1
The Purple Chicken seemed to be having a big night. The room opening
on to the street, when George reached it, was so crowded, that there
was no chance of getting a table. He passed through, hoping to find a
resting-place in the open-air section which lay beyond: and was struck,
as he walked, by the extraordinarily fine physique of many of the
diners.
As a rule, the Purple Chicken catered for the intelligentsia of the
neighbourhood, and these did not run to thews and sinews. On most
nights in the week you would find the tables occupied by wispy poets
and slender futurist painters: but now, though these were present
in great numbers, they were supplemented by quite a sprinkling of
granite-faced men with knobby shoulders and protruding jaws. George
came to the conclusion that a convention from one of the outlying
States must be in town and that these men were members of it, bent upon
seeing Bohemia.
He did not, however, waste a great deal of time in speculation on this
matter, for, stirred by the actual presence of food, he had begun now
to realise that Molly had been right, as women always are, and that,
while his whole higher self cried out for the moon, his lower self
was almost equally as insistent on taking in supplies. And at this
particular restaurant it was happily possible to satisfy both selves
simultaneously: for there, as he stepped into what the management
called the garden--a flagged backyard dotted with tables--was the moon,
all present and correct, and there, also, were waiters waiting to
supply the _prix fixe_ table-d'hôte at one-dollar-fifty.
It seemed to George the neatest possible combination: and his only
anxiety now was with regard to the securing of a seat. At first glance
it appeared that every table was occupied.
This conjecture was confirmed by a second glance. But, though all the
other tables had their full quota, there was one, standing beside the
Sheridan's back wall and within a few feet of its fire-escape, that
was in the possession of a single diner. This diner George approached,
making his expression as winning as possible. He did not, as a rule,
enjoy sharing a table with a stranger, but as an alternative to going
away and trudging round in search of another restaurant it seemed a
good plan now.
"Excuse me, sir," said George, "would you mind if I came to this table?"
The other looked up from the _poulet rôti aux pommes de terre_ and
_salade Bruxelloise_ which had been engaging his attention. He
was plainly one of the convention from the outlying State, if physique
could be taken as a guide. He spread upwards from the table like a
circus giant and the hands which gripped the knife and fork had that
same spaciousness which George had noted in the diners in the other
room. Only as to the eyes did this man differ from his fellows. They
had had eyes of a peculiarly steely and unfriendly type, the sort of
eyes which a motorist instinctively associates with traffic-policemen
and a professional thief with professional detectives. This man's gaze
was mild and friendly, and his eyes would have been attractive but for
the redness of their rims and the generally inflamed look which they
had.
"By no means, sir," he replied to George's polite query.
"Place very crowded to-night."
"Extremely."
"Then, if you won't mind, I'll sit here."
"Delighted," said the other.
George looked round for a waiter and found one at his elbow. However
crowded the Purple Chicken might be, its staff never neglected the old
habitué: and it had had the benefit of George's regular custom for many
months.
"Good evening, sare," said the waiter, smiling the smile which had once
broken hearts in Assisi.
"Good evening, Guiseppe," said George. "I'll take the dinner."
"Yes, sare. Sick or glear zoop?"
"Sick. Crowded to-night, Guiseppe."
"Yes, sare. Lots of guys here to-night. Big business."
"The waiter appears to know you," said George's companion.
"Oh, yes," said George, "I'm in here all the time."
"Ah," said the other, thoughtfully.
The soup arrived, and George set about it with a willing spoon. His
companion became hideously involved with spaghetti.
"This your first visit to New York?" asked George, after an interval.
"No, indeed, sir. I live in New York."
"Oh, I thought you were up from the country."
"No, sir. I live right here in New York."
A curious idea that he had seen this fellow before somewhere came over
George. Yes, at some time and in some place he could have sworn that he
had gazed upon that long body, that prominent Adam's apple, and that
gentle expanse of face. He searched his memory. Nothing stirred.
"I have an odd feeling that we have met before," he said.
"I was thinking just the same myself," replied the other.
"My name is Finch."
"Mine is Cabot. Delancy Cabot."
George shook his head.
"I don't remember the name."
"Yours is curiously familiar. I have heard it before, but cannot think
when."
