“Ah!” Claire bent darkly over her cauldron. “You never know when there won’t be burglars in these low parts. The girl at Pontresina down the road was telling me they’d had a couple of milk cans sneaked off their doorstep only yesterday. And I’ll tell you another thing, Miss Kay. It’s my belief there’s been people breaking into Mon Ree-poss.”
“What would they do that for? It’s empty.”
“It wasn’t empty last night. I was looking out of the window with one of my noo-ralgic headaches—must have been between two and three in the morning—and there was mysterious lights going up and down the staircase.”
“You imagined it.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Kay, I did not imagine it. There they were, as plain as plain. Might have been one of these electric torches the criminal classes use. If you want to know what I think, Miss Kay, that Mon Ree-poss is what I call a house of mystery, and I shan’t be sorry when somebody respectable comes and takes it. The way it is now, we’re just as likely as not to wake up and find ourselves all murdered in our beds.”
“You mustn’t be so nervous.”
“Nervous?” replied Claire indignantly. “Nervous? Take more than a burglar to make me nervous. All I’m saying is, I’m prepared.”
“Well, don’t go shooting Mr. Braddock.”
“That,” said Miss Lippett, declining to commit herself, “is as may be.”
CHAPTER THREE
SAILORS DON’T CARE
SOME five hours after Willoughby Braddock’s departure from San Rafael, a young man came up Villiers Street, and turning into the Strand, began to stroll slowly eastward. The Strand, it being the hour when the theatres had begun to empty themselves, was a roaring torrent of humanity and vehicles; and he looked upon the bustling scene with the affectionate eye of one who finds the turmoil of London novel and attractive. He was a nice-looking young man, but what was most immediately noticeable about him was his extraordinary shabbiness. Both his shoes were split across the toe; his hands were in the pockets of a stained and weather-beaten pair of blue trousers; and he gazed about him from under the brim of a soft hat which could have been worn without exciting comment by any scarecrow.
So striking was his appearance that two exquisites, emerging from the Savoy Hotel and pausing on the pavement to wait for a vacant taxi, eyed him with pained disapproval as he approached, and then, starting, stared in amazement.
“Good Lord!” said the first exquisite.
“Good heavens!” said the second.
“S. P. Shotter! Used to be in the School House.”
“Captain of football my last year.”
“But, I say, it can’t be! Dressed like that, I mean.”
“It is.”
“Good heavens!”
“Good Lord!”
These two were men who had, in the matter of costume, a high standard. Themselves snappy and conscientious dressers, they judged their fellows hardly. Yet even an indulgent critic would have found it difficult not to shake his head over the spectacle presented by Sam Shotter as he walked the Strand that night.
The fact is it is not easy for a young man of adventurous and inquisitive disposition to remain dapper throughout a voyage on a tramp steamer. The Araminta, which had arrived at Millwall Dock that afternoon, had taken fourteen days to cross the Atlantic, and during those fourteen days Sam had entered rather fully into the many-sided life of the ship. He had spent much time in an oily engine room; he had helped the bos’n with a job of painting; he had accompanied the chief engineer on his rambles through the coal bunkers; and on more than one occasion had endeared himself to languid firemen by taking their shovels and doing a little amateur stoking. One cannot do these things and be foppish.
Nevertheless, it would have surprised him greatly had he known that his appearance was being adversely criticised, for he was in that happy frame of mind when men forget they have an appearance. He had dined well, having as his guest his old friend Hash Todhunter. He had seen a motion picture of squashy sex appeal. And now, having put Hash on an eastbound tram, he was filled with that pleasant sense of well-being and content which comes on those rare occasions when the world is just about right. So far from being abashed by the shabbiness of his exterior Sam found himself experiencing, as he strolled along the Strand, a gratifying illusion of having bought the place. He felt like the young squire returned from his travels and revisiting the old village.
Nor, though he was by nature a gregarious young man and fond of human society, did the fact that he was alone depress him. Much as he liked Hash Todhunter, he had not been sorry to part from him. Usually an entertaining companion, Hash had been a little tedious to-night, owing to a tendency to confine the conversation to the subject of a dog belonging to a publican friend of his which was running in a whippet race at Hackney Marshes next morning. Hash had, it seemed, betted his entire savings on this animal, and not content with this, had pestered Sam to lend him all his remaining cash to add to the investment. And though Sam had found no difficulty in remaining firm, it is always a bore to have to keep saying no.
The two exquisites looked at each other apprehensively.
“Shift ho, before he touches us, what?” said the first.
“Shift absolutely ho,” assented the second.
It was too late. The companion of their boyhood had come up, and after starting to pass had paused, peering at them from under that dreadful hat, which seemed to cut them like a knife, in the manner of one trying to identify half-remembered faces.
“Bates and Tresidder!” he exclaimed at length. “By Jove!”
“Hullo,” said the first exquisite.
“Hullo!” said the second.
“Well, well!” said Sam.
There followed one of those awkward silences which so often occur at these meetings of old schoolmates. The two exquisites were wondering dismally when the inevitable touch would come, and Sam had just recollected that these were two blighters whom, when in statu pupillari, he had particularly disliked. Nevertheless, etiquette demanded that a certain modicum of conversation be made.
“What have you been doing with yourselves?” asked Sam. “You look very festive.”
“Been dining,” said the first exquisite.
“Old Wrykynian dinner,” said the second.
“Oh, yes, of course. It always was at this time of year, wasn’t it? Lots of the lads there, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good dinner?”
“Goodish,” said the first exquisite.
