§ 1.
There are streets in London into which the sun seems never to
penetrate. Some of these are in fashionable quarters, and it is to be
supposed that their inhabitants find an address which looks well on
note-paper a sufficient compensation for the gloom that goes with it.
The majority, however, are in the mean neighborhoods of the great
railway termini, and appear to offer no compensation whatever. They are
lean, furtive streets, gray as the January sky with a sort of arrested
decay. They smell of cabbage and are much prowled over by vagrom cats.
At night they are empty and dark, and a stillness broods on them,
broken only by the cracked tingle of an occasional piano playing one of
the easier hymns, a form of music to which the dwellers in the dingy
houses are greatly addicted. By day they achieve a certain animation
through the intermittent appearance of women in aprons, who shake rugs
out of the front doors or, emerging from areas, go down to the
public-house on the corner with jugs to fetch the supper-beer. In
almost every ground-floor window there is a card announcing that
furnished lodgings may be had within. You will find these streets by
the score if you leave the main thoroughfares and take a short cut on
your way to Euston, to Paddington, or to Waterloo. But the dingiest and
deadliest and most depressing lie round about Victoria. And Daubeny
Street, Pimlico, is one of the worst of them all.
On the afternoon following the events recorded, a girl was dressing in
the ground-floor room of Number Nine, Daubeny Street. A tray bearing
the remains of a late breakfast stood on the rickety table beside a
bowl of wax flowers. From beneath the table peered the green cover of a
copy of _Variety_. A gray parrot in a cage by the window cracked seed
and looked out into the room with a satirical eye. He had seen all this
so many times before,—Nelly Bryant arraying herself in her smartest
clothes to go out and besiege agents in their offices off the Strand.
It happened every day. In an hour or two she would come back as usual,
say “Oh, Gee!” in a tired sort of voice, and then Bill the parrot’s day
proper would begin. He was a bird who liked the sound of his own voice,
and he never got the chance of a really sustained conversation till
Nelly returned in the evening.
“Who cares?” said Bill, and cracked another seed.
If rooms are an indication of the characters of their occupants, Nelly
Bryant came well out of the test of her surroundings. Nothing can make
a London furnished room much less horrible than it intends to be, but
Nelly had done her best. The furniture, what there was of it, was of
that lodging-house kind which resembles nothing else in the world. But
a few little touches here and there, a few instinctively tasteful
alterations in the general scheme of things, had given the room almost
a cosy air. Later on, with the gas lit, it would achieve something
approaching homeiness. Nelly, like many another nomad, had taught
herself to accomplish a good deal with poor material. On the road in
America, she had sometimes made even a bedroom in a small hotel
tolerably comfortable, than which there is no greater achievement.
Oddly, considering her life, she had a genius for domesticity.
Today, not for the first time, Nelly was feeling unhappy. The face that
looked back at her out of the mirror at which she was arranging her
most becoming hat was weary. It was only a moderately pretty face, but
loneliness and underfeeding had given it a wistful expression that had
charm. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of charm which made a great
appeal to the stout, whisky-nourished men who sat behind paper-littered
tables, smoking cigars, in the rooms marked “Private” in the offices of
theatrical agents. Nelly had been out of a “shop” now for many
weeks,—ever since, in fact, “Follow the Girl” had finished its long ran
at the Regal Theatre.
“Follow the Girl,” an American musical comedy, had come over from New
York with an American company, of which Nelly had been a humble unit,
and, after playing a year in London and some weeks in the number one
towns, had returned to New York. It did not cheer Nelly up in the long
evenings in Daubeny Street to reflect that, if she had wished, she
could have gone home with the rest of the company. A mad impulse had
seized her to try her luck in London, and here she was now, marooned.
“Who cares?” said Bill.
For a bird who enjoyed talking he was a little limited in his remarks
and apt to repeat himself.
“I do, you poor fish!” said Nelly, completing her maneuvers with the
hat and turning to the cage. “It’s all right for you—you have a swell
time with nothing to do but sit there and eat seed—but how do you
suppose I enjoy tramping around, looking for work and never finding
any?”