"Do you live in Greenwich Village?"
"Somewhat further up-town. And you?"
"I live in the apartment on top of this building here at the back of
us."
A sudden light that seemed that of recognition came into the other's
face. George observed it.
"Have you remembered where we met?"
"No, sir. No, indeed," said the other hastily. "It has entirely
escaped me." He took a sip of ice water. "I recall, however, that you
are an artist."
"That's right. You are not one, by any chance?"
"I am a poet."
"A poet?" George tried to conceal his somewhat natural surprise. "Where
does your stuff appear mostly?"
"I have published nothing as yet, Mr. Finch," replied the other sadly.
"Tough luck. I have never sold a picture."
"Too bad."
They gazed at one another with kindly eyes, two fellow-sufferers from
the public's lack of taste. Guiseppe appeared, bearing deep-dish
apple-pie in one hand, _poulet rôti_ in the other.
"Guiseppe," said George.
"Sare?"
George bent his lips towards the waiter's attentive ear.
"Bzz ... Bzz ... Bzz ..." said George.
"Yes, sare. Very good, sare. In one moment, sare."
George leaned back contentedly. Then it occurred to him that he had
been a little remiss. He was not actually this red-eyed man's host, but
they had fraternised and they both knew what it was to toil at their
respective arts without encouragement or appreciation.
"Perhaps you will join me?" he said.
"Join you, sir?"
"In a high-ball. Guiseppe has gone to get me one."
"Indeed? Is it possible to obtain alcoholic refreshment in this
restaurant?"
"You can always get it if they know you."
"But surely it is against the law?"
"Ha, ha!" laughed George. He liked this pleasant, whimsical fellow.
"Ha, ha! Deuced good!"
He looked at him with that genial bonhomie with which one looks at
a stranger in whom one has discovered a sly sense of humour. And,
looking, he suddenly congealed.
Stranger?
"Great Scott!" ejaculated George.
"Sir?"
"Nothing, nothing."
Memory, though loitering by the way, had reached its goal at last.
This man was no stranger. George recollected now where he had seen
him before--on the roof of the Sheridan, when the other, clad in
policeman's uniform, had warned him of the deplorable past of Frederick
Mullett. The man was a cop, and under his very eyes, red rims and all,
he had just ordered a high-ball.
George gave a feverish laugh.
"I was only kidding, of course," he said.
"Kidding, Mr. Finch?"
"When I said that you could get it here. You can't, of course. What
Guiseppe is bringing me is ginger-ale."
"Indeed?"
"And my name isn't Finch," babbled George. "It--it is--er--Briskett.
And I don't live in that apartment up there, I live in...."
He was aware of Guiseppe at his side. And Guiseppe was being
unspeakably furtive and conspiratorial with a long glass and a
coffee-pot. He looked like one of the executive staff of the Black
Hand plotting against the public weal.
"Is that my ginger-ale?" twittered George. "My ginger-ale, is that what
you've got there?"
"Yes, sare. Your ginger-ale. Your ginger-ale, Mr. Feench, ha, ha, ha!
You are vairy fonny gentleman," said Guiseppe approvingly.
George could have kicked the man. If this was what the modern Italian
was like, no wonder the country had had to have a dictatorship.
"Take it away," he said, quivering. "I don't want it in a coffee-pot."
"We always sairve the whisky in the coffee-pot, Mr. Feench. You know
that."
Across the table George was appalled by a sinister sight. The man
opposite was rising. Yards and yards of him were beginning to uncoil,
and on his face there was a strange look of determination and menace.
"You're...."
George knew what the next word would have been. It would have been
the verb "pinched." But it was never uttered. With a sudden frenzy,
George Finch acted. He was not normally a man of violence, but there
are occasions when violence and nothing but violence will meet the
case. There flashed through his mind a vision of what would be, did he
not act with promptitude and despatch. He would be arrested, haled to
jail, immured in a dungeon-cell. And Molly would come back and find no
one there to welcome her and--what was even worse--no one to marry her
on the morrow.
