Whilst Jane was running away from fear, down the gravel path of the
cliff’s edge, Captain March was about midway through an interview with
his chief.
Henry’s chief was a large man who strongly resembled a clean and highly
intelligent pig. A very little hair appeared to grow reluctantly on his
head; his face was pink and clean-shaven. He had inherited the
patronymic of Le Mesurier, his parents in his baptism had given him the
romantic name of Julian, and a grateful Government had conferred upon
him the honour of knighthood. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add that,
from the moment that he emerged from the nursery and set foot within the
precincts of his first preparatory school, he had been known exclusively
as “Piggy.”
There is a story of a débutante who, at a large and formal dinner-party,
was discovered during a sudden silence to be addressing him as Sir
Piggott. The dinner-party waited breathlessly. Piggy smiled his benign
smile and explained that it had not been his good fortune to be called
after his aunt, Miss Piggott.... “I expect you have heard of her? She
left all her money to a home for cats, whereas, if my parents had done
their duty and invited her to be my godmother, I should be paying at
least twice as much income tax as I do now. Never undervalue your
relations, my dear Miss Browne.” The aunt was, of course, apocryphal;
and after dinner each of the older ladies in turn took the débutante
aside, and told her so—as a kindness. To each of them she made the same
reply, which was to the effect that “Piggy” was a darling. She married
him two years later. But all this has nothing to do with Henry’s
interview with his chief.
Sir Julian was speaking:
“It’s very unsatisfactory. You say they have been complying with all the
suggestions in the original Government instructions?”
“Yes, sir.”
Sir Julian frowned.
“It’s very unsatisfactory,” he repeated. “Sir William ... well, it’s six
months since I saw him, and he looked all right then.”
“He looks all right now,” said Henry. “He is all right except on his own
particular subject. He’d discuss politics, unemployment, foreign
affairs, or anything else, and you wouldn’t notice anything, but the
minute he comes to his own subject everything worries and irritates him.
He’s lost grip. As far as I can make out, he leaves everything to his
daughter and the secretary. They are competent enough, but....” Henry
did not finish his sentence.
“Ah yes, the secretary,” said Sir Julian. “What’s his name? Yes, Ember,
Jeffrey Ember....” He turned an indicator under his hand, and spoke
rapidly into the telephone beside him. “As soon as possible,” he
concluded.
“This girl now,” he said, looking at Henry. “I don’t see how this
statement of hers can be squared with any of the facts as we know them.”
As he spoke he picked up the notes which Henry had taken in the dark
cupboard.
“She made a suggestion herself,” said Henry. He paused, and looked with
a good deal of diffidence at Sir Julian.
“Well?”
“It is just within the bounds of possibility that the Government
experiments are being used as a blind. That was her suggestion, sir.”
Sir Julian was busily engaged in drawing on his blotting-paper. He drew
in rapid succession cats with arched backs and bottle-brush tails,
always beginning with the tail and finishing with the whiskers, three on
each side. Henry rightly interpreted this as a sign that he was to
continue.
“The conversation which was overheard at Molloy’s flat referred to a
Formula ‘A,’ which cannot possibly be the Formula ‘A’ which we know.
There may be a Formula ‘A’ of which we know nothing, and it may
constitute a grave danger. Ember”—Henry paused—“Ember is not only in a
position of great responsibility with regard to our—the official Formula
‘A,’ but he also appears to be mixed up with this other unofficial and
possibly dangerous Formula ‘A.’ The question, to my mind, is, ‘What
about Ember?’”
Sir Julian continued to draw cats. Suddenly he looked up, and said:
“How long has Patterson been there?”
“A fortnight,” said Henry. “We recalled Jamieson, you remember, and sent
him down.”
“Then, if there were unofficial experiments, they would be before his
time?”
“Yes,” said Henry.
“Would it be possible—no, I’ll put it another way. Officially Luttrell
Marches is impregnable, but unofficially—come March, the place
practically belongs to you—is there any way in which there might be
coming and going that would defy detection? You see, your hypothesis
demands either wholesale corruption of Government workmen, or the
introduction of other experiments.”