“Not baddish,” said the second.
“Rotten speeches, though.”
“Awful!”
“Can’t think where they dig these blokes up.”
“No.”
“That man Braddock.”
“Frightful.”
“Don’t tell me the old Bradder actually made a speech!” said Sam, pleased. “Was he very bad?”
“Worst of the lot.”
“Absolutely!”
“That story about the Irishman.”
“Foul!”
“And all that rot about the dear old school.”
“Ghastly!”
“If you ask me,” said the first exquisite severely, “my opinion is that he was as tight as an owl.”
“Stewed to the eyebrows,” said the second.
“I watched him during dinner and he was mopping up the stuff like a vacuum cleaner.”
There was a silence.
“Well,” said the first exquisite uncomfortably, “we must be pushing on.”
“Dashing off,” said the second exquisite.
“Got to go to supper at the Angry Cheese.”
“The where?” asked Sam.
“Angry Cheese. New night-club in Panton Street. See you sometime, what?”
“Oh, yes,” said Sam.
Another silence was about to congeal, when a taxi crawled up and the two exquisites leaped joyously in.
“Awful, a fellow going right under like that,” said the first.
“Ghastly,” said the second.
“Lucky we got away.”
“Yes.”
“He was shaping for a touch,” said the first exquisite.
“Trembling on his lips,” said the second.
Sam walked on. Although the Messrs. Bates and Tresidder had never been favourites of his, they belonged to what Mr. Braddock would have called—and, indeed, had called no fewer than eleven times in his speech that night—the dear old school; and the meeting with them had left him pleasantly stimulated. The feeling of being a seigneur revisiting his estates after long absence grew as he threaded his way through the crowd. He eyed the passers-by in a jolly, Laughing Cavalier sort of way, wishing he knew them well enough to slap them on the back. And when he reached the corner of Wellington Street and came upon a disheveled vocalist singing mournfully in the gutter, he could not but feel it a personal affront that this sort of thing should be going on in his domain. He was conscious of a sensation of being individually responsible for this poor fellow’s reduced condition, and the situation seemed to him to call for largess.
On setting out that night Sam had divided his money into two portions. His baggage, together with his letter of credit, had preceded him across the ocean on the Mauretania; and as it might be a day or so before he could establish connection with it, he had prudently placed the bulk of his ready money in his note-case, earmarking it for the purchase of new clothes and other necessaries on the morrow so that he might be enabled to pay his first visit to Tilbury House in becoming state. The remainder, sufficient for the evening’s festivities, he had put in his trousers pockets.
It was into his right trousers pocket therefore that he now groped. His fingers closed on a half-crown. He promptly dropped it. He was feeling seigneurial, but not so seigneurial as that. Something more in the nature of a couple of coppers was what he was looking for, and it surprised him to find that except for the half-crown the pocket appeared to be empty. He explored the other pocket. That was empty too.
The explanation was, of course, that the life of pleasure comes high. You cannot go stuffing yourself and a voracious sea cook at restaurants, taking buses and Underground trains all over the place, and finally winding up at a cinema palace, without cutting into your capital. Sam was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the half-crown was his only remaining spare coin. He was, accordingly, about to abandon the idea of largess and move on, when the vocalist, having worked his way through You’re the Sort of a Girl That Men Forget, began to sing that other popular ballad entitled Sailors Don’t Care. And it was no doubt the desire to refute the slur implied in these words on the great brotherhood of which he was an amateur member that decided Sam to be lavish.
The half-crown changed hands.
Sam resumed his walk. At a quarter past eleven at night there is little to amuse and interest the stroller east of Wellington Street, so he now crossed the road and turned westward. And he had not been walking more than a few paces when he found himself looking into the brightly lighted window of a small restaurant that appeared to specialise in shellfish. The slab beyond the glass was paved with the most insinuating oysters. Overcome with emotion, Sam stopped in his tracks.
There is something about the oyster, nestling in its shell, which in the hours that come when the theatres are closed and London is beginning to give itself up to nocturnal revelry stirs right-thinking men like a bugle. There swept over Sam a sudden gnawing desire for nourishment. Oysters with brown bread and a little stout were, he perceived, just what this delightful evening demanded by way of a fitting climax. He pulled out his note-case. Even if it meant an inferior suit next morning, one of those Treasury notes which lay there must be broken into here and now.
It seemed to Sam, looking back later at this moment, that at the very first touch the note-case had struck him as being remarkably thin. It appeared to have lost its old jolly plumpness, as if some wasting fever had struck it. Indeed, it gave the impression, when he opened it, of being absolutely empty.
It was not absolutely empty. It is true that none of the Treasury notes remained, but there was something inside—a dirty piece of paper on which were words written in pencil. He read them by the light that poured from the restaurant window:
“Dear Sam,—You will doubtless be surprised, Sam, to learn that I have borowed your money. Dear Sam, I will send it back tomorow A.M. prompt. Nothing can beat that wipet, Sam, so I have borowed your money.
“Trusting this finds you in the pink,
“Yrs. Obedtly,
“C. Todhunter.”
Sam stood staring at this polished communication with sagging jaw. For an instant it had a certain obscurity, the word “wipet” puzzling him particularly.
Then, unlike the missing money, it all came back to him.
The rush of traffic was diminishing now, and the roar of a few minutes back had become a mere rumble. It was almost as if London, sympathising with his sorrow, had delicately hushed its giant voice. To such an extent, in fact, was its voice hushed that that of the Wellington Street vocalist was once more plainly audible, and there was in what he was singing a poignant truth which had not impressed itself upon Sam when he had first heard it.
