare mit Predderston.”
Michael, at the far end of Crime Street, was taking leave of his assistants when there cut into the quiet night a sound almost terrifying in its unexpectedness.
It could only be described as a hollow shriek which rose and fell from a wailing scream to a throaty sob. It lasted no more than ten seconds and stopped as unexpectedly as it began.
“What’s that?” asked the startled sergeant.
Michael scratched his chin.
“The Colonel in hysterics,” he suggested callously. Nevertheless, the noise puzzled him.
CHAPTER X.
SIR RALPH LOST A PRINCESS AND FOUND A
POLICEMAN
Michael took the card from the uniformed constable and raised his eye-brows in surprise.
“Sir Ralph Sapson,” he said, “what the dickens does he want?”
The constable made no reply, for he was neither thought-reader nor inquisitive.
“Show him in,” said Michael.
Sir Ralph Sapson had never before called at Scotland House or showed the slightest desire to improve his acquaintance with Michael and the visit was therefore a little puzzling. Ralph bustled in, less important than usual and probably somewhat overawed by the difficulty he had experienced in reaching his objective.
“I daresay you wonder why I have called,” he said.
“As long as it isn’t to take me out to lunch, I don’t care,” said Michael with a laugh. “Sit down, Ralph, and tell me all your troubles. By the way,” he said as the thought occurred to him, “I suppose you are not in any kind of trouble, are you?”
“That’s just it, Michael,” said the other depositing his silk hat carefully on the ground; “I am really worried over two matters and knowing what a good chap you are and how very nice you have been to me—”
“Don’t be silly,” said Michael kindly, “I have not been nice to you and I am not a good chap. Have you lost something?”
“I want to see you on two matters,” said Sir Ralph, who was given to preambles; “they are altogether different and one, of course, is not a police matter at all—I merely want your advice as a friend. Do you know the Princess Bacheffski?”
“I don’t know Her Royal Highness, Her Serene Highness, or Her Nibs as the case may be.”
“She is neither,” said the other, “she is the wife of Prince Dimitri Bacheffski, who is a large land-owner in Poland.”
Michael shook his head.
“The world is filled with the wives of princes who are large land-owners in Poland,” he said.
“I met her in Paris,” explained Sir Ralph.
“When I said the world,” said Michael, “I meant Paris. What has she done, stolen your watch?”
“Please don’t be an ass,” said the other testily; “I tell you she is a princess and enormously wealthy. She had a row with her husband and came to London and I have seen a great deal of her. Yesterday, when I called to take her driving, I found that she had gone away, left without a word, paid her bill at the furnished flat she had taken and vanished—”
“Gone back to her husband, I suppose,” said Michael; “I have heard of such things happening. You will not hear from her until a suit is filed for divorce and then the newspapers will be filled with grisly details, about your directorships, your early life and your hobbies; also the Sunday papers will publish your portrait.”
Sir Ralph wagged his head in despair.
“If I thought you would have taken this kind of view I would not have come,” he said severely; “there is nothing of that kind in this business. She is just a lady whom I had helped very slightly and who had been kind enough to give me her confidence.”
“Do you want me to find her?” said the other in surprise.
“No, that isn’t it,” said Sir Ralph. “The story has a curious sequel. This morning I was in the city and I met a friend who asked me to lunch with him. I had a lot of business to get through and it was not until ten to one that I was able to get away. My car was not in the city but I thought I should have no difficulty in getting a taxi. When I got into the street, however, it was pouring with rain and not a taxi could be had for love or money. It was only a few steps to the Bank station and I decided to go by tube.”
“Sensation!” said the admiring Michael.
“Well, to cut a long story short,” said Sir Ralph, “I travelled to Oxford Circus and changed into a train which took me to the Thames Embankment. Here comes the extraordinary part of the story,” he said impressively; “as I came up the escalator on the one side, the Princess passed down on the other.”
“Yes?” said Michael unimpressed.
“She was plainly, even poorly dressed,” said Ralph. “I raised my hat to her but she stared at me as though she had never seen me before in her life.”
“You made a mistake probably,” said the other.
“I will swear it was she,” said Sir Ralph emphatically. “There was no mistaking her. She has a very tiny mole just below the right ear, which I had seen—”
“Eh?”
Michael was all attention now.
“A tiny mole beneath the right ear,” he repeated, and went on, “dark grey eyes, large, well marked eye-brows, very delicate mouth and rounded chin?”