There was a pause. Then Henry said:
“In confidence, sir, there _is_ a way, but, to the best of my knowledge,
it is known only to myself and one other person.”
“It might be discovered.”
“I don’t think so. It never has been.”
“Well, I would suggest your ascertaining, in conjunction with the other
person, whether there is any evidence to show that the secret has been
discovered and the way made use of.”
The telephone bell rang. Sir Julian lifted the receiver and listened.
“Yes,” he said—“yes.” Then he began to take notes. “Spell the name,
please—yes. Nineteen hundred and five? Is that all? Thank you.”
He hung up the receiver, and turned to Henry.
“Ember’s dossier,” he said. “Not much in it at first sight. ‘Born 1880.
Son of Charles Ember, partner in Jarvis & Ember—manufacturing chemists;
firm liquidated in 1896. Education till then at Harrow, and subsequently
at Heidelberg, where he took degrees in medicine and science. From 1905
to 1912 at Chicago, U. S. A., as personal assistant to Eugene K.
Blumfield of Nitrates Ltd. Engaged as secretary by Sir William
Carr-Magnus during his American tour in autumn of 1912. Total exemption
during War on Sir William’s representations.’ ’M—blameless as a
blancmange—at first sight. We wouldn’t have him here at all if we hadn’t
been told to get the record of every one employed at Luttrell Marches.
Well, March?”
Henry looked up with his candid, diffident air.
“Heidelberg—Chicago—nitrates,” he said, with a little pause after each
word. Then—“I wonder if it was in Chicago that he met Molloy. Molloy was
a leading light of the I. W. W. there in 1911.”
Piggy looked up for a moment.
“’M, yes,” he said. “Did you get on to the subject of Molloy at all?”
“I had to be very careful,” said Henry, with a worried air. “I was
introduced to Miss Molloy, so I felt that it would look odd if I asked
no questions. On the other hand, I was afraid of asking too many. You
see, sir, if there’s really some infernal, underground plot going on,
with the general smash-up of civilisation as its object, that girl is in
a most awfully dangerous position. I wish to Heaven she was out of it,
but I’m not at all sure that she isn’t right when she says that the most
dangerous thing of all would be for her to give the show away by
bolting.”
“’M, yes,” said Piggy. “Your concern for the young lady’s safety does
you credit—attractive damsel in distress, eh? Nice, pretty young thing,
and all that?”
Henry blushed furiously, and said with some stiffness, “As I told you,
sir, we are old friends, and I think, it’s natural——”
“Entirely, entirely.” Piggy waved a large, fat hand with a pencil in it.
“But to get back to Ember—what did you ask him?”
“Well, I said I had known one or two Molloys, and asked whether Miss
Molloy was the cricketer’s daughter. Ember was quite forthcoming, rather
too forthcoming, I thought. Said he’d met Molloy in the States, and that
he was a queer card, but good company. Explained how surprised he was
when he ran into him at Victoria Station after not seeing him for years.
Then, quite casually and naturally, gave me to understand that Molloy
had put him up for a couple of nights. He really did it very well. Said
the daughter was a nice little thing just from school, that he thought
she would suit Lady Heritage, and how grateful Molloy was, as he was
just off to the States, and didn’t know what to do with the girl. The
impression I got was that he was taking no chances—not leaving anything
for me to find out afterwards.” Henry hesitated for a moment, and then
said, “The thing that struck me most was this. I didn’t ask to interview
Miss Molloy because I didn’t want to make her position more dangerous
than it already is. That is to say, I assumed that there _was_ danger,
which really means assuming a criminal conspiracy. Now, if there were no
danger and no criminal conspiracy, why on earth did every one make it so
easy for me not to interview Miss Molloy? It seems a little thing, but
it struck me—it struck me awfully, sir. You see, I took a roll-call of
the employés first, and checked them by the official list. Then I went
down to the stables with Sir William, and we went through all the
outdoor servants. And I finished up in Sir William’s study, where I saw
the domestic staff—and Mr. Ember. From first to last, no one suggested
that I should see Miss Molloy. In the end, I thought it would be too
marked not to bring her in at all, so I said to Lady Heritage, ‘What
about your secretary?’ and she said, ‘Why, she’s only just come ... you
don’t need to see her.’ I got nervous and left it at that. I think now
that I ought to have seen her, with Lady Heritage and Ember in the room;
then they couldn’t have suspected her of telling me anything.”