She picked up her gloves. “Oh, well!” she said. “Wish me luck!”
“Good-bye, boy!” said the parrot, clinging to the bars.
Nelly thrust a finger into the cage and scratched his head.
“Anxious to get rid of me, aren’t you? Well, so long.”
“Good-bye, boy!”
“All right, I’m going. Be good!”
“Woof-woof-woof!” barked Bill the parrot, not committing himself to any
promises.
For some moments after Nelly had gone he remained hunched on his perch,
contemplating the infinite. Then he sauntered along to the seed-box and
took some more light nourishment. He always liked to spread his meals
out, to make them last longer. A drink of water to wash the food down,
and he returned to the middle of the cage, where he proceeded to
conduct a few intimate researches with his beak under his left wing.
After which he mewed like a cat, and relapsed into silent meditation
once more. He closed his eyes and pondered on his favorite problem—Why
was he a parrot? This was always good for an hour or so, and it was
three o’clock before he had come to his customary decision that he
didn’t know. Then, exhausted by brain-work and feeling a trifle hipped
by the silence of the room, he looked about him for some way of jazzing
existence up a little. It occurred to him that if he barked again it
might help.
“Woof-woof-woof!”
Good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It was not real
excitement. Something rather more dashing seemed to him to be
indicated. He hammered for a moment or two on the floor of his cage,
ate a mouthful of the newspaper there, and stood with his head on one
side, chewing thoughtfully. It didn’t taste as good as usual. He
suspected Nelly of having changed his _Daily Mail_ for the _Daily
Express_ or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was struck
by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what his soul
demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your way up to
the roof. It sounds tame, but it’s something to do.) He tried it. And,
as he gripped the door of the cage, it swung open. Bill the parrot now
perceived that this was going to be one of those days. He had not had a
bit of luck like this for months.
For awhile he sat regarding the open door. Unless excited by outside
influences, he never did anything in a hurry. Then proceeding
cautiously, he passed out into the room. He had been out there before,
but always chaperoned by Nelly. This was something quite different. It
was an adventure. He hopped onto the window-sill. There was a ball of
yellow wool there, but he had lunched and could eat nothing. He cast
around in his mind for something to occupy him, and perceived suddenly
that the world was larger than he had supposed. Apparently there was a
lot of it outside the room. How long this had been going on, he did not
know, but obviously it was a thing to be investigated. The window was
open at the bottom, and just outside the window were what he took to be
the bars of another and larger cage. As a matter of fact they were the
railings which afforded a modest protection to Number Nine. They ran
the length of the house, and were much used by small boys as a means of
rattling sticks. One of these stick-rattlers passed as Bill stood there
looking down. The noise startled him for a moment, then he seemed to
come to the conclusion that this sort of thing was to be expected if
you went out into the great world and that a parrot who intended to see
life must not allow himself to be deterred by trifles. He crooned a
little, and finally, stepping in a stately way over the window-sill,
with his toes turned in at right angles, caught at the top of the
railing with his beak, and proceeded to lower himself. Arrived at the
level of the street, he stood looking out.
A dog trotted up, spied him, and came to sniff.
“Good-bye, boy!” said Bill chattily.
The dog was taken aback. Hitherto, in his limited experience, birds had
been birds and men men. Here was a blend of the two. What was to be
done about it? He barked tentatively, then, finding that nothing
disastrous ensued, pushed his nose between two of the bars and barked
again. Any one who knew Bill could have told him that he was asking for
it, and he got it. Bill leaned forward and nipped his nose. The dog
started back with a howl of agony. He was learning something new every
minute.
“Woof-woof-woof!” said Bill sardonically.
He perceived trousered legs, four of them, and, cocking his eye
upwards, saw that two men of the lower orders stood before him. They
were gazing down at him in the stolid manner peculiar to the
proletariat of London in the presence of the unusual. For some minutes
they stood drinking him in, then one of them gave judgment.