“That is she. Good Lord!” cried Sir Ralph in amazement. “Do you know her?”
“Oh, yes, I know her,” said Michael grimly; “now let me hear the story of this Princess all over again. How did you come to meet her?”
“I met her in Paris. She was introduced to me after the opera,” said Sir Ralph patiently; “as a matter of fact, I forgot all about it until she reminded me of the fact.”
“Ah, this is where the story begins,” said Michael; “when did she remind you of the fact?”
Sir Ralph detailed briefly the unconventional character of the meeting.
“I see,” said Michael, “her car had broken down providentially just outside your house. Beautiful and most gorgeously arrayed, how could you resist her pathetic appeal? And so that is how you met her, is it? Oh, Kate, Kate!” he shook his head.
“Kate!” asked the bewildered magnate. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Michael took no notice of the question.
“I must ask you to give me a more detailed account of your meetings. Of course, you met her afterwards.”
“Yes, I met her. And she was very charming,” said Sir Ralph.
“And particularly interested in business?” asked Michael.
“No, she did not know much about business. There you are wrong. You are trying to prove that she is an adventuress. She knew nothing whatever about business,” said Sir Ralph triumphantly; “in fact, I had to explain things over and over again.”
Michael leant over and patted his arm as he might have done to a distraught child.
“What things did you explain, little man?” he asked.
Here, however, he lost the trail for, either because he could not or would not remember, Sir Ralph was very vague at this point. Michael sat at his desk, his head between his hands thinking rapidly.
First Flanborough, then Boltover, and now Ralph Sapson,—what was the association?
“Have you any business dealings with Flanborough?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” asked Ralph cautiously.
“Is there any connection between your companies?”
“My dear chap, what a question to ask,” said Sir Ralph. “You know, as well as I, that all business people, who operate on a big scale, are associated in some way or other. I run railways and quarries and things, and Flanborough runs ships and gold mines. I am interested in his things and he has shares in mine.”
Being a business man he did not tell Michael of the arrangement which he had entered into for the benefit of the unthriving port of Seahampton, because it is the way of business men to be mysterious and uninforming about the commonplaces of commercial intercourse.
“Well, that’s that,” said Ralph after waiting in vain for some illuminating observation from his friend.
“And what is the other matter?”
Here Sir Ralph found it more difficult to make a beginning.
“It is rather a delicate subject, Michael,” he said, “for it touches my personal honour.”
“Dear, dear,” said Michael sympathetically, and, if the truth be told, a little mechanically, because his mind was occupied elsewhere with a greater and more important problem, than with the personal honour of the Sapsons.
“And not only that, but the honour of somebody we both admire,” said Sir Ralph awkwardly. “The fact is, Michael, I am engaged to Moya. It isn’t generally known, but it is so and naturally I haven’t seen as much of her as I could have wished in this past week. Also I have been a very busy man.”
“Naturally,” said Michael sympathetically. “You have already told me about the Princess, you remember.”
“Well, you are a man of the world,” said Sir Ralph, going very red, “and you will understand. Anyway, I haven’t seen as much of Moya as I could have wished. The fact is,” he blurted out, “Moya is carrying on!”
“Carrying on,” said the puzzled Michael, “carrying on what, or whom?”
“She meets him every day in the park and they go sketching together in the country,” said Sir Ralph rapidly. “I haven’t spoken to Flanborough about it, but it is all rather rotten.”
“If by ‘carrying on’ you mean that Moya is indulging in a flirtation, it is not only very rotten, but it must have been very awkward for you,” said Michael, “unless you could be perfectly certain of your fiancée’s movements, you and your Princess were liable at any moment to run against her. It was very inconsiderate of Moya. Who is her friend?”
“A beastly artist,” said Ralph savagely, “a man who had an exhibition of simply rotten pictures. I don’t think he has a bob in the world, and he’s a most untidy looking person. I have seen them together with my own eyes and he treats Moya outrageously. And Moya seems to like it.”
“Does he beat her or anything?” asked Michael wearily.
He was growing tired of the interview and wanted to be alone to work out the new combination which had been presented to him.
“He compromises her,” said Ralph with vehemence; “holds her hand and calls her ‘child’ in public. It is simply disgraceful!”
“You can trust Moya,” said Michael, “she will do nothing which jeopardises her prospects.”
“She has plenty of money of her own,” interrupted Ralph.
“It is curious how your mind runs to money. I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of her social prospects. She is a very shrewd girl. A little romance will do her no harm, Ralph.”