Piggy looked up from his cats, and looked down again. Very carefully he
gave each cat a fourth whisker on the left-hand side. Then he fixed his
small, light eyes on Henry and said:
“_They?_”
* * * * * * * *
At 9.30 that evening Sir Julian marked a place in his book with a
massive thumb, glanced across the domestic hearth at his wife, and
observed:
“M’ dear.”
Lady Le Mesurier raised her charming blue eyes from the child’s frock
which she was embroidering.
“I have news to break to you—news concerning the lad Henry. Prepare for
a shock. He is another’s. You have lost him, my poor Isobel.”
“I never had him,” said Isobel placidly.
“His mamma thought you had. She did her very best to warn me. I rather
think she considered that your young affections were also entangled. I
said to her solemnly, ‘My dear Mrs. March—I beg your pardon—my dear Mrs.
_de Luttrelle_ March—of course he is in love with Isobel. I expect young
men to be in love with her. I am in love with her myself.’”
“Piggy, you didn’t!”
“No, m’ dear, but I should have liked to. She is so very large and pink
that the temptation to say it, and to watch the pink turn puce, was
almost more than I could resist. But you have interrupted me. I was
about to break to you a portentous fact. Our Henry is in love.”
“Oh, Piggy!” said Isobel.
“Yes,” continued Henry’s chief—“Henry is undoubtedly for it. Another
lost soul. It’s always these promising lads that are snatched by the
predatory sex.”
“Piggy—we’re not——”
“M’ dear, you _are_. It’s axiomatic, beyond cavil or argument. Like the
python in the natural history books, you fascinate us first, and then
engulf us.”
Isobel allowed a fleeting smile to lift the corners of her very pretty
mouth.
“Oh, Piggy, what a mouthful you would be!” she murmured.
“Henry,” pursued Sir Julian—“Henry is in the fascinated stage. He
blushed one of the most modestly revealing blushes I have ever beheld.
The whole story is of the most thrillingly romantic and intriguing
nature, and I regret to say, m’ dear, that I cannot tell you a single
word of it.”
Lady Le Mesurier took up a blue silk thread.
“Oh, Piggy!” she said reproachfully.
Sir Julian beamed upon her.
“My official duty forbids,” he said, with great enjoyment. “Dismiss the
indecent curiosity which I see stamped upon your every feature. Upon
Henry’s affair my lips are sealed. I am a tomb. I merely wish to have a
small bet with you as to whether Henry’s mamma will queer his pitch or
not.”
“But, Piggy darling, how can I lay odds if I don’t know anything? Tell
me, is she pretty?”
“Isobel, is that the spirit in which to approach this solemn subject? As
an old married woman, you should ask, Is she virtuous? Is she thrifty?
Is she worthy of Henry? And to all these questions I should make the
same reply—I do not know.”
Isobel leaned forward, and still with that faint, delightful smile she
pricked the back of Sir Julian’s hand sharply with the point of her
embroidery needle.
“The serpent’s tooth!” he said, and opened his book. “Isobel, you
interrupt my studies. I merely wish to commend three aspects of the case
to your feminine intuition. First—Henry is in love; second—he has yet to
reckon with his mamma; third—I may at any time ring you up and instruct
you to prepare the guest chamber for Henry’s girl.”
Lady Le Mesurier began to work a blue ribbon bow round the stalks of
some pink and white daisies.
“You’re rather a lamb, Piggy,” she said.