I
On leaving John, Sergeant-Major Flannery's first act was to go to
what he was accustomed to call the orderly room and make his report.
He reached it only a few minutes after its occupant's return to
consciousness. Chimp Twist had opened his eyes and staggered to his
feet at just about the moment when the Sergeant-Major was offering John
the cup of tea.
Mr. Twist's initial discovery, like John's, was that he had a headache.
He then set himself to try to decide where he was. His mind clearing
a little, he was enabled to gather that he was in England ... and,
assembling the facts by degrees, in his study at Healthward Ho
(formerly Graveney Court), Worcestershire. After that, everything came
back to him, and he stood holding to the table with one hand and still
grasping the lily with the other, and gave himself up to scorching
reflections on the subject of the resourceful Mrs. Molloy.
He was still busy with these when there was a forceful knock on the
door and Sergeant-Major Flannery entered.
Chimp's grip of the table tightened. He held himself together like one
who sees a match set to a train of gunpowder and awaits the shattering
explosion. His visitor's lips had begun to move, and Chimp could
guess how that parade-ground voice was going to sound to a man with a
headache like his.
"H'rarp-h'm," began Mr. Flannery, clearing his throat, and Chimp with
a sharp cry reeled to a chair and sank into it. The noise had hit him
like a shell. He cowered where he sat, peering at the Sergeant-Major
with haggard eyes.
"Oo-er!" boomed Mr. Flannery, noting these symptoms. "You aren't
looking up to the mark, Mr. Twist."
Chimp dropped the lily, feeling the necessity of having both hands
free. He found he experienced a little relief if he put the palms over
his eyes and pressed hard.
"I'll tell you what it is, sir," roared the sympathetic Sergeant-Major.
"What's 'appened 'ere is that that nasty, feverish cold of yours
has gone and struck inwards. It's left your 'ead and has penetrated
internally to your vitals. If only you'd have took taraxacum and hops
like I told you...."
"Go away!" moaned Chimp, adding in a low voice what seemed to him a
suitable destination.
Mr. Flannery regarded him with mild reproach.
"There's nothing gained, Mr. Twist, by telling me to get to 'ell out of
here. I've merely come for the single and simple reason that I thought
you would wish to know I've had a conversation with the verlent case
upstairs, and the way it looks to me, sir, subject to your approval, is
that it 'ud be best not to let him out from under lock and key for some
time to come. True, 'e did not attempt anything in the nature of actual
physical attack, being prevented no doubt by the fact that there was
iron bars between him and me, but his manner throughout was peculiar,
not to say odd, and I recommend that all communications be conducted
till further notice through the window."
"Do what you like," said Chimp faintly.
"It isn't what I like, sir," bellowed Mr. Flannery virtuously. "It's
what you like and instruct, me being in your employment and only 'ere
to carry out your orders smartly as you give them. And there's one
other matter, sir. As perhaps you are aware, the young lady went off in
the little car ..."
"Don't talk to me about the young lady."
"I was only about to say, Mr. Twist, that you will doubtless be
surprised to hear that for some reason or another, having started to
go off in the little car, the young lady apparently decided on second
thoughts to continue her journey by train. She left the little car at
Lowick Station, with instructions that it be returned 'ere. I found
that young Jakes, the station-master's son, outside with it a moment
ago. Tooting the 'orn, he was, the young rascal, and saying he wanted
half a crown. Using my own discretion, I gave him sixpence. You may
reimburse me at your leisure and when convenient. Shall I take the
little car and put it in the garridge, sir?"
Chimp gave eager assent to this proposition, as he would have done
to any proposition which appeared to carry with it the prospect of
removing this man from his presence.
"It's funny, the young lady leaving the little car at the station,
sir," mused Mr. Flannery in a voice that shook the chandelier. "I
suppose she happened to reach there at a moment when a train was
signalled and decided that she preferred not to overtax her limited
strength by driving to London. I fancy she must have had London as her
objective."
Chimp fancied so, too. A picture rose before his eyes of Dolly and
Soapy revelling together in the metropolis, with the loot of Rudge Hall
bestowed in some safe place where he would never, never be able to get
at it. The picture was so vivid that he uttered a groan.
