“His lordship is still at breakfast, sir,” said Wilkins.
“Will you ask him if I can speak to him for a few minutes as soon as he
has finished?” said Mr. Goddard.
He was shown into the library, where Lord Manton’s letters and
newspapers were arranged on a table near the window. He was an old
gentleman who declined to do business of any kind, even open a letter,
before breakfast. He attributed his good health to his habit of facing
the kind of worries which the post brings only when he was fortified by
a solid meal. Mr. Goddard glanced at the columns of a Dublin evening
paper of the day before, half fearful of a scare headline announcing
the loss of two Members of Parliament in Connemara. He was delighted to
find that the editor had been able to discover nothing more exciting
than a crisis in the Balkans and a speech by the Prime Minister.
Wilkins entered the room.
“His lordship’s compliments,” he said, “and he will be pleased if you
will join him at breakfast.”
Mr. Goddard accepted the invitation gladly. The smell of Jimmy
O’Loughlin’s bacon and eggs had whetted his appetite. He was conducted
to the dining-room by Wilkins, and found Lord Manton seated by himself
at the end of a large table. The dining-room in Clonmore Castle is
a spacious and well-proportioned apartment. A tradition exists that
in the time of Lord Manton’s father, on the occasion of a county
election, fifty gentlemen once sat down in it together at dinner. In
those days, no doubt, people did not object to being crowded. But even
to-day thirty people could very comfortably have dined in the room,
and there would still have been space for the servants to make their
way about. It was the largest room in the Castle, and its present
proprietor looked singularly small, even insignificant, seated alone in
the middle of it. Lord Manton greeted his guest cheerfully.
“Good morning, Mr. Goddard. This is an early visit. Have you by any
chance come across the body of Dr. O’Grady? Won’t you help yourself to
something to eat? You’ll find whatever there is on the side table.”
Mr. Goddard secured a kidney and some bacon.
“No,” he said; “there’s no news of Dr. O’Grady.”
“Have you got engaged to be married to Miss Blow?” said Lord Manton.
“That’s the way this business will end, I expect. That young woman came
over here for a husband, and now that the doctor has bolted there is
only you or me for her to choose. So far as I can see at present, she
seems to prefer you. I’m very glad she does. In fact, I’m keeping out
of her way as much as I can.”
“So am I; but it’s rather difficult.”
“I suppose it is. I hear that she went the whole way over to Ballymoy
after you last night; walked every step of it. I’m surprised that you
escaped her after that. How did you manage it? I should have thought
you could hardly have refused to marry her without being actually rude.
But perhaps that story is only gossip.”
“It’s quite true,” said Mr. Goddard. “But, Lord Manton, I came up here
this morning to speak to you about--the fact is, I am in a serious
difficulty.”
“You are. I can scarcely imagine anything more serious.”
“I wanted,” said Mr. Goddard, “to ask your advice about----”
“You shall have it. Give in and marry her at once with a good grace.
That’s my advice. After all, you might do a great deal worse. She’s a
very good-looking girl, and by her own account she’ll have some money.
It’s far better for you to pretend you like it. It’s no earthly use
your trying to escape if her mind is made up. Your plan of dodging
up and down between Clonmore and Ballymoy can’t be kept up for ever.
Sooner or later she’ll overtake you in one place or the other; or else
she’ll meet you on the road between the two, where you’ll be quite at
her mercy.”
“I dare say you’re right,” said Mr. Goddard. “But it’s not about Miss
Blow that I want to consult you this morning. Did you hear about the
Members of Parliament?”
“I heard that two Members of Parliament went through the town on
bicycles yesterday,” said Lord Manton, “with a lot of women after
them on cars; Suffragettes, I suppose, pursuing them for votes. It’s
astonishing how they track those poor fellows to the remotest ends of
the earth.”
“They’ve disappeared,” said Mr. Goddard.
“Sensible men. That was by far the wisest thing they could do. But I
wonder how they managed it? You haven’t been able to disappear from
Miss Blow. We must find out about it. I may have to disappear myself
when that question comes up to the House of Lords.”
“You’ve not got it right,” said Mr. Goddard. “The women on the cars
were their wives. Or rather two of them were. The other was their aunt.”
“Dear me! Is that legal? That sort of group marriage with a common aunt
doesn’t seem to me quite the thing for Members of Parliament.”
“They had one wife each, of course,” said Mr. Goddard, “and the aunt
only belonged to one of them. They have the police roused all over the
country looking for them. That’s what brings me here this morning. I’ve
got to do something to find them.”
“Do you mean to tell me that these two men have got lost in such a way
that they can’t be found?”