“It’s a parrot!” He removed a pipe from his mouth and pointed with the
stem. “A perishin’ parrot, that is, Erb.”
“Ah!” said Erb, a man of few words.
“A parrot,” proceeded the other. He was seeing clearer into the matter
every moment. “That’s a parrot, that is, Erb. My brother Joe’s wife’s
sister ’ad one of ’em. Come from abroad, _they_ do. My brother Joe’s
wife’s sister ’ad one of ’em. Red-’aired gel she was. Married a feller
down at the Docks. _She_ ’ad one of ’em. Parrots they’re called.”
He bent down for a closer inspection, and inserted a finger through the
railings. Erb abandoned his customary taciturnity and spoke words of
warning.
“Tike care ’e don’t sting yer, ’Enry!”
Henry seemed wounded.
“Woddyer mean sting me? I know all abart parrots, I do. My brother
Joe’s wife’s sister ’ad one of ’em. They don’t ’urt yer, not if you’re
kind to ’em. You know yer pals when you see ’em, don’t yer, mate?” he
went on, addressing Bill, who was contemplating the finger with one
half-closed eye.
“Good-bye, boy,” said the parrot, evading the point.
“Jear that?” cried Henry delightedly. “Goo’-bye, boy!’ ’Uman they are!”
“’E’ll ’ave a piece out of yer finger,” warned Erb, the suspicious.
“Wot, ’im!” Henry’s voice was indignant. He seemed to think that his
reputation as an expert on parrots had been challenged. “’E wouldn’t
’ave no piece out of my finger.”
“Bet yer a narf-pint ’e would ’ave a piece out of yer finger,”
persisted the skeptic.
“No blinkin’ parrot’s goin’ to ’ave no piece of no finger of mine! My
brother Joe’s wife’s sister’s parrot never ’ad no piece out of no
finger of mine!” He extended the finger further and waggled it
enticingly beneath Bill’s beak. “Cheerio, matey!” he said winningly.
“Polly want a nut?”
Whether it was mere indolence or whether the advertised docility of
that other parrot belonging to Henry’s brother’s wife’s sister had
caused him to realize that there was a certain standard of good conduct
for his species one cannot say: but for awhile Bill merely contemplated
temptation with a detached eye.
“See!” said Henry.
“Woof-woof-woof!” said Bill.
“_Wow-Wow-Wow!_” yapped the dog, suddenly returning to the scene and
going on with the argument at the point where he had left off.
The effect on Bill was catastrophic. Ever a high-strung bird, he lost
completely the repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere and the
better order of parrot. His nerves were shocked, and, as always under
such conditions, his impulse was to bite blindly. He bit, and Henry—one
feels sorry for Henry: he was a well-meaning man—leaped back with a
loud howl.
“That’ll be ’arf a pint,” said Erb, always the business man.
There was a lull in the rapid action. The dog, mumbling softly to
himself, had moved away again and was watching affairs from the edge of
the sidewalk. Erb, having won his point, was silent once more. Henry
sucked his finger. Bill, having met the world squarely and shown it
what was what, stood where he was, whistling nonchalantly.
Henry removed his finger from his mouth. “Lend me the loan of that
stick of yours, Erb,” he said tensely.
Erb silently yielded up the stout stick which was his inseparable
companion. Henry, a vastly different man from the genial saunterer of a
moment ago, poked wildly through the railings. Bill, panic-stricken now
and wishing for nothing better than to be back in his cosy cage,
shrieked loudly for help. And Freddie Rooke, running the corner with
Jill, stopped dead and turned pale.
“Good God!” said Freddie.
§ 2.
In pursuance of his overnight promise to Derek, Freddie Rooke had got
in touch with Jill through the medium of the telephone immediately
after breakfast, and had arranged to call at Ovington Square in the
afternoon. Arrived there, he found Jill with a telegram in her hand.