"Where does it catch you, sir?" asked Mr. Flannery solicitously.
"Eh?"
"The pain, sir. The agony. You appear to be suffering. If you take
my advice, you'll get off to bed and put an 'ot-water bottle on your
stummick. Lay it right across the abdomen, sir. It may dror the poison
out. I had an old aunt...."
"I don't want to hear about your aunt."
"Very good, sir. Just as you wish."
"Tell me about her some other time."
"Any time that suits you, sir," said Mr. Flannery agreeably. "Well,
I'll be off and putting the little car in the garridge."
He left the room, and Chimp, withdrawing his hands from his eyes,
gave himself up to racking thought. A man recovering from knock-out
drops must necessarily see things in a jaundiced light, but it is
scarcely probable that, even had he been in robust health, Mr. Twist's
meditations would have been much pleasanter. Condensed, they resolved
themselves, like John's, into a passionate wish that he could meet
Soapy Molloy again, if only for a moment.
And he had hardly decided that such a meeting was the only thing which
life now had to offer, when the door opened again and the maid appeared.
"Mr. Molloy to see you, sir."
Chimp started from his chair.
"Show him in," he said in a tense, husky voice.
There was a shuffling noise without, and Soapy appeared in the doorway.
II
The progress of Mr. Molloy across the threshold of Chimp Twist's study
bore a striking resemblance to that of some spent runner breasting
the tape at the conclusion of a more than usually gruelling Marathon
race. His hair was disordered, his face streaked with dust and heat,
and his legs acted so independently of his body that they gave him an
odd appearance of moving in several directions at once. An unbiassed
observer, seeing him, could not but have felt a pang of pity for this
wreck of what had once, apparently, been a fine, upstanding man.
Chimp was not an unbiassed observer. He did not pity his old business
partner. Judging from a first glance, Soapy Molloy seemed to him to
have been caught in some sort of machinery, and subsequently run over
by several motor lorries, and Chimp was glad of it. He would have liked
to seek out the man in charge of that machinery and the drivers of
those lorries, and reward them handsomely.
"So here you are!" he said.
Mr. Molloy, navigating cautiously, backed and filled in the direction
of the armchair. Reaching it after considerable difficulty, he
gripped its sides and lowered himself with infinite weariness. A sharp
exclamation escaped him as he touched the cushions. Then, sinking back,
he closed his eyes and immediately went to sleep.
Chimp gazed down at him, seething with resentment that made his head
ache worse than ever. That Soapy should have had the cold, callous
crust to come to Healthward Ho at all after what had happened was
sufficiently infuriating. That, having come, he should proceed without
a word of explanation or apology to treat the study as a bedroom was
more than Chimp could endure. Stooping down, he gripped his old friend
by his luxuriant hair and waggled his head smartly from side to side
several times. The treatment proved effective. Soapy sat up.
"Eh?" he said, blinking.
"What do you mean, eh?"
"Which...? Why...? Where am I?"
"I'll tell you where you are."
"Oh!" said Mr. Molloy, intelligence returning.
He sank back among the cushions again. Now that the first agony of
contact was over he was finding their softness delightful. In the
matter of seats, a man who has ridden twenty miles on an elderly
push-bicycle becomes an exacting critic.
"Gee! I feel bad!" he murmured.
It was a natural remark, perhaps, for a man in his condition to make,
but it had the effect of adding several degrees Fahrenheit to his
companion's already impressive warmth. For some moments Chimp Twist,
wrestling with his emotion, could find no form of self-expression
beyond a curious spluttering noise.
"Yes, sir," proceeded Mr. Molloy, "I feel bad. All the way over here on
a bicycle, Chimpie, that's where I've been. It's in the calf of the leg
that it gets me principally. There and around the instep. And I wish I
had a dollar for every bruise those darned pedals have made on me."
"And what about me?" demanded Chimp, at last ceasing to splutter.