George did not hesitate. Seizing the table-cloth, he swept it off in
a hideous whirl of apple-pie, ice water, bread, potatoes, salad and
_poulet rôti_. He raised it on high, like a _retarius_ in the
arena, and brought it down in an enveloping mass on the policeman's
head. Interested cries arose on all sides. The Purple Chicken was
one of those jolly, informal restaurants in which a spirit of clean
Bohemian fun is the prevailing note, but even in the Purple Chicken
occurrences like this were unusual and calculated to excite remark.
Four diners laughed happily, a fifth exclaimed "Hot pazazas!" and a
sixth said "Well, would you look at that!"
The New York police are not quitters. They may be down, but they are
never out. A clutching hand emerged from the table-cloth and gripped
George's shoulder. Another clutching hand was groping about not far
from his collar. The fingers of the first hand fastened their hold.
George was not in the frame of mind to be tolerant of this sort of
thing. He hit out and smote something solid.
"Casta dimura salve e pura! 'At-a-boy! Soak him again," said Guiseppe,
the waiter, convinced now that the man in the table-cloth was one who
had not the best interests of the Purple Chicken at heart.
George did so. The table-cloth became still more agitated. The hand
fell from his shoulder.
At this moment there was a confused noise of shouting from the inner
room, and all the lights went out.
George would not have had it otherwise. Darkness just suited him. He
leaped for the fire-escape and climbed up it with as great a celerity
as Mrs. Waddington, some little time before, had used in climbing
down. He reached the roof and paused for an instant, listening to
the tumult below. Then, hearing through the din the sound of somebody
climbing, he ran to the sleeping-porch and dived beneath the bed. To
seek refuge in his apartment was, he realised, useless. That would be
the first place the pursuer would draw.
He lay there, breathless. Footsteps came to the door. The door opened,
and the light was switched on.
2
In supposing that the person or persons whom he had heard climbing
up the fire-escape were in pursuit of himself, George Finch had made
a pardonable error. Various circumstances had combined to render his
departure from the Purple Chicken unobserved.
In the first place, just as Officer Garroway was on the point of
releasing his head from the folds of the table-cloth, Guiseppe, with a
loyalty to his employers which it would be difficult to over-praise,
hit him in the eye with the coffee-pot. This had once more confused the
policeman's outlook, and by the time he was able to think clearly again
the lights went out.
Simultaneously the moon, naturally on George's side and anxious to do
all that it could to help, went behind a thick cloud and stayed there.
No human eye, therefore, had witnessed the young man's climb for life.
The persons whom he had heard on the fire-escape were a couple who,
like himself, had no object in mind other than a swift removal of
themselves from the danger-zone. And so far were they from being
hostile to George that each, had they seen him, would have urged him on
and wished him luck. For one of them was Madame Eulalie and the other
no less a man than J. Hamilton Beamish in person.
Hamilton Beamish, escorting his bride-to-be, had arrived at the Purple
Chicken a few minutes after George, and, like George, had found the
place crowded to its last table. But unlike George, he had not meekly
accepted this situation as unalterable. Exerting the full force of
his majestic personality, he had caused an extra table to appear, to
be set, and to be placed in the fairway at the spot where the indoor
restaurant joined the outdoor annex.
It was a position which at first had seemed to have drawbacks. The
waiters who passed at frequent intervals were compelled to bump into
Mr. Beamish's chair, which is always unpleasant when one is trying
to talk to the girl one loves. But the time was to arrive when its
drawbacks were lost sight of in the contemplation of its strategic
advantages. At the moment when the raid may be said to have formally
opened, Hamilton Beamish was helping the girl of his heart to what the
management had assured him was champagne. He was interrupted in this
kindly action by a large hand placed heavily on his shoulder and a
gruff voice which informed him that he was under arrest.
Whether Hamilton Beamish would have pursued George Finch's spirited
policy of enveloping the man in the table-cloth and thereafter plugging
him in the eye, will never be known: for the necessity for such a
procedure was removed by the sudden extinction of the lights: and it
was at this point that the advantage of being in that particular spot
became apparent.
From the table to the fire-escape was but a few steps: and Hamilton
Beamish, seizing his fiancée by the hand, dragged her thither and,
placing her foot on the lowest step, gave her an upward boost which
left no room for misapprehension. A moment later, Madame Eulalie was
hurrying roofwards, with Hamilton Beamish in close attendance.