Her Uncle Christopher, who had been enjoying a breath of sea-air down
at Brighton, was returning by an afternoon train, and Jill had
suggested that Freddie should accompany her to Victoria, pick up Uncle
Chris, and escort him home. Freddie, whose idea had been a
_tête-à-tête_ involving a brotherly lecture on impetuosity, had
demurred but had given way in the end; and they had set out to walk to
Victoria together. Their way had lain through Daubeny Street, and they
turned the corner just as the brutal onslaught on the innocent Henry
had occurred. Bill’s shrieks, which were of an appalling timbre,
brought them to a halt.
“What is it?” cried Jill.
“It sounds like a murder!”
“Nonsense!”
“I don’t know, you know this is the sort of street chappies are
murdering people in all the time.”
They caught sight of the group in front of them, and were reassured.
Nobody could possibly be looking so aloof and distrait as Erb, if there
were a murder going on.
“It’s a bird!”
“It’s a jolly old parrot. See it? Just inside the railings.”
A red-hot wave of rage swept over Jill. Whatever her defects,—and
already this story has shown her far from perfect,—she had the
excellent quality of loving animals and blazing into fury when she saw
them ill-treated. At least three draymen were going about London with
burning ears as the result of what she had said to them on discovering
them abusing their patient horses. Zoologically, Bill the parrot was
not an animal, but he counted as one with Jill, and she sped down
Daubeny Street to his rescue,—Freddie, spatted and hatted and trousered
as became the man of fashion, following disconsolately, ruefully aware
that he did not look his best sprinting like that. But Jill was cutting
out a warm pace, and he held his hat on with one neatly-gloved hand and
did what he could to keep up.
Jill reached the scene of battle, and, stopping, eyed Henry with a
baleful glare. We, who have seen Henry in his calmer moments and know
him for the good fellow he was, are aware that he was more sinned
against than sinning. If there is any spirit of justice in us, we are
pro-Henry. In his encounter with Bill the parrot, Henry undoubtedly had
right on his side. His friendly overtures, made in the best spirit of
kindliness, had been repulsed. He had been severely bitten. And he had
lost half a pint of beer to Erb. As impartial judges we have no other
course before us than to wish Henry luck and bid him go to it. But
Jill, who had not seen the opening stages of the affair, thought far
otherwise. She merely saw in Henry a great brute of a man poking at a
defenceless bird with a stick.
She turned to Freddie, who had come up at a gallop and was wondering
why the deuce this sort of thing happened to him out of a city of six
millions.
“Make him stop, Freddie!”
“Oh, I say you know, what!”
“Can’t you see he’s hurting the poor thing? Make him leave off! Brute!”
she added to Henry (for whom one’s heart bleeds), as he jabbed once
again at his adversary.
Freddie stepped reluctantly up to Henry, and tapped him on the
shoulder. Freddie was one of those men who have a rooted idea that a
conversation of this sort can only be begun by a tap on the shoulder.
“Look here, you know, you can’t do this sort of thing, you know!” said
Freddie.
Henry raised a scarlet face.
“’Oo are _you?_” he demanded.
This attack from the rear, coming on top of his other troubles, tried
his restraint sorely.
“Well—” Freddie hesitated. It seemed silly to offer the fellow one of
his cards. “Well, as a matter of fact, my name’s Rooke …”
“And who,” pursued Henry, “arsked _you_ to come shoving your ugly mug
in ’ere?”
“Well, if you put it that way …”
“’E comes messing abart,” said Henry complainingly, addressing the
universe, “and interfering in what don’t concern ’im and mucking around
and interfering and messing abart. … Why,” he broke off in a sudden
burst of eloquence, “I could eat two of you for a relish wiv me tea,
even if you ’_ave_ got white spats!”
Here Erb, who had contributed nothing to the conversation, remarked
“Ah!” and expectorated on the sidewalk. The point, one gathers, seemed
to Erb well taken. A neat thrust, was Erb’s verdict.