“Sailors don’t care,” chanted the vocalist. “Sailors don’t care. It’s something to do with the salt in the blood. Sailors don’t care.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SCENE OUTSIDE FASHIONABLE NIGHT-CLUB
THE mental condition of a man who at half past eleven at night suddenly finds himself penniless and without shelter in the heart of the great city must necessarily be for a while somewhat confused. Sam’s first coherent thought was to go back and try to recover that half-crown from the wandering minstrel. After a very brief reflection, however, he dismissed this scheme as too visionary for practical consideration. His acquaintance with the other had been slight, but he had seen enough of him to gather that he was not one of those rare spiritual fellows who give half-crowns back. The minstrel was infirm and old, but many years would have to elapse before he became senile enough for that. No, some solution on quite different lines was required; and, thinking deeply, Sam began to move slowly in the direction of Charing Cross.
He was as yet far from being hopeless. Indeed, his mood at this point might have been called optimistic; for he realised that, if this disaster had been decreed by fate from the beginning of time—and he supposed it had been, though that palmist had made no mention of it—it could hardly have happened at a more convenient spot. The Old Wrykynian dinner had only just broken up, which meant that this portion of London must be full of men who had been at school with him and would doubtless be delighted to help him out with a temporary loan. At any moment now he might run into some kindly old schoolfellow.
And almost immediately he did. Or, rather, the old schoolfellow ran into him. He had reached the Vaudeville Theatre and had paused, debating within himself the advisability of crossing the street and seeing how the hunting was on the other side, when a solid body rammed him in the back.
“Oh, sorry! Frightfully sorry! I say, awfully sorry!”
It was a voice which had been absent from Sam’s life for some years, but he recognised it almost before he had recovered his balance. He wheeled joyfully round on the stout and red-faced young man who was with some difficulty retrieving his hat from the gutter.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but you are extraordinarily like a man I used to know named J. W. Braddock.”
“I am J. W. Braddock.”
“Ah,” said Sam, “that accounts for the resemblance.”
He contemplated his erstwhile study companion with affection. He would have been glad at any time to meet the old Bradder, but he was particularly glad to meet him now. As Mr. Braddock himself might have put it, he was glad, delighted, pleased, happy and overjoyed. Willoughby Braddock, bearing out the words of the two exquisites, was obviously in a somewhat vinous condition, but Sam was no Puritan and was not offended by this. The thing about Mr. Braddock that impressed itself upon him to the exclusion of all else was the fact that he looked remarkably rich. He had that air, than which there is none more delightful, of being the sort of man who would lend a fellow a fiver without a moment’s hesitation.
Willoughby Braddock had secured his hat, and he now replaced it in a sketchy fashion on his head. His face was flushed, and his eyes, always slightly prominent, seemed to protrude like those of a snail—and an extremely inebriated snail, at that.
“Imarraspeesh,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” said Sam.
“I made a speesh.”
“Yes, so I heard.”
“You heard my speesh?”
“I heard that you had made one.”
“How did you hear my speesh?” said Mr. Braddock, plainly mystified. “You weren’t at the dinner.”
“No, but——”
“You couldn’t have been at the dinner,” proceeded Mr. Braddock, reasoning closely, “because evening dress was obliggery and you aren’t obliggery. I’ll tell you what—between you and me, I don’t know who the deuce you are.”
“You don’t know me?”
“No, I don’t know you.”
“Pull yourself together, Bradder. I’m Sam Shotter.”
“Sham Sotter?”
“If you prefer it that way certainly. I’ve always pronounced it Sam Shotter myself.”
“That’s right.”
Mr. Braddock eyed him narrowly.
“Look here,” he said, “I’ll tell you something—something that’ll interest you—something that’ll interest you very much. You’re Sam Shotter.”
“That’s it.”
“We were at school together.”
“We were.”
“The dear old school.”
“Exactly.”
Intense delight manifested itself in Mr. Braddock’s face. He seized Sam’s hand and wrung it warmly.
“How are you, my dear old chap, how are you?” he cried. “Old Sham Spotter, by gad! By Jove! By George! My goodness! Fancy that! Well, good-bye.”
And with a beaming smile he suddenly swooped across the road and was lost to sight.
The stoutest heart may have its black moments. Depression claimed Sam for its own. There is no agony like that of the man who has intended to borrow money and finds that he has postponed the request till too late. With bowed shoulders, he made his way eastward. He turned up Charing Cross Road, and thence by way of Green Street into Leicester Square. He moved listlessly along the lower end of the square, and presently, glancing up, perceived graven upon the wall the words, “Panton Street.”
He halted. The name seemed somehow familiar. Then he remembered. The Angry Cheese, that haunt of wealth and fashion to which those fellows, Bates and Tresidder, had been going, was in Panton Street.
Hope revived in Sam. An instant before, the iron had seemed to have entered his soul, but now he squared his shoulder and quickened his steps. Good old Bates! Splendid old Tresidder! They were the men to help him out of this mess.
He saw clearly now how mistaken can be the callow judgments which we form when young. As an immature lad at school, he had looked upon Bates and Tresidder with a jaundiced eye. He had summed them up in his mind, after the hasty fashion of youth, as ticks and blisters. Aye, and even when he had encountered them half an hour ago after the lapse of years, their true nobility had not been made plain to him. It was only now, as he padded along Panton Street like a leopard on the trail, that he realised what excellent fellows they were and how fond he was of them. They were great chaps—corkers, both of them. And when he remembered that with a boy’s blindness to his sterling qualities he had once given Bates six of the juiciest with a walking stick, he burned with remorse and shame.