They stood together at the end of their journey, looking down. The
lights of the Purple Chicken were still out, and from the darkness
there rose a confused noise indicative of certain persons unknown being
rather rough with certain other persons unknown. It seemed to Madame
Eulalie that she and her mate were well out of it, and she said so.
"I never realised before what a splendid man you were to have by one in
an emergency, Jimmy dear," she said. "Anything slicker than the way you
scooped us out of that place I never saw. You must have had lots and
lots of practice."
Hamilton Beamish was passing a handkerchief over his dome-like
forehead. The night was warm, and the going had been fast.
"I shall never forgive myself," he said, "for exposing you to such an
experience."
"Oh, but I enjoyed it."
"Well, all has ended well, thank goodness...."
"But has it?" interrupted Madame Eulalie.
"What do you mean?"
She pointed downwards.
"There's somebody coming up!"
"You're right."
"What shall we do? Go out by the stairs?"
Hamilton Beamish shook his head.
"In all probability they will be guarding the entrance."
"Then what?"
It is at moments like these that the big brain really tells. An
ordinary man might have been non-plussed. Certainly, he would have had
to waste priceless moments in thought. Hamilton Beamish, with one flash
of his giant mind, had the problem neatly solved in four and a quarter
seconds.
He took his bride-to-be by the arm and turned her round.
"Look."
"Where?"
"There!"
"Which?"
"That."
"What?" Bewilderment was limned upon the girl's fair face. "I don't
understand. What do you want me to specially look at?"
"At what do you want me especially to look," corrected Hamilton Beamish
mechanically. He drew her across the roof. "You see that summer-house
thing? It is George Finch's open-air sleeping-porch. Go in, shut the
door, switch on the light...."
"But...."
"... and remove a portion of your clothes."
"What!"
"And if anybody comes tell him that George Finch rented you the
apartment and that you are dressing to go out to dinner. I, meanwhile,
will go down to my apartment and will come up in a few minutes to
see if you are ready to be taken out to dine." Pardonable pride so
overcame Hamilton Beamish that he discarded the English Pure and
relapsed into the argot of the proletariat. "Is that a cracker-jack?"
he demanded with gleaming eyes. "Is that a wam? Am I the bozo with the
big bean or am I not?"
The girl eyed him worshippingly. One of the consolations which we men
of intellect have is that, when things come to a crisis, what captures
the female heart is brains. Women may permit themselves in times of
peace to stray after Sheiks and look languishingly at lizards whose
only claim to admiration is that they can do the first three steps
of the Charleston: but let matters go wrong; let some sudden peril
threaten; and who then is the king pippin, who the main squeeze? The
man with the eight and a quarter hat.
"Jimmy," she cried, "it's the goods!"
"Exactly."
"It's a life-saver."
"Precisely. Be quick, then. There is no time to waste."
And so it came about that George Finch, nestling beneath the bed,
received a shock which, inured though he should have been to shocks by
now, seemed to him to turn every hair on his head instantaneously grey.
3
The first thing that impressed itself on George Finch's consciousness,
after his eyes had grown accustomed to the light, was an ankle. It
was clad in a stocking of diaphanous silk, and was joined almost
immediately by another ankle, similarly clad. For an appreciable time
these ankles, though slender, bulked so large in George's world
that they may be said to have filled his whole horizon. Then they
disappeared.
A moment before this happened, George, shrinking modestly against the
wall, would have said that nothing could have pleased him better than
to have these ankles disappear. Nevertheless, when they did so, it was
all he could do to keep himself from uttering a stricken cry. For the
reason they disappeared was that at this moment a dress of some filmy
material fell over them, hiding them from view.
It was a dress that had the appearance of having been cut by fairy
scissors out of moon-beams and star-dust: and in a shop-window George
would have admired it. But seeing it in a shop-window and seeing it
bunched like a prismatic foam on the floor of this bedroom were two
separate and distinct things: and so warmly did George Finch blush that
he felt as if his face must be singeing the carpet. He shut his eyes
and clenched his teeth. Was this, he asked himself, the end or but a
beginning?