“Just because you’ve got white spats,” proceeded Henry, on whose
sensitive mind these adjuncts of the costume of the well-dressed man
about town seemed to have made a deep and unfavorable impression, “you
think you can come mucking around and messing abart and interfering and
mucking around. This bird’s bit me in the finger, and ’ere’s the
finger, if you don’t believe me—and I’m going to twist ’is ruddy neck,
if all the perishers with white spats in London come messing abart and
mucking around, so you take them white spats of yours ’ome and give ’em
to the old woman to cook for your Sunday dinner!”
And Henry, having cleansed his stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
which weighs upon the heart, shoved the stick energetically once more
through the railings.
Jill darted forward. Always a girl who believed that, if you want a
thing well done, you must do it yourself, she had applied to Freddie
for assistance merely as a matter of form. All the time she had felt
that Freddie was a broken reed, and such he had proved himself.
Freddie’s policy in this affair was obviously to rely on the magic of
speech, and any magic his speech might have had was manifestly offset
by the fact that he was wearing white spats and that Henry, apparently,
belonged to some sort of league or society which had for its main
object the discouragement of white spats. It was plainly no good
leaving the conduct of the campaign to Freddie. Whatever was to be done
must be done by herself. She seized the stick and wrenched it out of
Henry’s hand.
“Woof-woof-woof!” said Bill the parrot.
No dispassionate auditor could have failed to detect the nasty ring of
sarcasm. It stung Henry. He was not normally a man who believed in
violence to the gentler sex outside a clump on the head of his missus
when the occasion seemed to demand it: but now he threw away the
guiding principles of a lifetime and turned on Jill like a tiger.
“Gimme that stick!”
“Get back!”
“Here, I say, you know!” said Freddie.
Henry, now thoroughly overwrought, made a rush at Jill: and Jill, who
had a straight eye, hit him accurately on the side of the head.
“Goo!” said Henry, and sat down.
And then, from behind Jill, a voice spoke.
“What’s all this?”
A stout policeman had manifested himself from empty space.
“This won’t do!” said the policeman.
Erb, who had been a silent spectator of the fray, burst into speech.
“She ’it ’im!”
The policeman looked at Jill. He was an officer of many years’
experience in the Force, and time had dulled in him that respect for
good clothes which he had brought with him from
Little-Sudbury-in-the-Wold in the days of his novitiate. Jill was
well-dressed, but, in the stirring epoch of the Suffrage disturbances,
the policeman had been kicked on the shins and even bitten by ladies of
an equally elegant exterior. Hearts, the policeman knew, just as pure
and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier air of Seven
Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they disturb the
peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were with the
stick still in her grasp, was stern.
“Your name, please, and address, miss?” he said.
A girl in blue with a big hat had come up, and was standing staring
open-mouthed at the group. At the sight of her Bill the parrot uttered
a shriek of welcome. Nelly Bryant had returned, and everything would
now be all right again.
“Mariner,” said Jill, pale and bright-eyed. “I live at Number
Twenty-two, Ovington Square.”
“And yours, sir?”
“Mine? Oh, ah, yes. I see what you mean. Rooke, you know. F. L. Rooke.
I live at the Albany and all that sort of thing.”
The policeman made an entry in his note-book. “Officer,” cried Jill,
“this man was trying to kill that parrot and I stopped him. …”
“Can’t help that, miss. You ’adn’t no right to hit a man with a stick.
You’ll ’ave to come along.”
“But, I say, you know!” Freddie was appalled. This sort of thing had
happened to him before, but only on Boat-Race Night at the Empire,
where it was expected of a chappie. “I mean to say!”
“And you too, sir. You’re both in it.”
“But …”
“Oh, come along, Freddie,” said Jill quietly. “It’s perfectly absurd,
but it’s no use making a fuss.”
“That,” said the policeman cordially, “is the right spirit!”.
§ 3.