“They have. It’s really a most extraordinary thing. They started
on bicycles yesterday from Clonmore to ride to Pool-a-donagh. They
never arrived. That’s really all we know about the matter. The ladies
followed them on a car and didn’t overtake them. We’ve telegraphed to
every police barrack in the neighbourhood, and they haven’t turned up
anywhere.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Goddard. This is an uncommonly awkward
business for you. Here you are, responsible for the safety of the
inhabitants of this district, and no less than four men disappear
completely in the inside of a single week. First there was Dr. O’Grady.
Then poor Patsy Devlin vanished, leaving a wife and family behind him.”
“We know all about them,” said Mr. Goddard.
“And now no less than two Members of Parliament. It doesn’t look at
all well. I’m greatly afraid there’ll be a fuss when it gets into the
newspapers. The public will take the keenest interest in it. We shall
have columns and columns every day. Do you happen to know whether
these men were Liberals or Conservatives?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t see that it makes any difference. I’ve got to
find them whichever they are.”
“It makes the greatest difference,” said Lord Manton. “If they’re
supporters of the Government, there’ll be a much bigger fuss than if
they’re on the Opposition side. The Prime Minister isn’t likely to
sit down quietly under the loss of two votes, especially with the way
bye-elections are going at present. You’ll simply have to find them.”
“I wish I could,” said Mr. Goddard. “I’d do it quick enough, whatever
their politics are, if I knew how to go about it.”
“Of course, if they belonged to the Opposition,” said Lord Manton, “the
matter won’t be pressed by the Government. But even so you’ll have the
newspapers to reckon with, and the curiosity of the general public. Why
don’t you go and look for them?”
“I would go at once, if I had the remotest idea where to look. But I
haven’t. That’s what I want your advice about.”
“You say,” said Lord Manton, “that there are three ladies belonging
to them. If I were you, I should begin by introducing them to Miss
Blow. Then get a hold of Mrs. Patsy Devlin and let her talk to the
whole party. You could put them all together into a room in Jimmy
O’Loughlin’s hotel. They’ll interest each other. They have so much in
common.”
“I might do that, of course. But I don’t see what good it would be. I
shouldn’t be any nearer finding the men.”
“No, you wouldn’t; but you’d have time to turn round and think things
out a bit. They’d be sure to talk for a good while once you get them
started, and it’s quite possible that by the time they’d finished, the
two men might have turned up somewhere or other.”
“I don’t see what can possibly have happened to them,” said Mr.
Goddard. “After you pass Rosivera the road runs the whole way between
the bog and the sea. They couldn’t get off it if they tried. And they
must have got as far as Rosivera when they started right, for there
isn’t a cross road between this and there. Even if they were fools
enough to go up some bohireen or other, they’d only have to turn around
and come down again.”
“That seems to me,” said Lord Manton, “to knock the bottom out of the
theory that they’ve got lost. As you say, they can’t be lost. They
might sit down on the side of the road and cry; but if they did the
women on the cars would have seen them.”
“I’ve thought all that out. I can’t see how they’ve got lost; but the
fact is they are lost.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Lord Manton.
“Surely you don’t suppose that they’re playing off a practical joke on
us.”
“Come into the library and have a smoke,” said Lord Manton.
“I’m not sure that I ought to. With this business on my hands I
scarcely feel justified--I think I should----”
“Oh, nonsense. You can’t do anything until you’ve thought. Premature
and imperfectly considered action in a case like this is always a
mistake, and you can’t possibly think properly without tobacco.”
Lord Manton kept excellent cigars for his guests. Mr. Goddard, who had
smoked them before, lit one with pleasure, and stretched himself in a
deep chair. He had breakfasted heartily, in spite of anxiety and worry.
He felt that a short rest was due to him. He was prepared to believe
that a period of calm reflection was due to the case of the two errant
Members of Parliament. Lord Manton did not smoke his own cigars, and
rarely lay back in his own very comfortable chairs. He preferred an
upright kind of seat, and he smoked cigarettes, lighting them one after
another in rapid succession, while he talked, wrote or thought. On this
occasion he did not remain seated for more than a couple of minutes.
Before his first cigarette was half smoked he stood up and talked down
to Mr. Goddard from a commanding position beside the chimney-piece.
“I don’t believe,” he said, “I don’t for one moment believe, that those
Members of Parliament are lost.”
“Lost or disappeared or stolen,” said Mr. Goddard, “it’s all the same
so far as I am concerned. I’ve got to find them.”
“It’s not in the least the same thing. If they were simply lost in
the way a child or a dog or a collar stud gets lost, then you’d know
where to look for them. Draw a circle of, say, ten miles in diameter,
with Rosivera for its centre, and they must be inside of it somewhere.