"Yes?" said a voice suddenly. And George's head, jerking convulsively,
seemed for an instant to have parted company with a loosely-attached
neck.
The voice had spoken, he divined as soon as the power of thought
returned to him, in response to a sharp and authoritative knock on
the door, delivered by some hard instrument which sounded like a
policeman's night-stick: and there followed immediately upon this knock
sharp and authoritative words.
"Open up there!"
The possessor of the ankles was plainly a girl of spirit.
"I won't," she said. "I'm dressing."
"Who are you?"
"Who are _you_?"
"Never mind who I am."
"Well, never mind who _I_ am, then!"
There was a pause. It seemed to George, judging the matter
dispassionately, that the ankles had had slightly the better of the
exchanges to date.
"What are you doing in there?" asked the male duettist, approaching the
thing from another angle.
"I'm dressing, I keep telling you."
There was another pause. And then into this tense debate there entered
a third party.
"What's all this?" said the new-comer sharply.
George recognised the voice of his old friend Hamilton Beamish.
"Garroway," said Hamilton Beamish, with an annoyed severity, "what the
devil are you doing, hanging about outside this lady's door? Upon my
soul," proceeded Mr. Beamish warmly, "I'm beginning to wonder what the
duties of the New York constabulary are. Their life seems to consist
of an endless leisure, which they employ in roaming about and annoying
women. Are you aware that the lady inside there is my fiancée and that
she is dressing in order to dine with me at a restaurant?"
Officer Garroway, as always, cringed before the superior intelligence.
"I am extremely sorry, Mr. Beamish."
"So you ought to be. What are you doing here, anyway?"
"There has been some little trouble down below on the premises of the
Purple Chicken, and I was violently assaulted by Mr. Finch. I followed
him up here on the fire-escape...."
"Mr. Finch? You are drivelling, Garroway. Mr. Finch is on his
wedding-trip. He very kindly lent this lady his apartment during his
absence."
"But, Mr. Beamish, I was talking to him only just now. We sat at the
same table."
"Absurd!"
The dress had disappeared from George's range of vision now, and he
heard the door open.
"What does this man want, Jimmy?"
"A doctor, apparently," said Hamilton Beamish. "He says he met George
Finch just now."
"But George is miles away."
"Precisely. Are you ready, darling? Then we will go off and have some
dinner. What you need, Garroway, is a bromo-seltzer. Come down to my
apartment and I will mix you one. Having taken it, I would recommend
you to lie down quietly on the sofa and rest awhile. I think you must
have been over-exercising your brain, writing that poem of yours. Who
blacked your eye?"
"I wish I knew," said Officer Garroway wistfully. "I received the
injury during the fracas at the Purple Chicken. There was a table-cloth
over my head at the moment, and I was unable to ascertain the identity
of my assailant. If, and when, I find him I shall soak him so hard
it'll jar his grandchildren."
"A table-cloth?"
"Yes, Mr. Beamish. And while I was endeavouring to extricate myself
from its folds, somebody hit me in the eye with a coffee-pot."
"How do you know it was a coffee-pot?"
"I found it lying beside me when I emerged."
"Ah! Well," said Hamilton Beamish, summing up, "I hope that this will
be a lesson to you not to go into places like the Purple Chicken. You
are lucky to have escaped so lightly. You might have had to eat their
cheese. Well, come along, Garroway, and we will see what we can do for
you."
4
George stayed where he was. If he had known of a better 'ole, he would
have gone to it: but he did not. He would have been the last person to
pretend that it was comfortable lying underneath this bed with fluff
tickling his nose and a draught playing about his left ear: but there
seemed in the circumstances nothing else to do. To a man unable to fly
there were only two modes of exit from this roof,--he could climb down
the fire-escape, probably into the very arms of the constabulary, or
he could try to sneak down the stairs, and most likely run straight
into the vengeful Garroway. True, Hamilton Beamish had recommended the
policeman after drinking his bromo-seltzer to lie down on the sofa,
but who knew if he would follow the advice? Possibly he was even now
patrolling the staircase: and George, recalling the man's physique
and remembering the bitterness with which he had spoken of his late
assailant, decided that the risk was too great to be taken. Numerous as
were the defects of his little niche beneath the bed, considered as a
spot to spend a happy evening, it was a good place to be for a man in
his delicate position. So he dug himself in and tried to while away the
time by thinking.
