MR. SAFFRON AT HOME
To put it plainly, Sergeant Hooper--he had been a sergeant for a brief
and precarious three weeks, but he used the title in civil life whenever
he safely could--and he could at Inkston--Sergeant Hooper was a
villainous-looking dog. Beaumaroy, fresh from the comely presences of
Old Place, unconscious of how the General had ripped up his character
and record, pleasantly nursing a little project concerning Dr. Mary
Arkroyd, had never been more forcibly struck with his protege's
ill-favouredness than when he arrived home on this same evening, and the
Sergeant met him at the door.
"By Gad, Sergeant," he observed pleasantly, "I don't think anybody could
be such a rascal as you look. It's that faith that carries me through."
The Sergeant helped him off with his coat. "It's some people's
stock-in-trade," he remarked, "not to look a rascal like they really
are, sir." The "sir" stuck--out of pure habit; it carried no real
implication of respect.
"Meaning me!" laughed Beaumaroy. "How is the old man to-night?"
"Quiet enough. He's in the Tower there--been there an hour or more."
The cottage door opened on to a narrow passage, with a staircase on one
side, and on the other a door leading to a small square parlour,
cheerfully if cheaply furnished, and well lit by an oil lamp. A fire
blazed on the hearth, and Beaumaroy sank into a "saddle-bag" arm-chair
beside it, with a sigh of comfort. The Sergeant had jerked his head
towards another door, on the right of the fireplace; it led to the
Tower. Beaumaroy's eyes settled on it.
"An hour or more, has he? Have you heard anything?"
"He was making a speech a little while back, that's all."
"No more complaints of palpitations, or anything of that sort?"
"Not as I've heard. But he never says much to me. Mrs. Wiles gets the
benefit of his symptoms mostly."
"You're not sympathetic, perhaps."
During the talk Hooper had been to a cupboard and mixed a glass of
whisky and soda. He brought it to Beaumaroy and put it on a small table
by him. Beaumaroy regarded his squat paunchy figure, red face, small
eyes (a squint in one of them), and bulbous nose with a patient and
benign toleration.
"Since you can't expect, Sergeant, to prepossess the Judge and Jury in
your favour, the instant you make your appearance in the box----"
"Here, what are you on to, sir?"
"It's the more important for you to have it clearly in your mind that we
are labouring in the cause of humanity, freedom, and justice. Exactly
like the Allies in the late war, you know, Sergeant. Keep that in your
mind--clinch it! He hasn't wanted you to do anything particular
to-night--or asked for me?"
"No, sir. He's happy with--with what you call his playthings."
"What are they but playthings?" asked Beaumaroy, tilting his glass to
his lips with a smile perhaps a little wry.
"Only I wish as you wouldn't talk about judges and juries," the Sergeant
complained.
"I really don't know whether it's a civil or a criminal matter, or both,
or neither," Beaumaroy admitted candidly. "But what we do know,
Sergeant, is that it provides us with excellent billets and rations.
Moreover--a thing that you certainly will not appreciate--it gratifies
my taste for the mysterious."
"I hope there's a bit more coming from it than that," said the
Sergeant. "That is, if we stick together faithful, sir."
"Oh, we shall! One thing puzzles me about you, Sergeant. I don't think
I've mentioned it before. Sometimes you speak almost like an educated
man; at others your speech is--well, illiterate."
"Well, sir, it's a sort of mixture of my mother--she was class--the
blighter who come after my father, and the board school----"
"Of course! What they call the educational ladder! That explains it. By
the way, I'm thinking of changing our doctor."
"Good job too. I 'ate that Irechester. Stares at you, that chap does."
"Does he stare at your eyes?" asked Beaumaroy thoughtfully.
"I don't know that he does at _my_ eyes particularly. Nothing wrong with
'em, is there?" The Sergeant sounded rather truculent.
"Never mind that; but I fancied he stared at Mr. Saffron's. And I've
read somewhere, in some book or other, that doctors can tell, or guess,
by the eyes----Well, that's only an idea. How does a lady doctor appeal
to you, Sergeant?"
"I should be shy," said the Sergeant, grinning.
"Vulgar! Vulgar!" Beaumaroy murmured.
"That Dr. Mary Arkroyd?"
"I had thought of her."
"She ought to be fair easy to kid. You 'ave notions sometimes, sir."
Beaumaroy stretched out his legs--debonnair, well-rounded legs--to the
seducing blaze of oak logs.