“But, hang it, she’s got me!” said Ralph wrathfully.
“I said ‘romance,’ ” said Michael with offensive emphasis; “you’re not ‘romance,’ you’re ‘business.’ ”
But Sir Ralph was not satisfied.
“Perhaps if you saw her and had a few words with her,” he suggested, “she might take a little notice.”
“I should leave her presence a mental and physical wreck,” said Michael decidedly. “No, Ralph, you must manage your own love making without calling in the—er, police.” (Sir Ralph winced.) “I don’t know Moya well enough to give her advice on so delicate a matter—I only proposed to her once and that has given me no right to urge your suit. One question I should like to ask you before you go,” he said as Sir Ralph gathered up his hat and gloves. “Did the Princess question you about any bank with which you are associated?”
“I can answer you definitely, that she did not,” replied Sir Ralph. “You have an altogether wrong impression of that lady—in my judgment.”
“Your judgment!” said Michael scornfully, as he ushered him out of the room.
CHAPTER XI.
LADY MOYA WAS CURIOUSLY UNLIKE
HERSELF
There was a greater reason for Sir Ralph’s perturbation than either he knew or Michael guessed. Both might have been enlightened, had they stood on Cannon Street Station one Sunday morning and seen the distress of Mr. Alphonso Blaxton as the big minute hand of the station clock grew nearer to nine. The guard was closing the doors of the carriages and the collector was preparing to shut the gate, when Moya came flying breathlessly through the barrier.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” she gasped; “my watch stopped.”
Mr. Alphonso Blaxton bundled her into an empty first-class carriage and jumped in himself as the train moved.
“There’s not another train for three hours,” he said severely.
“We could have gone to church.”
“What a mind!” said the young man in admiration. “I never thought of church!”
“Anyway, I didn’t lose the train,” she said tartly. “Have you brought everything?”
She looked round for the collapsible easel, the paint boxes and the paraphernalia which usually accompanied their sketching tours.
“I have brought nothing,” he said frankly.
“But how can you sketch?”
“I am not going to sketch,” he said. “I decided that it was too nice a day to waste.”
She looked up at him and laughed.
“You will never be an artist,” she said, suddenly severe. “To what part of the country are we going?”
“I thought we would go to Maidstone. There are some lovely drives from there. I’ve hired a motor car to meet us at the station and I thought we would go through Sussex and lunch at Seahampton.”
“Not Seahampton,” she said quickly; “my father is at Seahampton to-day.”
She might have added that Sir Ralph was also at Seahampton, but, for reasons of her own, she kept that information to herself because Sir Ralph was not a subject which she had found it necessary to discuss. She looked at her companion approvingly.
“You are ever so much more presentable than I have ever seen you, before,” she said, “and you have actually shaved! You are getting less and less like an artist every day.”
He had a peculiarly sweet smile and a laugh which was all bubbling youth and happiness. He laughed like a girl, indeed it nearly approached a giggle. He laughed now as the train sped through the suburban stations, stretched out his feet on the cushions opposite and searched for a cigarette. She watched him with glee as he produced, not the ornate case in which the men of her acquaintance carried the expensive products of Egypt and Syria, but a gaudy yellow carton containing fifty of the cheapest cigarettes that ever brought discredit to the fair State of Virginia.
“Do you like those things?” she asked.
“These ‘yellow perils’? Rather!”
“Your taste is awfully uncultivated, isn’t it?” she bantered; “why don’t you—” she abruptly attempted to change the subject by an incoherent reference to a cow which was gazing in a field by the side of the line.
“Why don’t I smoke gold-laced Machinopolos through an amber and diamond cigarette holder?” he suggested. “Because, little Moya, I am a poor hard-working artist who has been saving up all the week for this bust.”
“I am so sorry,” she said; “I am awfully thoughtless. Won’t you forgive me?”
“I won’t forgive you,” he said, “unless you keep in your mind the big fact that I am as immensely poor, as you are immensely rich.”
“Why should I keep that in my mind?” she asked.
“Because,” he said slowly, “until you are immensely poor or I am immensely rich we shall meet very occasionally and indulge in very infrequent busts.”
“But what difference does money make?” she faltered.
She found it difficult to speak plainly or even clearly. There was a lump in her throat which made her voice sound unnaturally hoarse. She had a strange sinking feeling within her and to her amazement she found the hand that she put up to brush back a stray curl trembling. She had never experienced any such sensation before. Her heart was thumping quickly; she was breathless, hot and cold by turns.