He thought of many things. He thought of his youth in East Gilead, of
his manhood in New York. He thought of Molly and how much he loved
her; of Mrs. Waddington and what a blot she was on the great scheme
of things; of Hamilton Beamish and his off-hand way of dealing with
policemen. He thought of Officer Garroway and his night-stick; of
Guiseppe and his coffee-pot; of the Reverend Gideon Voules and his
white socks. He even thought of Sigsbee H. Waddington.
Now, when a man is so hard put to it for mental occupation that he has
to fall back on Sigsbee H. Waddington as a topic of thought, he is
nearing the end of his resources: and it was possibly with a kindly
appreciation of this fact that Fate now supplied something else to
occupy George's mind. Musing idly on Sigsbee H. and wondering how he
got that way, George became suddenly aware of approaching footsteps.
He curled himself up into a ball, and his ears stood straight up like
a greyhound's. Yes, footsteps. And, what was more, they seemed to be
making straight for the sleeping-porch.
A wave of self-pity flooded over George Finch. Why should he be so
ill-used? He asked so little of Life,--merely to be allowed to lie
quietly under a bed and inhale fluff: and what happened? Nothing but
interruptions. Nothing but boots, boots, boots, boots, marching up and
down again, as Kipling has so well put it. Ever since he had found his
present hiding-place, the world had seemed to become one grey inferno
of footsteps. It was wrong and unjust.
The only thing that could possibly be said in extenuation of the
present footsteps was that they sounded too light to be those of any
New York policeman. They had approached now to the very door. Indeed,
they seemed to him to have stopped actually inside the room.
He was right in this conjecture. The switch clicked. Light jumped at
him like a living thing. And when he opened his eyes he found himself
looking at a pair of ankles clad in stockings of diaphanous silk.
The door closed. And Mrs. Waddington, who had just reached the top of
the fire-escape, charged across the roof and, putting her ear to the
keyhole, stood listening intently. Things, felt Mrs. Waddington, were
beginning to move.
5
For a moment, all that George Finch felt as he glared out at this
latest visitation was a weak resentment at the oafishness of Fate in
using the same method for his tormenting that it had used so short a
while before. Fate, he considered, was behaving childishly, and ought
to change its act. This ankle business might have been funny enough
once: but, overdone, it became tedious.
Then to indignation there succeeded relief. The remarks of Hamilton
Beamish in his conversation with the policeman had made it clear that
the possessor of the ankles had been his old friend May Stubbs of
East Gilead, Idaho: and, seeing ankles once again, George naturally
assumed that they were attached, as before, to Miss Stubbs, and
that the reason for her return was that she had come back to fetch
something--some powder-puff, for example, or a lipstick--which in the
excitement of the recent altercation she had forgotten to take along
with her.
This, of course, altered the whole position of affairs. What it
amounted to was that, instead of a new enemy he had found an ally. A
broad-minded girl like May would understand at once the motives which
had led him to hide under the bed and would sympathise with them.
He could employ her, it occurred to him, as a scout, to see if the
staircase was not clear. In short, this latest interruption of his
reverie, so far from being a disaster, was the very best thing that
could have happened.
Sneezing heartily, for he had got a piece of fluff up his nose, George
rolled out from under the bed: and, scrambling to his feet with a
jolly laugh, found himself gazing into the bulging eyes of a complete
stranger.
That, at least, was how the girl impressed him in the first instant of
their meeting. But gradually, as he stared at her, there crept into his
mind the belief that somewhere and at some time he had seen her before.
But where? And when?
The girl continued to gape at him. She was small and pretty, with vivid
black eyes and a mouth which, if it had not been hanging open at the
moment like that of a fish, would have been remarkably attractive.
Silence reigned in the sleeping-porch: and Mrs. Waddington, straining
her ears outside, was beginning to think that George could not be
in this lair and that a further vigil was before her, when suddenly
voices began to speak. What they were saying, she was unable to hear,
for the door was stoutly built: but beyond a doubt one of them was
George's. Mrs. Waddington crept away, well content. Her suspicions had
been confirmed, and now it remained only to decide what it was best to
do about it. She moved into the shadow of the water-tank, and there
remained for a space in deep thought.