It was not difficult to find the Angry Cheese. About this newest of London’s night-clubs there was nothing coy or reticent. Its doorway stood open to the street, and cabs were drawing up in a constant stream and discharging fair women and well-tailored men. Furthermore, to render identification easy for the very dullest, there stood on the pavement outside a vast commissionaire, brilliantly attired in the full-dress uniform of a Czecho-Slovakian field-marshal and wearing on his head a peaked cap circled by a red band, which bore in large letters of gold the words “Angry Cheese.”
“Good evening,” said Sam, curvetting buoyantly up to this spectacular person. “I want to speak to Mr. Bates.”
The field-marshal eyed him distantly. The man, one would have said, was not in sympathy with him. Sam could not imagine why. With the prospect of a loan in sight, he himself was liking everybody.
“Misteroo?”
“Mr. Bates.”
“Mr. Yates?”
“Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates. You know Mr. Bates?” said Sam. And such was the stimulating rhythm of the melody into which the unseen orchestra had just burst that he very nearly added, “He’s a bear, he’s a bear, he’s a bear.”
“Bates?”
“Or Tresidder.”
“Make up your mind,” said the field-marshal petulantly.
At this moment, on the opposite side of the street, there appeared the figure of Mr. Willoughby Braddock, walking with extraordinary swiftness. His eyes were staring straight in front of him. He had lost his hat.
“Bradder!” cried Sam.
Mr. Braddock looked over his shoulder, waved his hand, smiled a smile of piercing sweetness and passed rapidly into the night.
Sam was in a state of indecision similar to that of the dog in the celebrated substance-and-shadow fable. Should he pursue this will-o’-the-wisp, or should he stick to the sound Conservative policy of touching the man on the spot? What would Napoleon have done?
He decided to remain.
“Fellow who was at school with me,” he remarked explanatorily.
“Ho!” said the field-marshal, looking like a stuffed sergeant-major.
“And now,” said Sam, “can I see Mr. Bates?”
“You cannot.”
“But he’s in there.”
“And you’re out ’ere,” said the field-marshal.
He moved away to assist a young lady of gay exterior to alight from a taxicab. And as he did so, someone spoke from the steps.
“Ah, there you are!”
Sam looked up, relieved. Dear old Bates was standing in the lighted doorway.
Of the four persons who made up the little group collected about the threshold of the Angry Cheese, three now spoke simultaneously.
Dear old Bates said, “This is topping! Thought you weren’t coming.”
The lady said, “Awfully sorry I’m late, old cork.”
Sam said, “Oh, Bates.”
He was standing some little space removed from the main body when he spoke, and the words did not register. The lady passed on into the building. Bates was preparing to follow her, when Sam spoke again. And this time nobody within any reasonable radius could have failed to hear him.
“Hey!” said the field-marshal, massaging his ear with a look of reproach and dislike.
Bates turned, and as he saw Sam, there spread itself over his face the startled look of one who, wandering gayly along some primrose path, sees gaping before him a frightful chasm or a fearful serpent or some menacing lion in the undergrowth. In this crisis, Claude Bates did not hesitate. With a single backward spring—which, if he could have remembered it and reproduced it later on the dancing floor, would have made him the admired of all—he disappeared, leaving Sam staring blankly after him.
A large fat hand, placed in no cordial spirit on his shoulder, awoke Sam from his reverie. The field-marshal was gazing at him with a loathing which he now made no attempt to conceal.
“You ’op it,” said the field-marshal. “We don’t want none of your sort ’ere.”
“But I was at school with him,” stammered Sam. The thing had been so sudden that even now he could not completely realise that what practically amounted to his own flesh and blood had thrown him down cold.
“At school with ’im too, was you?” said the field-marshal. “The only school you was ever at was Borstal. You ’op it, and quick. That’s what you do, before I call a policeman.”
Inside the night-club, Claude Bates, restoring his nervous system with a whisky and soda, was relating to his friend Tresidder the tale of his narrow escape.
“Absolutely lurking on the steps!” said Bates.
CHAPTER FIVE
PAINFUL AFFAIR AT A COFFEE-STALL
LONDON was very quiet. A stillness had fallen upon it, broken only by the rattle of an occasional cab and the footsteps of some home-seeking wayfarer. The lamplight shone on glistening streets, on pensive policemen, on smoothly prowling cats, and on a young man in a shocking suit of clothes whose faith in human nature was at zero.
Sam had now no definite objective. He was merely walking aimlessly with the idea of killing time. He wandered on, and presently found that he had passed out of the haunts of fashion into a meaner neighbourhood. The buildings had become dingier, the aspect of the perambulating cats more sinister and blackguardly. He had in fact reached the district which, in spite of the efforts of its inhabitants to get it called Lower Belgravia, is still known as Pimlico. And it was near the beginning of Lupus Street that he was roused from his meditations by the sight of a coffee-stall.
It brought him up standing. Once more he had suddenly become aware of that gnawing hunger which had afflicted him outside the oyster restaurant. Why he should be hungry, seeing that not so many hours ago he had consumed an ample dinner, he could not have said. A psychologist, had one been present, would have told him that the pangs of starvation from which he supposed himself to suffer were purely a figment of the mind, and that it was merely his subconscious self reacting to the suggestion of food. Sam, however, had positive inside information to the contrary; and he halted before the coffee-stall, staring wolfishly.
