IV

The drawing-room was about twice as large as the dining-room, and it

contained about four times as much furniture. Once again there were

books all round the walls. A grand piano, covered with music, stood in

a corner, and behind was a cabinet full of bound music.

Mr Brindley, seated on one corner of the bench in front of the piano,

cut the leaves of the Sinfonia Domestica.

'It's the devil!' he observed.

'Aye, lad!' agreed Mr Colclough, standing over him. 'It's difficult.'

'Come on,' said Mr. Brindley, when he had finished cutting.

'Better take your dust-coat off, hadn't you?' Mrs Brindley suggested to

the friend. She and I were side by side on a sofa at the other end of

the room.

'I may as well,' Mr Colclough admitted, and threw the long garment on

to a chair. 'Look here, Bob, my hands are stiff with steering.'

'Don't find fault with your tools,' said Mr Brindley; 'and sit down.

No, my boy, I'm going to play the top part. Shove along.'

'I want to play the top part because it's easiest,' Mr Colclough

grumbled.

'How often have I told you the top part is never easiest? Who do you

suppose is going to keep this symphony together--you or me?'

'Sorry I spoke.'

They arranged themselves on the bench, and Mr Brindley turned up the

lower corners of every alternate leaf of the music.

'Now,' said he. 'Ready?'

'Let her zip,' said Mr Colclough.

They began to play. And then the door opened, and a servant, whose

white apron was starched as stiff as cardboard, came in carrying a tray

of coffee and unholy liqueurs, which she deposited with a rattle on a

small table near the hostess.

'Curse!' muttered Mr Brindley, and stopped.

'Life's very complex, ain't it, Bob?' Mr Colclough murmured.

'Aye, lad.' The host glanced round to make sure that the rattling

servant had entirely gone. 'Now start again.'

'Wait a minute, wait a minute!' cried Mrs Brindley excitedly. 'I'm just

pouring out Mr Loring's coffee. There!' As she handed me the cup she

whispered, 'We daren't talk. It's more than our place is worth.'

The performance of the symphony proceeded. To me, who am not a

performer, it sounded excessively brilliant and incomprehensible. Mr

Colclough stretched his right hand to turn over the page, and fumbled

it. Another stoppage.

'Damn you, Ol!' Mr Brindley exploded. 'I wish you wouldn't make

yourself so confoundedly busy. Leave the turning to me. It takes a

great artist to turn over, and you're only a blooming chauffeur. We'll

begin again.'

'Sackcloth!' Mr Colclough whispered.

I could not estimate the length of the symphony; but my impression was

one of extreme length. Halfway through it the players both took their

coats off. There was no other surcease.

'What dost think of it, Bob?' asked Mr Colclough in the weird silence

that reigned after they had finished. They were standing up and putting

on their coats and wiping their faces.

'I think what I thought before,' said Mr Brindley. 'It's childish.'

'It isn't childish,' the other protested. 'It's ugly, but it isn't

childish.'

'It's childishly clever,' Mr Brindley modified his description. He did

not ask my opinion.

'Coffee's cold,' said Mrs Brindley.

'I don't want any coffee. Give me some Chartreuse, please. Have a drop

o' green, Ol?'

'A split soda 'ud be more in my line. Besides, I'm just going to have

my supper. Never mind, I'll have a drop, missis, and chance it. I've

never tried Chartreuse as an appetizer.'

At this point commenced a sanguinary conflict of wills to settle

whether or not I also should indulge in green Chartreuse. I was

defeated. Besides the Chartreuse, I accepted a cigar. Never before or

since have I been such a buck.

'I must hook it,' said Mr Colclough, picking up his dust-coat.

'Not yet you don't,' said Mr Brindley. 'I've got to get the taste of

that infernal Strauss out of my mouth. We'll play the first movement of

the G minor? La-la-la--la-la-la--la-la-la-ta.' He whistled a phrase.

Mr Colclough obediently sat down again to the piano.

The Mozart was like an idyll after a farcical melodrama. They played it

with an astounding delicacy. Through the latter half of the movement I

could hear Mr Brindley breathing regularly and heavily through his

nose, exactly as though he were being hypnotized. I had a tickling

sensation in the small of my back, a sure sign of emotion in me. The

atmosphere was changed.

'What a heavenly thing!' I exclaimed enthusiastically, when they had

finished.

Mr Brindley looked at me sharply, and just nodded in silence. Well,

good night, Ol.'

'I say,' said Mr Colclough; 'if you've nothing doing later on, bring Mr

Loring round to my place. Will you come, Mr Loring? Do! Us'll have a

drink.'

These Five Towns people certainly had a simple, sincere way of offering

hospitality that was quite irresistible. One could see that hospitality

was among their chief and keenest pleasures.

We all went to the front door to see Mr Colclough depart homewards in

his automobile. The two great acetylene head-lights sent long glaring

shafts of light down the side street. Mr Colclough, throwing the score

of the Sinfonia Domestica into the tonneau of the immense car, put on a

pair of gloves and began to circulate round the machine, tapping here,

screwing there, as chauffeurs will. Then he bent down in front to start

the engine.

'By the way, Ol,' Mr Brindley shouted from the doorway, 'it seems Simon

Fuge is dead.'

We could see the man's stooping form between the two head-lights. He

turned his head towards the house.

'Who the dagger is Simon Fuge?' he inquired. 'There's about five

thousand Fuges in th' Five Towns.'

'Oh! I thought you knew him.'