* * * * *
Inside the sleeping-porch, the girl, her eyes fixed on George, had
begun to shrink back. At about the third shrink she bumped into the
wall, and the shock seemed to restore her power of speech.
"What are you doing in my bedroom?" she cried.
The question had the effect of substituting for the embarrassment
which had been gripping George a sudden bubbling fury. This, he felt,
was too much. Circumstances had conspired that night to turn this
sleeping-porch into a sort of meeting-place of the nations, but he was
darned if he was going to have his visitors looking on the room as
their own.
"What do you mean, your bedroom?" he demanded hotly. "Who are you?"
"I'm Mrs. Mullett."
"Who?"
"Mrs. Frederick Mullett."
Mrs. Waddington had formed her plan of action. What she needed, she
perceived, was a witness to come with her to this den of evil and add
his testimony in support of hers. If only Lord Hunstanton had been
present, as he should have been, she would have needed to look no
further. But Lord Hunstanton was somewhere out in the great city,
filling his ignoble tummy with food. Whom, then, could she enroll as a
deputy? The question answered itself. Ferris was the man. He was ready
to hand and could be fetched without delay.
Mrs. Waddington made for the stairs.
"Mrs. Mullett?" said George. "What do you mean? Mullett's not married."
"Yes, he is. We were married this morning."
"Where is he?"
"I left him down below, finishing a cigar. He said we'd be all alone up
here, nesting like two little birds in a tree top."
George laughed a brassy, sardonic laugh.
"If Mullett thought anyone could ever be alone for five minutes up
here, he's an optimist. And what right has Mullett to go nesting like a
little bird in my apartment?"
"Is this your apartment?"
"Yes, it is."
"Oh! Oh!"
"Stop it! Don't make that noise. There are policemen about."
"Policemen!"
"Yes."
Tears suddenly filled the eyes that looked into his. Two small hands
clasped themselves in a passionate gesture of appeal.
"Don't turn me over to the bulls, mister! I only did it for ma's sake.
If you was out of work and starvin' and you had to sit and watch your
poor old ma bendin' over the wash-tub...."
"I haven't got a poor old ma," said George curtly. "And what on earth
do you think you're talking about?"
He stopped suddenly, speech wiped from his lips by a stunning
discovery. The girl had unclasped her hands, and now she flung them
out before her: and the gesture was all that George's memory needed to
spur it to the highest efficiency. For unconsciously Fanny Mullett had
assumed the exact attitude which had lent such dramatic force to her
entrance into the dining-room of Mrs. Waddington's house at Hempstead
earlier in the day. The moment he saw those out-stretched arms,
George remembered where he had met this girl before: and, forgetting
everything else, forgetting that he was trapped on a roof with a justly
exasperated policeman guarding the only convenient exit, he uttered a
short, sharp bark of exultation.
"You!" he cried. "Give me that necklace."
"What necklace?"
"The one you stole at Hempstead this afternoon."
The girl drew herself up haughtily.
"Do you dare to say I stole a necklace?"
"Yes, I do."
"Oh? And do you know what I'll do if you bring a charge like that
against me! I'll...."
She broke off. A discreet tap had sounded on the door.
"Honey!"
Fanny looked at George. George looked at Fanny.
"My husband!" whispered Fanny.
George was in no mood to be intimidated by a mere Mullett. He strode to
the door.
"Honey!"
George flung the door open.
"Honey!"
"Well, Mullett?"
The valet fell back a pace, his eyes widening. He passed the tip of his
tongue over his lips.
"A wasp in the beehive!" cried Mullett.
"Don't be an idiot," said George.
Mullett was gazing at him in the manner of one stricken to the core.
"Isn't your own bridal-trip enough for you, Mr. Finch," he said
reproachfully, "that you've got to come butting in on mine?"
"Don't be a fool. My wedding was temporarily postponed."
"I see. And misery loves company, so you start in breaking up my home."
"Nothing of the kind."