"I haven't really a care in the world," he said.
The Sergeant's reply--or comment--had a disconcerting ring. "And you're
sure of 'eaven? That's what the bloke always says to the 'angman."
"I've no intention of being a murderer, Sergeant." Beaumaroy's eyebrows
were raised in gentle protest.
"Once you're in with a job, you never know," his retainer observed
darkly.
Beaumaroy laughed. "Oh, go to the devil!--and mix me another whisky."
Yet a vague uneasiness showed itself on his face; he looked across the
room at the evil-shaped man handling the bottles in the cupboard. He
made one queer restless movement of his arms--as though to free himself.
Then, in a moment, he sprang from his chair, a glad kindly smile
illuminating his face; he bowed in a very courtly fashion, exclaiming,
"Ah, here you are, sir? And all well, I hope?"
Mr. Saffron had entered from the door leading to the Tower, carefully
closing it after him. Hooper's hand went up to his forehead in the ghost
of a military salute, but a sneering smile persisted on his lips. The
only notice Mr. Saffron took of him was a jerk of the head towards the
passage, an abrupt and ungracious dismissal, which, however, the
Sergeant silently accepted and stumped out. The greeting reserved for
Beaumaroy was vastly different. Beaumaroy's own cordiality was more than
reciprocated. It seemed impossible to doubt that a genuine affection
existed between the elder and the younger man, though the latter had not
thought fit to mention the fact to Sergeant Hooper.
"A tiring day, my dear Hector, very tiring. I've transacted a lot of
business. But never mind that, it will keep. What of your doings?"
Having sat the old man in the big chair by the fire, Beaumaroy sauntered
across to the door of the Tower, locked it, and put the key in his
pocket. Then he returned to the fire, and, standing in front of it, gave
a lively and detailed account of his visit to Old Place.
"They appear to be pleasant people, very pleasant. I should like to know
them, if it was not desirable for me to live an entirely secluded life."
Mr. Saffron's speech was very distinct and clean-cut, rather rapid, high
in tone, but not disagreeable. "You make pure fun of this Miss Wall, as
you do of so many things, Hector, but----" he smiled up at
Beaumaroy--"inquisitiveness is not our favourite sin just now!"
"She's so indiscriminately inquisitive that it's a thousand to one
against her really finding out anything of importance, sir." Beaumaroy
sometimes addressed his employer as "Mr. Saffron," but much more
commonly he used the respectful "sir." "I think I'm equal to putting
Miss Delia Wall off."
"Still she noticed our weekly journeys!"
"Half Inkston goes to town every day, sir--and the rest three times,
twice, or once a week. I called her particular attention to the bag, and
told her it was for books from Mudie's!"
"Positive statements like that are a mistake." Mr. Saffron spoke with a
sudden sharpness, in pointed rebuke. "If I form a right idea of that
woman, she's quite capable of going to Mudie's to ask about us."
"By Jove, you're right, sir, and I was wrong. We'd better go and take
out a subscription to-morrow; she'll hardly go so far as to ask the date
we started it."
"Yes, let that be done. And--remember--no unnecessary talk." His tone
grew milder, as though he were mollified by Beaumaroy's ready submission
to his reproof. "We have some places to call at to-morrow, have we?"
"They said they'd have some useful addresses ready for us, sir. I'm
afraid, though, that we're exhausting the most obvious sources."
"Still, I hope for a few more good consignments. I suppose you remain
confident that the Sergeant has no suspicions as regards that particular
aspect of the matter?"
"I'm sure of it--up to the present. Of course there might be an
accident, but with him and Mrs. Wiles both off the premises at night,
it's hardly likely; and I never let the bag out of my sight while it's
in the room with them--hardly out of my hand."
"I should like to trust him, but it's hardly fair to put such a strain
on his loyalty."
"Much safer not, sir, as long as we're not driven to it. After all,
though I believe the fellow is out to redeem his character, his isn't an
unblemished record."
"But the work--the physical labour--entailed on you, Hector!"
"Make yourself easy about that, sir. I'm as strong as a horse. The
work's good for me. Remember I've had four years' service."
Mr. Saffron smiled pensively. "It would have been funny if we'd
met--over there, you and I!"
"It would, sir," laughed Beaumaroy. "But that could hardly have happened
without some very curious accident."
The old man harked back. "Yes, a few more good consignments, and we can
think in earnest of your start." He was warming his hands--thin
yellowish hands--at the fire now, and his gaze was directed into it.