'I might, and I mightn't. It's not one o' them Fuge brothers

saggar-makers at Longshaw, is it?'

'No, It's--'

Mr Colclough had succeeded in starting his engine, and the air was rent

with gun-shots. He jumped lightly into the driver's seat.

'Well, see you later,' he cried, and was off, persuading the enormous

beast under him to describe a semicircle in the narrow street backing,

forcing forward, and backing again, to the accompaniment of the

continuous fusillade. At length he got away, drew up within two feet of

an electric tram that slid bumping down the main street, and vanished

round the corner. A little ragged boy passed, crying, 'Signal, extra,'

and Mr Brindley hailed him.

'What IS Mr Colclough?' I asked in the drawing-room.

'Manufacturer--sanitary ware,' said Mr Brindley. 'He's got one of the

best businesses in Hanbridge. I wish I'd half his income. Never buys a

book, you know.'

'He seems to play the piano very well.'

'Well, as to that, he doesn't what you may call PLAY, but he's the best

sight-reader in this district, bar me. I never met his equal. When you

come across any one who can read a thing like the Domestic Symphony

right off and never miss his place, you might send me a telegram.

Colclough's got a Steinway. Wish I had.'

Mrs Brindley had been looking through the Signal.

'I don't see anything about Simon Fuge here,' said she.

'Oh, nonsense!' said her husband. 'Buchanan's sure to have got

something in about it. Let's look.'

He received the paper from his wife, but failed to discover in it a

word concerning the death of Simon Fuge.

'Dashed if I don't ring Buchanan up and ask him what he means! Here's a

paper with an absolute monopoly in the district, and brings in about

five thousand a year clear to somebody, and it doesn't give the news!

There never is anything but advertisements and sporting results in the

blessed thing.'

He rushed to his telephone, which was in the hall. Or rather, he did

not rush; he went extremely quickly, with aggressive footsteps that

seemed to symbolize just retribution. We could hear him at the

telephone.

'Hello! No. Yes. Is that you, Buchanan? Well, I want Mr Buchanan. Is

that you, Buchanan? Yes, I'm all right. What in thunder do you mean by

having nothing in tonight about Simon Fuge's death? Eh? Yes, the

Gazette. Well, I suppose you aren't Scotch for nothing. Why the devil

couldn't you stop in Scotland and edit papers there?' Then a laugh. 'I

see. Yes. What did you think of those cigars? Oh! See you at the

dinner. Ta-ta.' A final ring.

'The real truth is, he wanted some advice as to the tone of his

obituary notice,' said Mr Brindley, coming back into the drawing-room.

'He's got it, seemingly. He says he's writing it now, for tomorrow. He

didn't put in the mere news of the death, because it was exclusive to

the Gazette, and he's been having some difficulty with the Gazette

lately. As he says, tomorrow afternoon will be quite soon enough for

the Five Towns. It isn't as if Simon Fuge was a cricket match. So now

you see how the wheels go round, Mr Loring.'

He sat down to the piano and began to play softly the Castle motive

from the Nibelung's Ring. He kept repeating it in different keys.

'What about the mumps, wife?' he asked Mrs Brindley, who had been out

of the room and now returned.

'Oh! I don't think it is mumps,' she replied. 'They're all asleep.'

'Good!' he murmured, still playing the Castle motive.

'Talking of Simon Fuge,' I said determined to satisfy my curiosity,

'who WERE the two sisters?'

'What two sisters?'

'That he spent the night in the boat with, on Ilam Lake.'

'Was that in the Gazette? I didn't read all the article.'

He changed abruptly into the Sword motive, which he gave with a violent

flourish, and then he left the piano. 'I do beg you not to wake my

children,' said his wife.

'Your children must get used to my piano,' said he. 'Now, then, what

about these two sisters?'

I pulled the Gazette from my pocket and handed it to him. He read aloud

the passage describing the magic night on the lake.

'_I_ don't know who they were,' he said. 'Probably something tasty from

the Hanbridge Empire.'

We both observed a faint, amused smile on the face of Mrs Brindley, the

smile of a woman who has suddenly discovered in her brain a piece of

knowledge rare and piquant.

'I can guess who they were,' she said. 'In fact, I'm sure.'

'Who?'

'Annie Brett and--you know who.'

'What, down at the Tiger?'

'Certainly. Hush!' Mrs Brindley ran to the door and, opening it,

listened. The faint, fretful cry of a child reached us. 'There! You've

done it! I told you you would!'

She disappeared. Mr Brindley whistled.

'And who is Annie Brett?' I inquired.

'Look here,' said he, with a peculiar inflection. 'Would you like to

see her?'

'I should,' I said with decision.

'Well, come on, then. We'll go down to the Tiger and have a drop of

something.'

'And the other sister?' I asked.

'The other sister is Mrs Oliver Colclough,' he answered. 'Curious,

ain't it?'

Again there was that swift, scarcely perceptible phenomenon in his eyes.

V

We stood at the corner of the side-street and the main road, and down

the main road a vast, white rectangular cube of bright light came

plunging--its head rising and dipping--at express speed, and with a

formidable roar. Mr Brindley imperiously raised his stick; the

extraordinary box of light stopped as if by a miracle, and we jumped

into it, having splashed through mud, and it plunged off again--bump,

bump, bump--into the town of Bursley. As Mr Brindley passed into the

interior of the car, he said laconically to two men who were smoking on

the platform--

'How do, Jim? How do, Jo?'