"If I had known that you were on the premises, Mr. Finch," said Mullett
with dignity, "I would not have taken the liberty of making use of your
domicile. Come, Fanny, we will go to a hotel."
"Will you?" said George unpleasantly. "Let me tell you there's a little
matter to be settled before you start going to any hotel. Perhaps you
are not aware that your wife is in possession of a valuable necklace
belonging to the lady who, if it hadn't been for her, would now be Mrs.
George Finch?"
Mullett clapped a hand to his forehead.
"A necklace!"
"It's a lie," cried his bride.
Mullett shook his head sadly. He was putting two and two together.
"When did this occur, Mr. Finch?"
"This afternoon, down at Hempstead."
"Don't you listen to him, Freddy. He's dippy."
"What precisely happened, Mr. Finch?"
"This woman suddenly burst into the room where everybody was and
pretended that I had made love to her and deserted her. Then she fell
on the table where the wedding-presents were and pretended to faint.
And then she dashed out, and some time afterwards it was discovered
that the necklace was gone. And don't," he added, turning to the
accused, "say that you only did it for your poor old ma's sake, because
I've had a lot to put up with to-day, and that will be just too much."
Mr. Mullett clicked his tongue with a sort of sorrowful pride. Girls
will be girls, Frederick Mullett seemed to say, but how few girls could
be as clever as his little wife.
"Give Mr. Finch his necklace, pettie," he said mildly.
"I haven't got any necklace."
"Give it to him, dearie, just like Freddie says, or there'll only be
unpleasantness."
"Unpleasantness," said George, breathing hard, "is right!"
"It was a beautiful bit of work, honey, and there isn't another girl in
New York that could have thought it out, let alone gone and got away
with it. Even Mr. Finch will admit it was a beautiful bit of work."
"If you want Mr. Finch's opinion ..." began George heatedly.
"But we've done with all that sort of thing now, haven't we, pettie?
Give him his necklace, honey."
Mrs. Mullett's black eyes snapped. She twisted her pretty fingers
irresolutely.
"Take your old necklace," she said.
George caught it as it fell.
"Thanks," he said, and put it in his pocket.
"And now, Mr. Finch," said Mullett suavely, "I think we will say good
night. My little girl here has had a tiring day and ought to be turning
in."
* * * * *
George hurried across the roof to his apartment. Whatever the risk
of leaving the safety of the sleeping-porch, it must be ignored. It
was imperative that he telephone to Molly and inform her of what had
happened.
He was pulling the French window open when he heard his name called:
and perceived Mullett hurrying towards him from the door that led to
the stairs.
"Just one moment, Mr. Finch."
"What is it? I have a most important telephone-call to make."
"I thought you would be glad to have this, sir."
With something of the air of a conjurer who, to amuse the children,
produces two rabbits and the grand old flag from inside a borrowed
top-hat, Mullett unclasped his fingers.
"Your necklace, sir."
George's hand flew to his pocket and came away empty.
"Good heavens! How...?"
"My little girl," explained Mullett with a proud and tender look in his
eyes. "She snitched it off you, sir, as we were going out. I was able,
however, to persuade her to give it up again. I reminded her that we
had put all that sort of thing behind us now. I asked her how she could
expect to be happy on our duck-farm if she had a thing like that on her
mind, and she saw it almost at once. She's a very reasonable girl, sir,
when tactfully approached by the voice of love."
George drew a deep breath. He replaced the necklace in his inside
breast-pocket, buttoned his coat and drew away a step or two.
"Are you going to let that woman loose on a duck-farm, Mullett?"
"Yes, sir. We are taking a little place in the neighbourhood of Speonk."
"She'll have the tail-feathers off every bird on the premises before
the end of the first week."
Mullett bowed his appreciation of the compliment.
"And they wouldn't know they'd lost them, sir," he agreed. "There's
never been anyone in the profession fit to be reckoned in the same
class with my little girl. But all that sort of thing is over now, sir.
She is definitely retiring from business,--except for an occasional
visit to the department stores during bargain-sales. A girl must have
her bit of finery. Good night, sir."
"Good night," said George.
He took out the necklace, examined it carefully, replaced it in his
pocket, buttoned his coat once more, and went into the apartment to
telephone to Molly.