SALVATORE CHOOSES THE WRONG MOMENT
Archie reclaimed the family jewellery from its temporary home next
morning; and, having done so, sauntered back to the Cosmopolis. He was
surprised, on entering the lobby, to meet his father-in-law. More
surprising still, Mr. Brewster was manifestly in a mood of
extraordinary geniality. Archie could hardly believe his eyes when the
other waved cheerily to him—nor his ears a moment later when Mr.
Brewster, addressing him as “my boy,” asked him how he was and
mentioned that the day was a warm one.
Obviously this jovial frame of mind must be taken advantage of; and
Archie’s first thought was of the downtrodden Salvatore, to the tale of
whose wrongs he had listened so sympathetically on the previous day.
Now was plainly the moment for the waiter to submit his grievance,
before some ebb-tide caused the milk of human kindness to flow out of
Daniel Brewster. With a swift “Cheerio!” in his father-in-law’s
direction, Archie bounded into the grill-room. Salvatore, the hour for
luncheon being imminent but not yet having arrived, was standing
against the far wall in an attitude of thought.
“Laddie!” cried Archie.
“Sare?”
“A most extraordinary thing has happened. Good old Brewster has
suddenly popped up through a trap and is out in the lobby now. And
what’s still more weird, he’s apparently bucked.”
“Sare?”
“Braced, you know. In the pink. Pleased about something. If you go to
him now with that yarn of yours, you can’t fail. He’ll kiss you on both
cheeks and give you his bank-roll and collar-stud. Charge along and ask
the head-waiter if you can have ten minutes off.”
Salvatore vanished in search of the potentate named, and Archie
returned to the lobby to bask in the unwonted sunshine.
“Well, well, well, what!” he said. “I thought you were at Brookport.”
“I came up this morning to meet a friend of mine,” replied Mr. Brewster
genially. “Professor Binstead.”
“Don’t think I know him.”
“Very interesting man,” said Mr. Brewster, still with the same uncanny
amiability. “He’s a dabbler in a good many things—science, phrenology,
antiques. I asked him to bid for me at a sale yesterday. There was a
little china figure—”
Archie’s jaw fell.
“China figure?” he stammered feebly.
“Yes. The companion to one you may have noticed on my mantelpiece
upstairs. I have been trying to get the pair of them for years. I
should never have heard of this one if it had not been for that valet
of mine, Parker. Very good of him to let me know of it, considering I
had fired him. Ah, here is Binstead.”—He moved to greet the small,
middle-aged man with the tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles who was
bustling across the lobby.—“Well, Binstead, so you got it?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose the price wasn’t particularly stiff?”
“Twenty-three hundred.”
“Twenty-three hundred!” Mr. Brewster seemed to reel in his tracks.
“Twenty-three _hundred!_”
“You gave me carte blanche.”
“Yes, but twenty-three hundred!”
“I could have got it for a few dollars, but unfortunately I was a
little late, and, when I arrived, some young fool had bid it up to a
thousand, and he stuck to me till I finally shook him off at
twenty-three hundred. Why, this is the very man! Is he a friend of
yours?”
Archie coughed.
“More a relation than a friend, what? Son-in-law, don’t you know!”
Mr. Brewster’s amiability had vanished.
“What damned foolery have you been up to _now?_” he demanded. “Can’t I
move a step without stubbing my toe on you? Why the devil did you bid?”
“We thought it would be rather a fruity scheme. We talked it over and
came to the conclusion that it was an egg. Wanted to get hold of the
rummy little object, don’t you know, and surprise you.”
“Who’s we?”
“Lucille and I.”
“But how did you hear of it at all?”
“Parker, the valet-chappie, you know, wrote me a letter about it.”
“Parker! Didn’t he tell you that he had told me the figure was to be
sold?”
“Absolutely not!” A sudden suspicion came to Archie. He was normally a
guileless young man, but even to him the extreme fishiness of the part
played by Herbert Parker had become apparent. “I say, you know, it
looks to me as if friend Parker had been having us all on a bit, what?
I mean to say it was jolly old Herb, who tipped your son off—Bill, you
know—to go and bid for the thing.”
“Bill! Was Bill there?”
“Absolutely in person! We were bidding against each other like the
dickens till we managed to get together and get acquainted. And then
this bird—this gentleman—sailed in and started to slip it across us.”
Professor Binstead chuckled—the care-free chuckle of a man who sees all
those around him smitten in the pocket, while he himself remains
untouched.
“A very ingenious rogue, this Parker of yours, Brewster. His method
seems to have been simple but masterly. I have no doubt that either he
or a confederate obtained the figure and placed it with the auctioneer,
and then he ensured a good price for it by getting us all to bid
against each other. Very ingenious!”
Mr. Brewster struggled with his feelings. Then he seemed to overcome
them and to force himself to look on the bright side.
“Well, anyway,” he said. “I’ve got the pair of figures, and that’s what
I wanted. Is that it in that parcel?”
“This is it. I wouldn’t trust an express company to deliver it. Suppose
we go up to your room and see how the two look side by side.”