There was not a large attendance of patrons. Three only were present. One was a man in a sort of uniform who seemed to have been cleaning streets, the two others had the appearance of being gentlemen of leisure. They were leaning restfully on the counter, eating hard-boiled eggs.
Sam eyed them resentfully. It was just this selfish sort of epicureanism, he felt, that was the canker which destroyed empires. And when the man in uniform, wearying of eggs, actually went on to supplement them with a slice of seedcake, it was as if he were watching the orgies that preceded the fall of Babylon. With gleaming eyes he drew a step closer, and was thus enabled to overhear the conversation of these sybarites.
Like all patrons of coffee-stalls, they were talking about the Royal family, and for a brief space it seemed that a perfect harmony was to prevail. Then the man in uniform committed himself to the statement that the Duke of York wore a moustache, and the gentlemen of leisure united to form a solid opposition.
“’E ain’t got no moustache,” said one.
“Cert’n’ly ’e ain’t got no moustache,” said the other.
“Wot,” inquired the first gentleman of leisure, “made you get that silly idea into your ’ead that ’e’s got a moustache?”
“’E’s got a smorl clipped moustache,” said the man in uniform stoutly.
“A smorl clipped moustache?”
“A smorl clipped moustache.”
“You say he’s got a smorl clipped moustache?”
“Ah! A smorl clipped moustache.”
“Well, then,” said the leader of the opposition, with the air of a cross-examining counsel who has dexterously trapped a reluctant witness into a damaging admission, “that’s where you make your ruddy error. Because ’e ain’t got no smorl clipped moustache.”
It seemed to Sam that a little adroit diplomacy at this point would be in his best interests. He had not the pleasure of the duke’s acquaintance and so was not really entitled to speak as an expert, but he decided to support the man in uniform. The good graces of a fellow of his careless opulence were worth seeking. In a soaring moment of optimism it seemed to him that a hard-boiled egg and a cup of coffee were the smallest reward a loyal supporter might expect. He advanced into the light of the naphtha flare and spoke with decision.
“This gentleman is right,” he said. “The Duke of York has a small clipped moustache.”
The interruption appeared to come on the three debaters like a bombshell. It had on them an effect much the same as an uninvited opinion from a young and newly joined member would have on a group of bishops and generals in the smoking-room of the Athenæum Club. For an instant there was a shocked silence; then the man in uniform spoke.
“Wot do you want, stickin’ your ugly fat ’ead in?” he demanded coldly.
Shakespeare, who knew too much ever to be surprised at man’s ingratitude, would probably have accepted this latest evidence of it with stoicism. It absolutely stunned Sam. A little peevishness from the two gentlemen of leisure he had expected, but that his sympathy and support should be received in this fashion by the man in uniform was simply disintegrating. It seemed to be his fate to-night to lack appeal for men in uniform.
“Yus,” agreed the leader of the opposition, “’oo arsked you to shove in?”
“Comin’ stickin’ ’is ’ead in!” sniffed the man in uniform.
All three members of the supper party eyed him with manifest disfavour. The proprietor of the stall, a silent hairy man, said nothing: but he, too, cast a chilly glance of hauteur in Sam’s direction. There was a sense of strain.
“I only said——” Sam began.
“And ’oo arsked you to?” retorted the man in uniform.
The situation was becoming difficult. At this tense moment, however, there was a rattling and a grinding of brakes and a taxicab drew up at the kerb, and out of its interior shot Mr. Willoughby Braddock.
“Getta cuppa coffee,” observed Mr. Braddock explanatorily to the universe.
CHAPTER SIX
A FRIEND IN NEED
OF certain supreme moments in life it is not easy to write. The workaday teller of tales, whose gifts, if any, lie rather in the direction of recording events than of analysing emotion, finds himself baffled by them. To say that Sam Shotter was relieved by this sudden reappearance of his old friend would obviously be inadequate. Yet it is hard to find words that will effectually meet the case. Perhaps it is simplest to say that his feelings at this juncture were to all intents and purposes those of the garrison besieged by savages in the final reel of a motion-picture super-super-film when the operator flashes on the screen the subtitle, “Hurrah! Here come the United States Marines!”
And blended with this heart-shaking thankfulness, came instantaneously the thought that he must not let the poor fish get away again.
“Here, I say!” said Mr. Braddock, becoming aware of a clutching hand upon his coat sleeve.
“It’s all right, Bradder, old man,” said Sam. “It’s only me.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
“Sam Shotter.”
“Sam Shotter?”
“Sam Shotter.”
“Sam Shotter who used to be at school with me?”
“The very same.”
“Are you Sam Shotter?”
“I am.”
“Why, so you are!” said Mr. Braddock, completely convinced. He displayed the utmost delight at this re-union. “Mosestraornary coincidence,” he said as he kneaded Sam lovingly about the shoulder. “I was talking to a fellow in the Strand about you only an hour ago.”
“Were you, Bradder, old man?”
“Yes; nasty ugly-looking fellow. I bumped into him, and he turned round and the very first thing he said was, ‘Do you know Sam Shotter?’ He told me all sorts of interesting things about you too—all sorts of interesting things. I’ve forgotten what they were, but you see what I mean.”
“I follow you perfectly, Bradder. What’s become of your hat?”
A look of relieved happiness came in to Willoughby Braddock’s face.
“Have you got my hat? Where is it?”
“I haven’t got your hat.”
“You said you had my hat.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Braddock, disappointed. “Well, then, come and have a cuppa coffee.”