You’ve only got to put men enough on the job and you’re bound to find
them. But if they have disappeared of their own accord, vanished
intentionally and deliberately, then you will have to proceed in quite
a different way.”
“It’s all very well to talk of Dr. O’Grady and Patsy Devlin
disappearing like that; but it’s different with these men. Why the
devil should they disappear?”
“They can’t have got lost,” said Lord Manton. “You satisfied me, if
you did not satisfy yourself, about that; and if they’re lost they must
have bolted. How else can you account for their not turning up?”
“But why should they? What had they to run away from?”
“That, of course, I can’t say for certain, for I don’t know the men.
But, taking into consideration the little I do know about them, I can
make a guess. Can’t you imagine it? They had with them three women, two
wives and an aunt. The one who hadn’t his aunt with him very probably
has one at home, and it’s quite possible that they both have sisters.”
“I dare say they have. I didn’t ask.”
“Well now, think. They were English Members of Parliament, and
therefore presumably pretty well to do. They probably had businesses
somewhere, and residences in a suburban district. What does all that
mean? Respectability. Imagine to yourself the appalling weight of
respectability involved in the possession of a wife, an aunt, a sister,
a business, investments, and a seat in Parliament. Can’t you fancy
the poor fellows coming to find it all perfectly intolerable; saying
to each other: ‘Hang it, let’s get off and run loose for a while’? I
don’t say I’m right. I can’t be sure, because I don’t know the men, and
I didn’t see the women; but what I’m offering you is an intelligible
explanation. What sort of women were they? What were they like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice anything particular about them. They
were just ordinary women.”
“There you are,” said Lord Manton. “It’s your ordinary, well-behaved
woman who drives a man perfectly frantic if he has any spirit in him.
I couldn’t live with an ordinary woman for three months at a stretch.
Look at my daughter, for instance. How long do you suppose I could
stand her? Certainly not three months, not two months. I’m at the end
of my tether after a six weeks’ visit to her. And I’m not married to
her. I haven’t got to be very close to her. I haven’t got to see her
in a red dressing-gown combing her hair. I haven’t got to listen to
the noise she makes when she’s washing her teeth. You don’t understand
these things because you’re not married. Very likely you never will
understand them, because Miss Blow’s not an ordinary woman----”
“She is not,” said Mr. Goddard.
“But these two poor fellows,” said Lord Manton, “had got to do with
ordinary women. They had to give their opinions on new hats, had to
listen to stories about the things which the servants did or didn’t do.
Of course they bolted.”
“I wish to goodness they’d have bolted out of some other district,
then, if they had to bolt. Why should they come here? You’d think it
would be much more convenient to run away from a place like London than
from Clonmore. But I don’t believe they have bolted.”
“They can’t have got lost. The thing’s absurd on the face of it. Take
a single point in addition to all those that you’ve made already.
Take their bicycles. A man might accidentally lose himself, but his
bicycle couldn’t possibly get lost. He must leave it on the side of
the road somewhere, and wherever he leaves it you’re sure to find it.
You can get rid of a bicycle on purpose, though even that’s not so
easy. Sinking it in the sea is about the only way I can imagine of
effectually disposing of it. But you can’t lose it and yourself. Nobody
could lose both himself and a bicycle unless he did it on purpose.”
“But----” said Mr. Goddard.
He had a whole series of criticisms utterly destructive of Lord
Manton’s hypothesis. He had seen the Members of Parliament. He felt
that he knew them. He found it impossible to imagine their breaking out
into wild Bohemianism, sickening of respectability, rebelling against
the monotony of any woman, however ordinary. There was Mr. Dick, who
had bounded out of the railway carriage, volatile, debonnair, gay
with familiar quotations. There was Mr. Sanders, rigid, mathematical,
a little morose on account of his weak heart. Lord Manton might
conceivably find an ordinary woman maddening; but Mr. Dick, once he
began, would go on kissing her contentedly for years and years. He
would appreciate the way in which his dinner was cooked for him. Mr.
Sanders would appreciate that too. He might be a little exacting,
would, no doubt, expect his weak heart to be taken seriously, would
put a woman in her proper place in the settled order of things, and
keep her there. But both Mr. Dick and Mr. Sanders would recognize that
a woman must be allowed to wash her teeth. They would not resent the
noise of the water gurgling in her mouth. They would both know that
women must comb their hair, and that a red dressing-gown is a suitable
and convenient garment under certain circumstances. They would not be
angry when they were told about the misdeeds of maid-servants, a trying
and exhausting class to deal with. They were men with well-balanced
minds, men of practical common sense, men who would not fly blindly in
the face of facts. They were not the men to run away from their wives,
or even from their aunts.
“But----” he began again.