Looking down on him, Beaumaroy allowed a smile to appear on his lips--a
queer smile, which seemed to be compounded of affection, pity, and
amusement.
"The difficulties there remain considerable for the present," he
remarked.
"They must be overcome." Once again the old man's voice became sharp and
even dictatorial.
"They shall be, sir--depend on it." Beaumaroy's air was suddenly
confident, almost braggart. Mr. Saffron nodded approvingly. "But,
anyhow, I can't very well start till favourable news comes from----"
"Hush!" There was a knock on the door.
"Mrs. Wiles--to lay the table, I suppose."
"Yes! Come in!" He added hastily to Beaumaroy, in an undertone, "Yes, we
must wait for that."
Mrs. Wiles entered as he spoke. She was a colourless, negative kind of a
woman, fair, fat, flabby, and forty or thereabouts. She had been the
ill-used slave of a local carpenter, now deceased by reason of
over-drinking; her nature was to be the slave of the nearest male
creature, not from affection (her affections were anaemic), but rather,
as it seemed, from an instinctive desire to shuffle off from herself
any responsibility. But at all events she was entirely free from Miss
Delia Wall's proclivity.
Mr. Saffron rose. "I'll go and wash my hands. We'll dine just as we are,
Hector." Beaumaroy opened the door for him; he acknowledged the
attention with a little nod, and passed out to the staircase in the
narrow passage. Beaumaroy appeared to consider himself absolved from any
preparations, for he returned to the big chair and, sinking into it, lit
another cigarette. Meanwhile Mrs. Wiles laid the table, and presently
Sergeant Hooper appeared with a bottle of golden-tinted wine.
"That, at least, is the real stuff," thought Beaumaroy, as he eyed it in
pleasurable anticipation. "Where the dear old man got it, I don't know;
but in itself it's almost worth all the racket."
And really, in its present stages, so far as its present developments
went, the "racket" pleased him. It amused his active brain, besides (as
he had said to Mr. Saffron) exercising his active body, though certainly
in a rather grotesque and bizarre fashion. The attraction of it went
deeper than that. It appealed to some of those tendencies and impulses
of his character which had earned such heavy censure from Major-General
Punnit and had produced so grave an expression on Captain Alec's
handsome face--without, however, being, even in that officer's exacting
judgment, disgraceful. And, finally, there was the lure of unexplored
possibilities--not only material and external, but psychological; not
only touching what others might do or what might happen to them, but
raising also speculation as to what he might do, or what might happen to
him at his own hands; for example, how far he would flout authority,
defy the usual, and deny the accepted. The love of rebellion, of making
foolish the wisdom of the wise, of hampering the orderly and inexorable
treatment of people just as, according to the best modern lights, they
ought to be treated--this lawless love was strong in Beaumaroy. Not as a
principle; it was the stronger for being an instinct, a wayward instinct
that might carry him--he scarce knew where.
Mr. Saffron came back, greeted again by Beaumaroy's courtly bow and
Hooper's vaguely reminiscent but slovenly military salute. The pair sat
down to a homely beefsteak; but the golden-tinted wine gurgled into
their glasses. But, before they fell to, there was a little incident. A
sudden, but fierce, anger seized old Mr. Saffron. In his harshest tones
he rapped out at the Sergeant, "My knife! You careless scoundrel, you
haven't given me my knife!"
Beaumaroy sprang to his feet with a muttered exclamation: "It's all my
fault, sir. I forgot to give it to Hooper. I always lock it up when I
go out." He went to a little oak sideboard and unlocked a drawer, then
came back to Mr. Saffron's side. "Here it is, and I humbly apologize."
"Very good! Very good!" said the old man testily, as he took the
implement.
"Ain't anybody going to apologize to me?" asked Hooper, scowling.
"Oh, get out, Sergeant!" said Beaumaroy good-naturedly. "We can't bother
about your finer feelings." He glanced anxiously at Mr. Saffron. "All
right now, aren't you, sir?" he inquired.
Mr. Saffron drank his glass of wine. "I am perhaps too sensitive to any
kind of inattention; but it's not wholly unnatural in my position,
Hector."
"We both desire to be attentive and respectful, sir. Don't we, Hooper?"
"Oh my, yes!" grinned the Sergeant, showing his very ugly teeth. "It's
only owing that we 'aven't quite been brought up in royal pallises."