They crossed the lobby to the lift.-The cloud was still on Mr.
Brewster’s brow as they stepped out and made their way to his suite.
Like most men who have risen from poverty to wealth by their own
exertions, Mr. Brewster objected to parting with his money
unnecessarily, and it was plain that that twenty-three hundred dollars
still rankled.
Mr. Brewster unlocked the door and crossed the room. Then, suddenly, he
halted, stared, and stared again. He sprang to the bell and pressed it,
then stood gurgling wordlessly.
“Anything wrong, old bean?” queried Archie, solicitously.
“Wrong! Wrong! It’s gone!”
“Gone?”
“The figure!”
The floor-waiter had manifested himself silently in answer to the bell,
and was standing in the doorway.
“Simmons!” Mr. Brewster turned to him wildly. “Has anyone been in this
suite since I went away?”
“No, sir.”
“Nobody?”
“Nobody except your valet, sir—Parker. He said he had come to fetch
some things away. I supposed he had come from you, sir, with
instructions.”
“Get out!”
Professor Binstead had unwrapped his parcel, and had placed the Pongo
on the table. There was a weighty silence. Archie picked up the little
china figure and balanced it on the palm of his hand. It was a small
thing, he reflected philosophically, but it had made quite a stir in
the world.
Mr. Brewster fermented for a while without speaking.
“So,” he said, at last, in a voice trembling with self-pity, “I have
been to all this trouble—”
“And expense,” put in Professor Binstead, gently.
“Merely to buy back something which had been stolen from me! And, owing
to your damned officiousness,” he cried, turning on Archie, “I have had
to pay twenty-three hundred dollars for it! I don’t know why they make
such a fuss about Job. Job never had anything like you around!”
“Of course,” argued Archie, “he had one or two boils.”
“Boils! What are boils?”
“Dashed sorry,” murmured Archie. “Acted for the best. Meant well. And
all that sort of rot!”
Professor Binstead’s mind seemed occupied to the exclusion of all other
aspects of the affair, with the ingenuity of the absent Parker.
“A cunning scheme!” he said. “A very cunning scheme! This man Parker
must have a brain of no low order. I should like to feel his bumps!”
“I should like to give him some!” said the stricken Mr. Brewster. He
breathed a deep breath. “Oh, well,” he said, “situated as I am, with a
crook valet and an imbecile son-in-law, I suppose I ought to be
thankful that I’ve still got my own property, even if I have had to pay
twenty-three hundred dollars for the privilege of keeping it.” He
rounded on Archie, who was in a reverie. The thought of the unfortunate
Bill had just crossed Archie’s mind. It would be many moons, many weary
moons, before Mr. Brewster would be in a suitable mood to listen
sympathetically to the story of love’s young dream. “Give me that
figure!”
Archie continued to toy absently with Pongo. He was wondering now how
best to break this sad occurrence to Lucille. It would be a
disappointment for the poor girl.
“_Give me that figure!_”
Archie started violently. There was an instant in which Pongo seemed to
hang suspended, like Mohammed’s coffin, between heaven and earth, then
the force of gravity asserted itself. Pongo fell with a sharp crack and
disintegrated. And as it did so there was a knock at the door, and in
walked a dark, furtive person, who to the inflamed vision of Mr. Daniel
Brewster looked like something connected with the executive staff of
the Black Hand. With all time at his disposal, the unfortunate
Salvatore had selected this moment for stating his case.
“Get out!” bellowed Mr. Brewster. “I didn’t ring for a waiter.”
Archie, his mind reeling beneath the catastrophe, recovered himself
sufficiently to do the honours. It was at his instigation that
Salvatore was there, and, greatly as he wished that he could have seen
fit to choose a more auspicious moment for his business chat, he felt
compelled to do his best to see him through.
“Oh, I say, half a second,” he said. “You don’t quite understand. As a
matter of fact, this chappie is by way of being downtrodden and
oppressed and what not, and I suggested that he should get hold of you
and speak a few well-chosen words. Of course, if you’d rather—some
other time—”
But Mr. Brewster was not permitted to postpone the interview. Before he
could get his breath, Salvatore had begun to talk. He was a strong,
ambidextrous talker, whom it was hard to interrupt; and it was not for
some moments that Mr. Brewster succeeded in getting a word in. When he
did, he spoke to the point. Though not a linguist, he had been able to
follow the discourse closely enough to realise that the waiter was
dissatisfied with conditions in his hotel; and Mr. Brewster, as has
been indicated, had a short way with people who criticised the
Cosmopolis.
“You’re fired!” said Mr. Brewster.
“Oh, I say!” protested Archie.
Salvatore muttered what sounded like a passage from Dante.
“Fired!” repeated Mr. Brewster resolutely. “And I wish to heaven,” he
added, eyeing his son-in-law malignantly, “I could fire _you!_”
“Well,” said Professor Binstead cheerfully, breaking the grim silence
which followed this outburst, “if you will give me your cheque,
Brewster, I think I will be going. Two thousand three hundred dollars.
Make it open, if you will, and then I can run round the corner and cash
it before lunch. That will be capital!”