Lord Manton lit a fresh cigarette, his fourth, and waited. Mr. Goddard
sought for words in which to express his feelings. He might have found
them in time, but time was not given him. Wilkins entered the room.
“There is a lady to see you, sir,” he said to Mr. Goddard. “I showed
her into the small drawing-room. She said she wished to see you
particular.”
“Good God!” said Mr. Goddard. “It’s Miss Blow!”
“Is it Miss Blow?” said Lord Manton to Wilkins. “Don’t attempt to break
the news to him if it is. Tell him straight out. It’s kinder in the
end.”
“It’s the same young lady,” said Wilkins, “that called on your lordship
two days ago.”
“The young lady that was talking about bringing a corpse here? I told
you, I remember, to get white flowers from the gardener. Is it that
young lady?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And has she brought it this time?”
“Not that I saw, my lord.”
“If you didn’t see it, Wilkins, I think we may take it for granted that
it isn’t there.”
“Damn that girl!” said Mr. Goddard. “You’d think I had enough on my
hands without her.”
“From the way you’re speaking of her,” said Lord Manton, “I suppose
you don’t feel inclined to go into the drawing-room and offer to marry
her. That, as I said before, is the proper thing for you to do. If you
won’t, the only other course I see open to you is to get away out of
this as fast as you can.”
“What’s the good? She’d be after me again at once.”
“Not at once,” said Lord Manton. “I think I can arrange to give you a
good long start. Wilkins will go back and ask her to be good enough
to remain where she is for a few minutes. You could tell her, Wilkins,
that Mr. Goddard is engaged with me at present, discussing very
important business, but that he’ll be with her in less than a quarter
of an hour. You could do that, Wilkins, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then Mr. Goddard could get out of the house and walk across the deer
park. You could run if you like, Goddard, keeping carefully out of
sight of the drawing-room windows. After a time, say at the end of half
an hour, Miss Blow will begin to get impatient. What do you suppose
she’ll do when she gets impatient, Wilkins?”
“I’d say, my lord, that’s she’s likely to ring the bell.”
“Exactly. That’s what I thought myself. I suppose, Wilkins, that you
could arrange for the under housemaid to go to her when she rings.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And the under housemaid would, of course, know nothing about Mr.
Goddard. What would the under housemaid do, Wilkins, when she was asked
about Mr. Goddard, and knew nothing about him?”
“I’d say, my lord, that she’d tell the young lady she’d go to make
inquiries.”
“Quite so. She’d be sure to do that. But she needn’t go back again to
Miss Blow. She could resume her interrupted duties. She could start
off under-housemaiding again at the place she left off when Miss Blow
rang the bell. I presume that, after a decent interval, say a quarter
of an hour, Miss Blow would ring the bell again; this time the upper
housemaid could go to her. That could be arranged, I suppose, Wilkins?”
“Certainly, my lord.”
“She, of course, would know nothing about Mr. Goddard; but she would
promise to go and make inquiries. She would then get back to her
upper-housemaiding and completely forget about Miss Blow. After another
interval, this time probably a shorter one, say ten minutes, Miss Blow
would ring the bell again. Then the cook could go to her, and, of
course----”
“Beg pardon, my lord, but the cook wouldn’t go.”
“Couldn’t you arrange it, Wilkins?”
“No, my lord; it’s not the cook’s place to answer bells.”
“I forgot that,” said Lord Manton. “It was stupid of me. I should have
remembered. I’m afraid, Wilkins, that you’d have to go yourself the
third time. You would tell her that Mr. Goddard had left the house an
hour before. It would be about an hour, wouldn’t it, Wilkins?”
“As near as I can go to it, it would be about that, my lord.”
“After that I should recommend you to leave the room at once, Wilkins.
You can stay if you like and see what happens, but I rather recommend
you to leave at once.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Very well. That gives you a clear hour’s start, Goddard. You’d better
be off at once.”
“Where am I to go to?”
“I really don’t know. I’m not advising you to run away. I think it
would be wiser for you to stay here and marry Miss Blow without any
further resistance. If you act contrary to my advice, you mustn’t
expect me to make your plans for you.”
Mr. Goddard and Wilkins left the room together. Lord Manton lit a
fresh cigarette and tried to make up his mind whether he would like
to see Miss Blow before she left the house. He felt sure that the
interview, if he ventured on it, would be an interesting one, and that
Miss Blow would say very amusing things. On the other hand, he had a
vivid recollection of the masterful way in which she compelled him to
write a note to Sergeant Farrelly. It seemed likely that she would
attempt something of the same sort again. He was most unwilling to get
further entangled in the mystery of Dr. O’Grady’s disappearance. He
was still turning the question over in his mind when Mr. Goddard burst
noisily into the room.