He did not answer. She was seated by his side and she could only see his face out of the corner of her eyes, then she felt his arm slipping about her and before she knew what had happened, his lips were pressed to hers.
This happened in a first-class railway carriage on a non-stop train. It had happened before to quite common people (as Moya had heard), but she never thought it would possibly happen to her, or that so vulgar a proceeding could be so wonderfully sweet.
Sir Ralph and Lord Flanborough had met the local authorities. There had been a lunch and speeches in which Sir Ralph had distinguished himself by likening the forthcoming arrival of the Austral-African mail ship to the return of Ulysses and the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. A wireless message from the ship stated that she did not expect to make harbour until nine o’clock in the evening, and this explained the earlier festivities. That they were of a sober and restricted nature, was explained by the fact that the day was Sunday. Later, it was intended that the sailings of the Austral-African line from Cape Town should be timed to bring the ships to port on the Saturday, but there had been no time to alter the arrangements for the Charter Queen had sailed before Lord Flanborough and Sir Ralph had definitely decided the date on which the new service should be inaugurated.
A few press-men who had come down from London for the purpose, with certain directors and their wives, were shown over the docks; the new trains were admired and particularly two brand new trucks, the peculiar character of which was exhibited by Sir Ralph to a select few of his fellow directors. A safe on wheels was an excellent description for one of these. Specially strengthened under-carriages, each truck supported by two bogies, they were designed to carry a tremendous weight.
“I am sure Lord Flanborough doesn’t mind my telling you,” said Sir Ralph to the little party, “that this will carry twenty tons of bar gold to-night.”
“What will be the value of that?” asked one of the interested audience.
“£2,867,200,” said Sir Ralph impressively; “representing six months’ output of the whole of Lord Flanborough’s gold properties.”
The directors made appropriate noises to signify their astonishment.
There were visitors to Seahampton interested in this great transportation, who were not invited to participate in the function. One of these, a dark foreign looking man, went no nearer to the docks than a little public house in the ancient High Street. He was visited by a man who was pallid of face and laconic of speech.
“It’s all up!” he said under his breath.
“What is wrong?” said the other in the same tone.
“It is quite impossible to get the driver or the fireman. They are two old servants of the company, both have money saved and would no more think of accepting a bribe than Flanborough himself.”
“You didn’t press the matter, I hope?” asked the other quickly.
The pallid man shook his head.
“I went as far as I dared with the driver,” he said. “I found out he had a son in the army in India and I told him that I had met the boy and got quite friendly with the old chap—but he is a sea-green incorruptible, Gregori.”
“I will get on the ’phone to Kate,” said the other. “I suppose we shall have to hold up the train somewhere—I don’t want to do any shooting if it can be avoided. Are the drivers armed?”
“It is funny you should ask that,” said the pallid man, sipping his beer. “The old man is armed for the first time in his life. He was full of it and quite proud of his ability to loose off a gun.”
Gregori looked very serious.
“Kate must be prepared with the alternative scheme,” he said. “Anyway, you will join me here with Cunningham at eight o’clock. I am perfectly prepared for almost all contingencies. Millet has given me a dozen authorities to meet almost any developments. Did you see the train?”
“I couldn’t get near it,” said the other. “I left just before Sapson brought his party to make their inspection.”
Sir Ralph had carried his guests from the siding to the engine shed and shown them the brand new Atlantic locomotive which was to draw the train to London.
“They don’t seem to have finished it yet,” said one of the guests, and pointed to a workman busily drilling a hole in the front plate.
Ralph laughed.
“They omitted to put a bracket for the lamp. You see, I wanted three green lights in a line for the Gold Train—it is very necessary that it should be very accurately and easily distinguished and signalled. By some chance only two of the brackets were in place when the engine came from the works. It is all the more annoying, because I had already given definite instructions upon that point, but we shall not go wrong for a lamp,” he said humorously.
It is agreed that the three hours between two and five on a Sunday afternoon are the three dullest in the hundred and sixty-eight which constitute a week. After the guests had left for London Sir Ralph and Lord Flanborough remained at the little station hotel—Ralph had already projected a more palatial establishment to meet the increased traffic—for it had been arranged that they should greet the Charter Queen on her arrival.
At three o’clock that afternoon Ralph burst unceremoniously into Lord Flanborough’s private sitting room where his lordship sat dozing.
“Have you had a wire?” he said.