It was with the feelings of a voyager who after much buffeting comes safely at last to journey’s end that Sam ranged himself alongside the counter which for so long had been but a promised land seen from some distant Mount Pisgah. The two gentlemen of leisure had melted away into the night, but the uniformed man remained, eating seedcake with a touch of bravado.
“This gentleman a friend of yours, Sam?” asked Mr. Braddock, having ordered coffee and eggs.
“I should say not,” said Sam with aversion. “Why, he thinks the Duke of York has a small clipped moustache!”
“No!” said Mr. Braddock, shocked.
“He does.”
“Man must be a thorough ass.”
“Dropped on his head when a baby, probably.”
“Better have nothing to do with him,” said Mr. Braddock in a confidential bellow.
The meal proceeded on its delightful course. Sam had always been fond of Willoughby Braddock, and the spacious manner in which he now ordered further hard-boiled eggs showed him that his youthful affection had not been misplaced. A gentle glow began to steal over him. The coffee was the kind of which, after a preliminary mouthful, you drink a little more just to see if it is really as bad as it seemed at first, but it was warm and comforting. It was not long before the world appeared very good to Sam. He expanded genially. He listened with courteous attention to Mr. Braddock’s lengthy description of his speech at the Old Wrykynian dinner, and even melted sufficiently to extend an olive branch to the man in uniform.
“Looks like rain,” he said affably.
“Who does?” asked Mr. Braddock, puzzled.
“I was addressing the gentleman behind you,” said Sam.
Mr. Braddock looked cautiously over his shoulder.
“But are we speaking to him?” he asked gravely. “I thought——”
“Oh, yes,” said Sam tolerantly. “I fancy he’s quite a good fellow really. Wants knowing, that’s all.”
“What makes you think he looks like rain?” asked Mr. Braddock, interested.
The chauffeur of the taxicab now added himself to their little group. He said that he did not know about Mr. Braddock’s plans, but that he himself was desirous of getting to bed. Mr. Braddock patted him on the shoulder with radiant bonhomie.
“This,” he explained to Sam, “is a most delightful chap. I’ve forgotten his name.”
The cabman said his name was Evans.
“Evans! Of course. I knew it was something beginning with a G. This is my friend Evans, Sam. I forget where we met, but he’s taking me home.”
“Where do you live, Bradder?”
“Where do I live, Evans?”
“Down at Valley Fields, you told me,” said the cabman.
“Where are you living, Sam?”
“Nowhere.”
“How do you mean—nowhere?”
“I have no home,” said Sam with simple pathos.
“I’d like to dig you one,” said the man in uniform.
“No home?” cried Mr. Braddock, deeply moved. “Nowhere to sleep to-night, do you mean? I say, look here, you must absolutely come back with me. Evans, old chap, do you think there would be room for one more in that cab of yours? Because I particularly want this gentleman to come back with me. My dear old Sam, I won’t listen to any argument.”
“You won’t have to.”
“You can sleep on the sofa in the drawing-room. You ready, Evans, old man? Splendid! Then let’s go.”
From Lupus Street, Pimlico, to Burberry Road, Valley Fields, is a distance of several miles, but to Sam the drive seemed a short one. This illusion was not due so much to the gripping nature of Mr. Braddock’s conversation, though that rippled on continuously, as to the fact that, being a trifle weary after his experiences of the night, he dozed off shortly after they had crossed the river. He awoke to find that the cab had come to a standstill outside a wooden gate which led by a short gravel path to a stucco-covered house. A street lamp, shining feebly, was strong enough to light up the name San Rafael. Mr. Braddock paid the cabman and ushered Sam through the gate. He produced a key after a little searching, and having mounted the steps opened the door. Sam found himself in a small hall, dimly lighted by a turned-down jet of gas.
“Go right in,” said Mr. Braddock. “I’ll be back in a moment. Got to see a man.”
“Got to what?” said Sam, surprised.
“Got to see a man for a minute. Fellow named Evans, who was at school with me. Most important.”
And with that curious snipelike abruptness which characterised his movements to-night, Willoughby Braddock slammed the front door violently and disappeared.
Sam’s feelings, as the result of his host’s impulsive departure, were somewhat mixed. To the credit side of the ledger he could place the fact that he was safely under the shelter of a roof, which he had not expected to be an hour ago; but he wished that, before leaving, his friend had given him a clew as to where was situated this drawing-room with its sofa whereon he was to spend the remainder of the night.
However, a brief exploration would no doubt reveal the hidden chamber. It might even be that room whose door faced him across the hall.
He was turning the handle with the view of testing this theory, when a voice behind him, speaking softly but with a startling abruptness, said, “Hands up!”
At the foot of the stairs, her wide mouth set in a determined line, her tow-coloured hair adorned with gleaming curling pins, there was standing a young woman in a pink dressing gown and slippers. In her right hand, pointed at his head, she held a revolver.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SAM AT SAN RAFAEL
IT is not given to every girl who makes prophecies to find those prophecies fulfilled within a few short hours of their utterance; and the emotions of Claire Lippett, as she confronted Sam in the hall of San Rafael, were akin to those of one who sees the long shot romp in ahead of the field or who unexpectedly solves the cross-word puzzle. Only that evening she had predicted that burglars would invade the house, and here one was, as large as life. Mixed, therefore, with her disapproval of this midnight marauder, was a feeling almost of gratitude to him for being there. Of fear she felt no trace. She presented the pistol with a firm hand.
