"That's right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you're young,
Sam, work while you're young." He regarded his son's bent head with
affectionate approval. "What's the book to-day?"
"Widgery on Nisi prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up.
"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as a
novel--some novels. There's a splendid bit on, I think, page two
hundred and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and
Customary Estates. It's a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears--but
I won't spoil it for you. Mind you don't skip to see how it all comes
out in the end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed an
imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag.
For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly
foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a
violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!"
"Well?"
"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of
overlapping the little finger of the right hand ... Oh, by the way, Sam."
"Yes?"
"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients
will be coming in and asking for advice, and you'll find yourself in
difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You'd
better lock the outer door."
"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading.
He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which, as of course
you know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding insocage.
Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.
"Well, I'll have to be going. See you later, Sam."
"Good-bye."
Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and
twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of concentration to
his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was
an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam's mind,
numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal
phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment
later his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted
off and began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.
Since they had last met, Sam had told himself perhaps a hundred times
that he cared nothing about Billie, that she had gone out of his life
and was dead to him; but unfortunately he did not believe it. A man
takes a deal of convincing on a point like this, and Sam had never
succeeded in convincing himself for more than two minutes at a time. It
was useless to pretend that he did not still love Billie more than
ever, because he knew he did; and now, as the truth swept over him for
the hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly and gave himself up to
the gray despair which is the almost inseparable companion of young men
in his position.
So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light
footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a
tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the
fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his
father's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some
frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something,
and Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him.
Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the
blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened
the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He
dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk.
Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.
There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened.
Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to
him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with
success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a
similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only
Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches
of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who
entered.
"Good morning," said a voice.
Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was
the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking
hours.
"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots.
Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.
"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.
He pulled himself with an effort that was like a physical exercise. He
stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he invited her to sit
down, and seated himself at the desk.
"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again.
"Yes?" said Billie.
"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib."
"Yes?"
"A broad gold nib," went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which
comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication.
"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that
this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly
occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result
of his struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and
felt a trifle more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes
now began to assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to
appear as little of a fool as possible in this girl's eyes. And what
eyes they were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in....
However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat
and became cold and business-like--the dry young lawyer.
"Er--how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his
voice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this
performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he
had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth.
"Miss Bennett, I believe?"
Billie drew herself up stiffly.
"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me."
"I have a good memory."
"How nice! So have I!"
There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel
casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring
furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought
condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen
were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that
red hair peeping out beneath her hat and ... However!
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voice
Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man
with bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file.
"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby."
"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath.
Cannot I act as his substitute?"
"Do you know anything about the law?"
"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know--!
Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in."
"Oh, were you?" said Billie interested. "Do you always read on the
floor."
"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly.
"And of course you couldn't read without that! Well, as a matter of
fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi--what you said."
"I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the
law in all its branches."
"Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion
when you wanted to get to sleep?"
"The orchestrion?"
"Yes."
"The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H'm!" said Sam.
"You still haven't made it quite clear," said Billie.
"I was thinking."
"Oh, if you want to think!"
"Tell me the facts," said Sam.
"Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the
country, and for some reason or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr.
Mortimer is doing everything he can to make father uncomfortable.
Yesterday afternoon father wanted to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started
his orchestrion just to annoy him."
"I think--I'm not quite sure--I think that's a tort," said Sam.
"A what?"
"Either a tort or a misdemeanour."
"Why, you do know something about it after all!" cried Billie, startled
into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and
the sight of her quick smile Sam's professional composure reeled on its
foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and
babbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection
came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him
ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him
ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat and at that moment there came
another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of
the holiday-making Peters.
"Good morning, Mr. Samuel," said Jno. Peters. "Good morning, Miss
Milliken. Oh!"
He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he
had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that
the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind
him a momentary silence.
"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a little
gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first
sight.
"I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently.
"What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!"
For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of
his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend,
Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his
trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was it
suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute
he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had
brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy.
"Who is he?" asked Billie. "He seemed to know you? And who," she
demanded after a slight pause, "is Miss Milliken?"
Sam drew a deep breath.
"It's rather a sad story," he said. "His name is John Peters. He used
to be clerk here."
"But isn't he any longer?"
"No." Sam shook his head. "We had to get rid of him."
"I don't wonder. A man looking like that...."
"It wasn't that so much," said Sam. "The thing that annoyed father was
that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken."
Billie uttered a cry of horror!
"He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!"
"He did shoot her--the third time," said Sam warming to his work. "Only
in the arm, fortunately," he added. "But my father is rather a stern
disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn't keep him after
that."
"Good gracious!"
"She used to be my father's stenographer, and she was thrown a good
deal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with
her. She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair.
Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given
him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day
that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his
onion--I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he
concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his
condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that ... well, as I
say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk.
Still, it wouldn't do. It wasn't only that he tried to shoot Miss
Milliken. That wouldn't have mattered so much, as she left after he had
made his third attempt, and got married. But the thing became an
obsession with him, and we found that he had a fixed idea that every
red-haired woman who came into the office was the girl who had deceived
him. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so fashionable
nowadays."
"My hair is red!" whispered Billie pallidly.
"Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as
Miss Milliken's. It's rather fortunate that I happened to be here with
you when he came."
"But he may be lurking out there still!"
"I expect he is," said Sam carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is. Would you
like me to go and send him away? All right."
"But--but is it safe?"
Sam uttered a light laugh.
"I don't mind taking a risk or two for your sake," he said, and
sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed
him with worshipping eyes.
Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself
for more comfortable perusal of the copy of _Home Whispers_ which
he had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being
too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the
series of chats with Young Mothers.
"Hullo, Peters," said Sam. "Want anything?"
"Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say
good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up
all the week. I have to go down to the country to get some final
instructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over.
I'm sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel."
"Yes, this is his golf day, I'll tell him you looked in."
"Is there anything I can do before I go?"
"Do?"
"Well--"--Jno. Peters coughed tactfully--"I see that you are engaged
with a client, Mr. Samuel, and was wondering if any little point of law
had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable of
coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance."
"Oh, that lady," said Sam. "That was Miss Milliken's sister."
"Indeed? I didn't know Miss Milliken had a sister."
"No?" said Sam.
"She is not very like her in appearance."
"No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright,
intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you
came in, and she was most interested. It's a pity you haven't got it
with you now, to show to her."
"Oh, but I have! I have, Mr. Samuel!" said Peters, opening a small
handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a
tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. "I was on my way
to the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to
show it to her."
"Well, wait here a minute or two," said Sam, "I'll have finished
talking business in a moment."
He returned to the inner office.
"Well?" cried Billie.
"Eh? Oh, he's gone," said Sam. "I persuaded him to go away. He was a
little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were
talking about. You say...." He broke off with an exclamation, and
glanced at his watch. "Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I
promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next
court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with
one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you
spare me for a short while? I shan't be more than ten minutes."
"Certainly."
"Here is something you may care to look at while I'm gone. I don't know
if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting."
He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from his _Home Whispers_.
"You can go in now," said Sam.
"Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly."
Sam took up the copy of _Home Whispers_, and sat down with his
feet on the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the
synopsis.
In the inner room, Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment
offered by Widgery, and was engaged in making a tour of the office,
looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be
the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows and Applebys mentioned on the
contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back.
She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously.
Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of
repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one
of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling,
a cruel, cunning smile--at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters
himself was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a
benevolent simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen
outside a motion picture studio.
"How do you do, Miss Milliken?" he said.