He held a pink form in his own hand.
“A wire! What about?” asked Lord Flanborough startled.
“Read this.”
The telegram was signed “Michael,” and read:
“Simultaneous attempt made to burgle your strong room at Austral-African office and Flanborough’s safe at headquarters of mining corporation. Both unsuccessful. Both doors blown out by nitro-gelatine. Will confirm by ’phone.”
Lord Flanborough looked at the other open-mouthed.
“This is very serious,” he said.
“I have ordered a special to take us to town. We will wait till we get the ’phone message through.”
Ten minutes after they were in communication with Michael.
“Both doors have been blown out,” he repeated, “and there are one or two very puzzling features about the burglaries. Nobody could have been present in either office when the explosions occurred. There was no fire and, so far as I can see, nothing has been taken away. You had better come up and examine things for yourself.”
“It is rather awkward,” said Sir Ralph thoughtfully as he hung up the receiver; “my ‘special’ driver is also the driver of the gold special.”
“It doesn’t require any great genius to drive a gold special,” snapped Flanborough; “put another man on to work to-night’s train and let us get up to town as soon as we can.”
The special was waiting in the station by the time they had reached the platform. Sir Ralph stayed long enough to give a few instructions to the superintendent and then boarded the train and was soon flying northward.
That Sunday morning had been an interesting one for Michael. He had been aroused by telephone at five o’clock only to learn from an apologetic operator that the wrong number had been called. Although it was two hours before he usually rose, he had his bath and dressed and not waking his servants made himself some coffee.
It was a bright morning, such as so often precedes a day of rain, when he turned into the deserted street. He had no particular aim or destination but he was in that mood which invites exercise. He walked down the Marylebone Road and through Portland Place without meeting anybody save an occasional policeman and so came to Piccadilly Circus where he bought a Sunday newspaper from an early vendor and passed down through Waterloo Place to the Park.
The gates had only just been opened and beyond the park-keepers and a slouching tramp he met nobody. He sat on one of the garden seats by the side of the lake, pulled his overcoat about his legs for the morning was chilly and began to scan the headlines in the newspaper. There was nothing startling here, but he read the columns conscientiously.
There was nothing in life which did not interest Michael Pretherston. He might have taken for his motto homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto. It was a saying of T.B. Smith’s that Michael could even write a readable volume on the psychology of dog-fights. Every little larceny, however sordid, every tiny embezzlement however paltry, every swindle whether it was carried out by the great confidence men who “worked London” or by the smaller fry in the half-crown line of business gave him food for reflection and some little scrap of information which he stored away for future use.
He was in the midst of a long account of an East End arson charge when he heard his name called softly and looked up. He jumped to his feet.
“Why, Kate,” he said, “haven’t you got any home?”
The girl was standing a few feet from him with an odd look on her face.
“I think it must be fate that brought me out this morning,” she said; “sit down, Mike, and tell me all the news.”
She showed no sign of resentment of his uncavalier treatment.
“Did you follow me here, or did I follow you?”
“I tell you it was fate,” she said. “I could not sleep and I drove my Mercedes down.”
“And how is the Princess Bacheffski?” he asked as she seated herself by his side.
“The Princess—?”
“Bacheffski—poor old Ralph! What a thing to put over him!”
She leant forward, her chin on her palm, her elbow on her crossed knee.
“You frighten me sometimes,” she said. “I have not been able to make up my mind whether you are clever or whether you are lucky.”
“I am both lucky and clever,” he said. “Tell me something about your property in the Ural Mountains,” he said.
“In Poland,” she corrected him.
“Mines, I suppose?”
“There are no mines on my property,” she said calmly; “would you be greatly surprised if I told you I had an estate in Poland?”
“Nothing you said would surprise me, unless you told me you were going to be a good girl and respect the law relating to property.”
He folded his paper and dropped it into a wire receptacle provided for that purpose and she followed the operations with amusement.
“What a tidy soul you are,” she said; “fancy doing things you are told and obeying even by-laws.”
“We all obey by-laws. You are not so original as you think. For instance, I observe that you are wearing a little toque—is that the word?”
“That is the word,” she agreed.
“Toques are fashionable at this present moment. You are obeying the by-laws. You haven’t the courage to come out in a sky-blue tam-o’shanter with an ostrich feather because it is against the by-laws. Also I remark that your dress is very short and very full. You are not wearing a Roman toga or a Grecian gown, or even a hobble skirt. Why? Because it is against the by-laws. It is absurd to disobey one set and slavishly obey another.”