One calls it a pistol for the sake of technical accuracy. To Sam’s startled senses it appeared like a young cannon, and so deeply did he feel regarding it that he made it the subject of his opening remark—which, by all the laws of etiquette, should have been a graceful apology for and explanation of his intrusion.
“Steady with the howitzer!” he urged.
“What say?” said Claire coldly.
“The lethal weapon—be careful with it. It’s pointing at me.”
“I know it’s pointing at you.”
“Oh, well, so long as it only points,” said Sam.
He felt a good deal reassured by the level firmness of her tone. This was plainly not one of those neurotic, fluttering females whose fingers cannot safely be permitted within a foot of a pistol trigger.
There was a pause. Claire, still keeping the weapon poised, turned the gas up. Upon which, Sam, rightly feeling that the ball of conversation should be set rolling by himself, spoke again.
“You are doubtless surprised,” he said, plagiarising the literary style of Mr. Todhunter, “to see me here.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
“No. You keep those hands of yours up.”
Sam sighed.
“You wouldn’t speak to me in that harsh tone,” he said, “if you knew all I had been through. It is not too much to say that I have been persecuted this night.”
“Well, you shouldn’t come breaking into people’s houses,” said Claire primly.
“You are labouring under a natural error,” said Sam. “I did not break into this charming little house. My presence, Mrs. Braddock, strange as it may seem, is easily explained.”
“Who are you calling Mrs. Braddock?”
“Aren’t you Mrs. Braddock?”
“No.”
“You aren’t married to Mr. Braddock?”
“No, I’m not.”
Sam was a broad-minded young man.
“Ah, well,” he said, “in the sight of God, no doubt——”
“I’m the cook.”
“Oh,” said Sam, relieved, “that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Well, you know, it seemed a trifle odd for a moment that you should be popping about here at this time of night with your hair in curlers and your little white ankles peeping out from under a dressing gown.”
“Coo!” said Claire in a modest flutter. She performed a swift adjustment of the garment’s folds.
“But if you’re Mr. Braddock’s cook——”
“Who said I was Mr. Braddock’s cook?”
“You did.”
“I didn’t any such thing. I’m Mr. Wrenn’s cook.”
“Mr. who?”
“Mr. Wrenn.”
This was a complication which Sam had not anticipated.
“Let us get this thing straight,” he said. “Am I to understand that this house does not belong to Mr. Braddock?”
“Yes, you are. It belongs to Mr. Wrenn.”
“But Mr. Braddock had a latchkey.”
“He’s staying here.”
“Ah!”
“What do you mean—ah?”
“I intended to convey that things are not so bad as I thought they were. I was afraid for a moment that I had got into the wrong house. But it’s all right. You see, I met Mr. Braddock a short while ago and he brought me back here to spend the night.”
“Oh?” said Claire. “Did he? Ho! Oh, indeed?”
Sam looked at her anxiously. He did not like her manner.
“You believe me, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“But surely——”
“If Mr. Braddock brought you here, where is he?”
“He went away. He was, I regret to say, quite considerably squiffed. Immediately after letting me in he dashed off, banging the door behind him.”
“Likely!”
“But listen, my dear little girl——”
“Less of it!” said Claire austerely. “It’s a bit thick if a girl can’t catch a burglar without having him start to flirt with her.”
“You wrong me!” said Sam. “You wrong me! I was only saying——”
“Well, don’t.”
“But this is absurd. Good heavens, use your intelligence! If my story wasn’t true, how could I know anything about Mr. Braddock?”
“You could easily have asked around. What I say is if you were all right you wouldn’t be going about in a suit of clothes like that. You look like a tramp.”
“Well, I’ve just come off a tramp steamer. You mustn’t go judging people by appearance. I should have thought they would have taught you that at school.”
“Never you mind what they taught me at school.”
“You have got me all wrong. I’m a millionaire—or rather my uncle is.”
“And a few weeks ago he sent me over to England, the idea being that I was to sail on the Mauretania. But that would have involved sharing a suite with a certain Lord Tilbury and the scheme didn’t appeal to me. So I missed the ship and came over on a cargo boat instead.”
He paused. He had an uncomfortable feeling that the story sounded thin. He passed it in a swift review before his mind. Yes, thin.
And it was quite plain from her expression that the resolute young lady before him shared this opinion.
She wrinkled her small nose skeptically, and, having finished wrinkling it, sniffed.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” she said.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t,” said Sam. “True though it is, it has a phony ring. Really to digest that story, you have to know Lord Tilbury. If you had the doubtful pleasure of the acquaintance of that king of bores, you would see that I acted in the only possible way. However, if it’s too much for you, let it go, and we will approach the matter from a new angle. The whole trouble seems to be my clothes, so I will make you a sporting offer. Overlook them for the moment, give me your womanly trust and allow me to sleep on the drawing-room sofa for the rest of the night, and not only will blessings reward you but I promise you—right here and now—that in a day or two I will call at this house and let you see me in the niftiest rig-out that ever man wore. Imagine it! A brand-new suit, custom-made, silk serge linings, hand-sewed, scallops on the pocket flaps—and me inside! Is it a bet?”
“Think well! When you first see that suit you will say to yourself that the coat doesn’t seem to sit exactly right. You will be correct. The coat will not sit exactly right. And why? Because there will be in the side pocket a large box of the very finest mixed chocolates, a present for a good girl. Come now! The use of the drawing-room for the few remaining hours of the night. It is not much to ask.”
Claire shook her head inflexibly.
“I’m not going to risk it,” she said. “By rights I ought to march you out into the street and hand you over to the policeman.”