Lady Underhill paused for breath. She had been talking long and
vehemently. She and Derek were sitting in Freddie Rooke’s apartment at
the Albany, and the subject of her monologue was Jill. Derek had been
expecting the attack, and had wondered why it had not come before. All
through supper on the previous night, even after the discovery that
Jill was supping at a near-by table with a man who was a stranger to
her son, Lady Underhill had preserved a grim reticence with regard to
her future daughter-in-law. But today she had spoken her mind with all
the energy which comes of suppression. She had relieved herself with a
flow of words of all the pent-up hostility that had been growing within
her since that first meeting in this same room. She had talked rapidly,
for she was talking against time. The Town Council of the principal
city in Derek’s constituency in the north of England had decided that
tomorrow morning should witness the laying of the foundation stone of
their new Town Hall, and Derek as the sitting member was to preside at
the celebration. Already Parker had been dispatched to telephone for a
cab to take him to the station, and at any moment their conversation
might be interrupted. So Lady Underhill made the most of what little
time she had.
Derek had listened gloomily, scarcely rousing himself to reply. His
mother would have been gratified, could she have known how powerfully
her arguments were working on him. That little imp of doubt which had
vexed him in the cab as he drove home from Ovington Square had not died
in the night. It had grown and waxed more formidable. And, now, aided
by this ally from without, it had become a colossus, straddling his
soul. Derek looked frequently at the clock, and cursed the unknown
cabman whose delay was prolonging the scene. Something told him that
only flight could serve him now. He never had been able to withstand
his mother in one of her militant moods. She seemed to numb his
faculties. Other members of his family had also noted this quality in
Lady Underhill, and had commented on it bitterly in the smoking-rooms
of distant country-houses at the hour when men meet to drink the final
whisky-and-soda and unburden their souls.
Lady Underhill, having said all she had to say, recovered her breath
and began to say it again. Frequent iteration was one of her strongest
weapons. As her brother Edwin, who was fond of homely imagery, had
often observed, she could talk the hind-leg off a donkey.
“You must be mad, Derek, to dream of handicapping yourself at this
vital stage of your career with a wife who not only will not be a help
to you, but must actually be a ruinous handicap. I am not blaming you
for imagining yourself in love in the first place, though I really
should have thought that a man of your strength and character would …
However, as I say, I am not blaming you for that. Superficially, no
doubt, this girl might be called attractive. I do not admire the type
myself, but I suppose she has that quality—in my time we should have
called it boldness—which seems to appeal to the young men of today. I
could imagine her fascinating a weak-minded imbecile like your friend
Mr Rooke. But that you … Still, there is no need to go into that. What
I am trying to point out is that in your position, with a career like
yours in front of you,—it’s quite certain that in a year or two you
will be offered some really big and responsible position—you would be
insane to tie yourself to a girl who seems to have been allowed to run
perfectly wild, whose uncle is a swindler …”
“She can’t be blamed for her uncle.”
“… Who sups alone with strange men in public restaurants. …”
“I explained that.”
“You may have explained it. You certainly did not excuse it or make it
a whit less outrageous. You cannot pretend that you really imagine that
an engaged girl is behaving with perfect correctness when she allows a
man she has only just met to take her to supper at the Savoy, even if
she did know him slightly years and years ago. It is very idyllic to
suppose that a childhood acquaintance excuses every breach of decorum,
but I was brought up to believe otherwise. I don’t wish to be vulgar,
but what it amounts to is that this girl was having supper—supper! In
my days girls were in bed at supper-time!—with a strange man who picked
her up at a theatre!”
Derek shifted uneasily. There was a part of his mind which called upon
him to rise up and challenge the outrageous phrase and demand that it
be taken back. But he remained silent. The imp-colossus was too strong
for him. She is quite right, said the imp. That is an unpleasant but
accurate description of what happened. He looked at the clock again,
and wished for the hundredth time that the cab would come. Jill’s
photograph smiled at him from beside the clock. He looked away, for,
when he found his eyes upon it, he had an odd sensation of baseness, as
if he were playing some one false who loved and trusted him.
“If you were an ordinary man like hundreds of the idle young men one
meets in London, I would have nothing to say. I dislike the girl
intensely, but I would not interfere in what would be your own private
business. No doubt there are plenty of sets in society where it matters
very little what sort of a woman a man marries. But if you have a
career, especially in politics, you know as well as I do that a
suitable wife means everything. You are a public figure even now. In a
few years you will be a very big public figure. That means that your
wife will have every eye upon her. And what will she be? A minx!” said
Lady Underhill viciously.