“You are quaint!” was the only answer she gave.
“Will you tell me, Princess?”
“Don’t call me ‘Princess’ if you please,” she said quietly.
“Well, will you tell me, my land-owner, what was the game with Ralph? He described you with the greatest enthusiasm by-the-way. The night you met him you were all dolled up to kill. Did you bring down your birds?”
“I got him,” she admitted.
She was not as bright as usual.
“You are over-doing it,” said Michael; “you are trying to do too much. Your doctor would probably tell you that you ought not to commit more than one burglary a month.”
She laughed softly.
“You are very quaint,” she said again.
“You don’t feel like making a full and frank confession, I suppose,” he suggested; “you would not like to burst into tears and sob out your young heart on my shoulder?”
“That sob stuff never did agree with me.”
He raised a disapproving hand.
“Kate,” he said, “I have noticed a disposition in you to adopt the slang which is employed exclusively by American newspaper reporters, vaudeville artistes and other members of the criminal classes.”
“I will tell you this,” she said sitting upright and looking him fully in the face, “we are going to do a big thing. The most colossal, the most daring that has ever been done and we are going to do it to-day. You want to know why I went to Flanborough’s, why I made up to that unspeakable person, Ralph Sapson? Those are my two victims. I will tell you more than this,” she said after a moment’s thought, “in order to ensure the success of my scheme I have arranged for those two gentlemen to be out of London on this bright Sabbath day. I can’t tell you any more, Mike.”
“You are like a serial story, you finish off at the most interesting place,” he grumbled.
His keen grey eyes searched hers and she met them fairly.
“I wish you weren’t,” he said.
“Weren’t what?” she asked.
“In this business,” he nodded. “I wish you weren’t.”
“Perhaps I will be good one of these days,” she said, “and then you can recommend me for a job at two-ten-per. I’d make an ideal secretary for you, Mike. I know all the underworld by name. You could cut out your finger print department and leave it to Kate. What would happen, do you think,” she went on, “if I went to a Salvation Army officer and said, ‘I have been very wicked but now I am going to be good. Will you please assist me. I have no money but I’ve a good heart—’ Mike, he would put me to chopping wood for a week and then he would find me a place as under-secretary to a housemaid in a strictly religious family which gave me two evenings and one Sunday a month. You see, Mike, even at goodliness one has to start at the bottom of the ladder; you can’t break in on the roof. I hate good people.”
Michael nodded.
“I hate good people, too,” he said, “if they advertise their goodness, but goodness is not hardness or sourness, it is just—goodness. For example,” he went on, “I am good.”
“And I am wicked,” she said and appealed with outstretched hands to a startled duck who had waddled to the railings, “choose between us!”
He laughed but was instantly serious again.
“Your confession puts me in a dilemma. As you are a lady I cannot believe you are lying, as you are a criminal I dare not take your word. I am sufficiently acquainted with your methods to know that your presence is not essential to the committal of a crime, so I can gain nothing by pulling you in.”
“Poor Mike,” she said mockingly.
“Poor Kate,” he said and the girl detected the note of sincerity in his voice.
“Kate, you can’t get away with it,” he said; “you have got to fall sooner or later. Think what it means. Think of that horrible drab life in Aylesbury, where every minute is an hour and every hour an eternity; think of the menial things they will set you to do, scrubbing floors, washing shirts and sewing sacks. Think, how you will be marshalled to church every Sunday and think how you will be stared at and jeered at by friends of the Home Secretary who come to visit the jail.”
“When that happens I shall be dead,” she said. “I believe you mean kindly, Michael Pretherston, and I will tell you this, that you nor any other human being can make me think or feel any different to what I think and feel. There is no power on earth that can tear out the foundations on which my life is built. I have read everything, all the philosophies, Christian and pagan, and all the arguments from the feeble evangelism of the tract writer, to the blatant nonsense of the professional atheist, and I am just where I began. You can’t touch me by reason or by devotion, by faith or by prayers. I am all stone—here,” she laid her white hand upon her bosom and he saw the mocking laughter in her eyes. “Poor Michael!” she said. “Why, if devotion could change me, think of the chances I have had! I could have taken Ralph Sapson and made of him a snake ring for my little finger. I nearly had Flanborough on the point of proposing to me. He is rather sentimental, did you know that?”
“All people with indigestion are sentimental between paroxysms,” said Michael sagely.