“And have him see you in curling pins? No, no!”
“What’s wrong with my curling pins?” demanded Claire fiercely.
“Nothing, nothing,” said Sam hastily. “I admire them. It only occurred to me as a passing thought——”
“The reason I don’t do it is because I’m tender-hearted and don’t want to be too hard on a feller.”
“It is a spirit I appreciate,” said Sam. “And would that there had been more of it abroad in London this night.”
“So out you go, and don’t let me hear no more of you. Just buzz off, that’s all I ask. And be quick about it, because I need my sleep.”
“I was wrong about those chocolates,” said Sam. “Silly mistake to make. What will really be in that side pocket will be a lovely diamond brooch.”
“And a motor car and a ruby ring and a new dress and a house in the country, I suppose. Outside!”
Sam accepted defeat. The manly spirit of the Shotters was considerable, but it could be broken.
“Oh, all right, I’ll go. One of these days, when my limousine splashes you with mud, you will be sorry for this.”
“And don’t bang the door behind you,” ordered the ruthless girl.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SAM AT MON REPOS
STANDING on the steps and gazing out into the blackness, Sam now perceived that in the interval between his entrance into San Rafael and his exit therefrom, the night, in addition to being black, had become wet. A fine rain had begun to fall, complicating the situation to no small extent.
For some minutes he remained where he was, hoping for Mr. Braddock’s return. But the moments passed and no sound of footsteps, however distant, broke the stillness; so, after going through a brief commination service in which the names of Hash Todhunter, Claude Bates and Willoughby Braddock were prominently featured, he decided to make a move. And it was as he came down from the steps on to the little strip of gravel that he saw a board leaning drunkenly towards him a few paces to his left, and read on that board the words “To Let, Furnished.”
This opened up an entirely new train of thought. It revealed to him what he had not previously suspected, that the house outside which he stood was not one house but two houses. It suggested, moreover, that the one to which the board alluded was unoccupied, and the effect of this was extraordinarily stimulating.
He hurried along the gravel; and rounding the angle of the building, saw dimly through the darkness a structure attached to its side which looked like a conservatory. He bolted in; and with a pleasant feeling of having circumvented Fate, sat down on a wooden shelf intended as a resting place for potted geraniums.
But Fate is not so easily outmanœuvred. Fate, for its own inscrutable reasons, had decided that Sam was to be thoroughly persecuted to-night, and it took up the attack again without delay. There was a sharp cracking sound and the wooden shelf collapsed in ruin. Sam had many excellent qualities, but he did not in the least resemble a potted geranium, and he went through the woodwork as if it had been paper. And Fate, which observes no rules of the ring and has no hesitation about hitting a man when he is down, immediately proceeded to pour water down his neck through a hole in the broken roof.
Sam rose painfully. He saw now that he had been mistaken in supposing that this conservatory was a home from home. He turned up his coat collar and strode wrathfully out into the darkness. He went round to the back of the house with the object of ascertaining if there was an outside coal cellar where a man might achieve dryness, if not positive comfort. And it was as he stumbled along that he saw the open window.
It was a sight which in the blackness of the night he might well have missed; but suffering had sharpened his senses, and he saw it plainly—an open window only a few feet above the ground. Until this moment the idea of actually breaking into the house had not occurred to him; but now, regardless of all the laws which discourage such behaviour, he put his hand on the sill and scrambled through. The rain, as if furious at the escape of its prey, came lashing down like a shower bath.
Sam moved carefully on. Groping his way, he found himself at the foot of a flight of stairs. He climbed these cautiously and became aware of doors to left and right.
The room to the right was empty, but the other one contained a bed. It was a bed, however, that had been reduced to such a mere scenario that he decided to leave it and try his luck downstairs. The board outside had said “To Let, Furnished,” which suggested the possibility of a drawing-room sofa. He left the room and started to walk down the stairs.
At first, as he began the descent, the regions below had been in complete darkness. But now a little beam of light suddenly pierced the gloom—a light that might have been that of an electric torch. It was wavering uncertainly, as if whoever was behind it was in the grip of a strong emotion of some kind.
Sam also was in the grip of a strong emotion. He stopped and held his breath. For the space of some seconds there was silence. Then he breathed again.
Perfect control of the breathing apparatus is hard to acquire. Singers spend years learning it. Sam’s skill in that direction was rudimentary. It had been his intention to let his present supply of breath gently out and then, very cautiously, to take another supply gently in. Instead of which, he gave vent to a sound so loud and mournful that it made his flesh creep. It was half a snort and half a groan, and it echoed through the empty house like a voice from the tomb.
This, he felt, was the end. Further concealment was obviously out of the question. Dully resentful of the curse that seemed to be on him to-night, he stood waiting for the inevitable challenge from below.
No challenge came. Instead, there was a sharp clatter of feet, followed by a distant scrabbling sound. The man behind the torch had made a rapid exit through the open window.
For a moment Sam stood perplexed. Then the reasonable explanation came to him. It was no caretaker who had stood there, but an intruder with as little right to be on the premises as he himself. And having reached this conclusion, he gave no further thought to the matter. He was feeling extraordinarily sleepy now and speculations as to the identity of burglars had no interest for him. His mind was occupied entirely by the question of whether or not there was a sofa in the drawing-room.
There was, and a reasonably comfortable sofa too. Sam had reached the stage where he could have slept on spikes, and this sofa seemed to him as inviting as the last word in beds, with all the latest modern springs and box mattresses. He lay down and sleep poured over him like a healing wave.