“Bobbie,” I said. My feet were freezing, but I was fond of him.
“Well?”
“I’ve remembered something too. It’s this. The day you went to the
Coliseum I lunched with you both at the Ritz. You had forgotten to
bring any money with you, so you wrote a cheque.”
“But I’m always writing cheques.”
“You are. But this was for a tenner, and made out to the hotel. Hunt up
your cheque-book and see how many cheques for ten pounds payable to the
Ritz Hotel you wrote out between May the fifth and May the tenth.”
He gave a kind of gulp.
“Reggie,” he said, “you’re a genius. I’ve always said so. I believe
you’ve got it. Hold the line.”
Presently he came back again.
“Halloa!” he said.
“I’m here,” I said.
“It was the eighth. Reggie, old man, I——”
“Topping,” I said. “Good night.”
It was working along into the small hours now, but I thought I might as
well make a night of it and finish the thing up, so I rang up an hotel
near the Strand.
“Put me through to Mrs. Cardew,” I said.
“It’s late,” said the man at the other end.
“And getting later every minute,” I said. “Buck along, laddie.”
I waited patiently. I had missed my beauty-sleep, and my feet had
frozen hard, but I was past regrets.
“What is the matter?” said Mary’s voice.
“My feet are cold,” I said. “But I didn’t call you up to tell you that
particularly. I’ve just been chatting with Bobbie, Mrs. Cardew.”
“Oh! is that Mr. Pepper?”
“Yes. He’s remembered it, Mrs. Cardew.”
She gave a sort of scream. I’ve often thought how interesting it must
be to be one of those Exchange girls. The things they must hear, don’t
you know. Bobbie’s howl and gulp and Mrs. Bobbie’s scream and all about
my feet and all that. Most interesting it must be.
“He’s remembered it!” she gasped. “Did you tell him?”
“No.”
Well, I hadn’t.
“Mr. Pepper.”
“Yes?”
“Was he—has he been—was he very worried?”
I chuckled. This was where I was billed to be the life and soul of the
party.
“Worried! He was about the most worried man between here and Edinburgh.
He has been worrying as if he was paid to do it by the nation. He has
started out to worry after breakfast, and——”
Oh, well, you can never tell with women. My idea was that we should
pass the rest of the night slapping each other on the back across the
wire, and telling each other what bally brainy conspirators we were,
don’t you know, and all that. But I’d got just as far as this, when she
bit at me. Absolutely! I heard the snap. And then she said “Oh!” in
that choked kind of way. And when a woman says “Oh!” like that, it
means all the bad words she’d love to say if she only knew them.
And then she began.
“What brutes men are! What horrid brutes! How you could stand by and
see poor dear Bobbie worrying himself into a fever, when a word from
you would have put everything right, I can’t——”
“But——”
“And you call yourself his friend! His friend!” (Metallic laugh, most
unpleasant.) “It shows how one can be deceived. I used to think you a
kind-hearted man.”
“But, I say, when I suggested the thing, you thought it perfectly——”
“I thought it hateful, abominable.”
“But you said it was absolutely top——”
“I said nothing of the kind. And if I did, I didn’t mean it. I don’t
wish to be unjust, Mr. Pepper, but I must say that to me there seems to
be something positively fiendish in a man who can go out of his way to
separate a husband from his wife, simply in order to amuse himself by
gloating over his agony——”
“But——!”
“When one single word would have——”
“But you made me promise not to——” I bleated.
“And if I did, do you suppose I didn’t expect you to have the sense to
break your promise?”
I had finished. I had no further observations to make. I hung up the
receiver, and crawled into bed.
I still see Bobbie when he comes to the club, but I do not visit the
old homestead. He is friendly, but he stops short of issuing
invitations. I ran across Mary at the Academy last week, and her eyes
went through me like a couple of bullets through a pat of butter. And
as they came out the other side, and I limped off to piece myself
together again, there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I
am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this:
“He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every
minute.”