Once more Derek stirred uneasily, and once more he remained silent. A
gleam came into Lady Underhill’s black eyes. All her life she had been
a fighter, and experience had taught her to perceive when she was
winning. She blessed the dilatory cabman.
“Well, I am not going to say any more,” she said, getting up and
buttoning her glove. “I will leave you to think it over. All I will say
is that, though I only met her yesterday, I can assure you that I am
quite confident that this girl is just the sort of harum-scarum,
so-called ‘modern’ girl who is sure some day to involve herself in a
really serious scandal. I don’t want her to be in a position to drag
you into it as well. Yes, Parker, what is it? Is Sir Derek’s cab here?”
The lantern-jawed Parker had entered softly, and was standing
deferentially in the doorway. There was no emotion on his face beyond
the vague sadness which a sense of what was correct made him always
wear like a sort of mask when in the presence of those of superior
station.
“The cab will be at the door very shortly, m’lady. If you please, Sir
Derek, a policeman has come with a message.”
“A policeman?”
“With a message from Mr Rooke.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have had a few words of conversation with the constable, sir,” said
Parker sadly, “and I understand from him that Mr Rooke and Miss Mariner
have been arrested.”
“Arrested! What are you talking about?”
“Mr Rooke desired the officer to ask you to be good enough to step
round and bail them out!”
The gleam in Lady Underhill’s eye became a flame, but she controlled
her voice.
“Why were Miss Mariner and Mr Rooke arrested, Parker?”
“As far as I can gather, m’lady, Miss Mariner struck a man in the
street with a stick, and they took both her and Rooke to the Chelsea
Police Station.”
Lady Underhill glanced at Derek, who was looking into the fire.
“This is a little awkward, Derek,” she said suavely. “If you go to the
police-station, you will miss your train.”
“I fancy, m’lady, it would be sufficient if Sir Derek were to dispatch
me with a check for ten pounds.”
“Very well. Tell the policeman to wait a moment.”
“Very good, m’lady.”
Derek roused himself with an effort. His face was drawn and gloomy. He
sat down at the writing-table, and took out his check-book. There was
silence for a moment, broken only by the scratching of the pen. Parker
took the check and left the room.
“Now, perhaps,” said Lady Underhill, “you will admit that I was right!”
She spoke in almost an awed voice, for this occurrence at just this
moment seemed to her very like a direct answer to prayer. “You can’t
hesitate now! You must free yourself from this detestable
entanglement!”
Derek rose without speaking. He took his coat and hat from where they
lay on a chair.
“Derek! You will! Say you will!”
Derek put on his coat.
“Derek!”
“For heaven’s sake, leave me alone, mother. I want to think.”
“Very well. I will leave you to think it over, then.” Lady Underhill
moved to the door. At the door she paused for a moment, and seemed
about to speak again, but her mouth closed resolutely. She was a shrewd
woman, and knew that the art of life is to know when to stop talking.
What words have accomplished, too many words can undo.
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, mother.”
“I’ll see you when you get back?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m not certain when I shall return. I may go
away for a bit.”
The door closed behind Lady Underhill. Derek sat down again at the
writing-table. He wrote a few words on a sheet of paper, then tore it
up. His eye travelled to the mantelpiece. Jill’s photograph smiled
happily down at him. He turned back to the writing-table, took out a
fresh piece of paper, thought for a few moments, and began to write
again.
The door opened softly.
“The cab is at the door, Sir Derek,” said Parker.
Derek addressed an envelope, and got up.
“All right. Thanks. Oh, Parker, stop at a district-messenger office on
your way to the police-station, and have this sent off at once.”
“Very good, Sir Derek,” said Parker.
Derek’s eyes turned once more to the mantelpiece. He stood looking for
an instant, then walked quickly out of the room.