"Yes, sir," said Mr. Molloy, wistfully, "I certainly wish someone would
come along and offer me even as much as fifty cents for every bruise
I've gotten from the ankles upwards. They've come out on me like a rash
or something."
"If you had my headache...."
"Yes, I've a headache, too," said Mr. Molloy. "It was the hot sun
beating down on my neck that did it. There were times when I thought
really I'd have to pass the thing up. Say, if you knew what I feel
like...."
"And how about what I feel like?" shrilled Mr. Twist, quivering with
self-pity. "A nice thing that was that wife of yours did to me! A fine
trick to play on a business partner! Slipping stuff into my highball
that laid me out cold. Is that any way to behave? Is that a system?"
Mr. Molloy considered the point.
"The madam is a mite impulsive," he admitted.
"And leaving me laying there and putting a lily in my hand!"
"That was her playfulness," explained Mr. Molloy. "Girls will have
their bit of fun."
"Fun! Say...."
Mr. Molloy felt that it was time to point the moral.
"It was your fault, Chimpie. You brought it on yourself by acting
greedy and trying to get the earth. If you hadn't stood us up for that
sixty-five--thirty-five of yours, all this would never have happened.
Naturally no high-spirited girl like the madam wasn't going to stand
for nothing like that. But listen while I tell you what I've come
about. If you're willing to can all that stuff and have a fresh deal
and a square one this time--one-third to me, one-third to you, and
one-third to the madam--I'll put you hep to something that'll make you
feel good. Yes, sir, you'll go singing about the house."
"The only thing you could tell me that would make me feel good,"
replied Chimp, churlishly, "would be that you'd tumbled off of that
bicycle of yours and broken your damned neck."
Mr. Molloy was pained.
"Is that nice, Chimpie?"
Mr. Twist wished to know if, in the circumstances and after what had
occurred, Mr. Molloy expected him to kiss him. Mr. Molloy said No, but
where was the sense of harsh words? Where did harsh words get anybody?
When had harsh words ever paid any dividend?
"If you had a headache like mine, Chimpie," said Mr. Molloy,
reproachfully, "you'd know how it felt to sit and listen to an old
friend giving you the razz."
Chimp was obliged to struggle for a while with a sudden return of his
spluttering.
"A headache like yours? Where do you get that stuff? My headache's a
darned sight worse than your headache."
"It couldn't be, Chimpie."
"If you want to know what a headache really is, you take some of those
kayo drops you're so fond of."
"Well, putting that on one side," said Mr. Molloy, wisely forbearing to
argue, "let me tell you what I've come here about. Chimpie, that guy
Carmody has double-crossed us. He was on to us from the start."
"What!"
"Yes, sir. I had it from his own lips in person. And do you know what
he done? He took that stuff out of the closet and sent his chauffeur
over to Worcester to put it in the Left Luggage place at the depôt
there."
"What!"
"Yes, sir."
"Gee!" said Mr. Twist, impressed. "That was smooth. Then you haven't
got it, do you mean?"
"No. I haven't got it."
Mr. Twist had never expected to feel anything in the nature of elation
that day or for many days to come, but at these words something like
ecstasy came upon him. He uttered a delighted laugh, which, owing to
sudden agony in the head, changed to a muffled howl.
"So, after all your smartness," he said, removing his hands from his
temples as the spasm passed, "you're no better off than what I am?"
"We're both sitting pretty, Chimpie, if we get together and act quick."
"How's that? Act how?"
"I'll tell you. This chauffeur guy left the stuff and brought home the
ticket...."
"... and gave it to old man Carmody, I suppose? Well, where does that
get us?"
"No, sir! He didn't give it to old man Carmody. He gave it to that
young Carroll fellow!" said Mr. Molloy.
The significance of the information was not lost upon Chimp. He stared
at Mr. Molloy.
"Carroll?" he said. "You mean the bird upstairs?"
"Is he upstairs?"
"Sure he's upstairs. Locked in a room with bars on the window. You're
certain he has the ticket?"
"I know he has. So all we've got to do now is get it off him."
"That's all?"
"That's all."
"And how," inquired Chimp, "do you propose to do it?"
Mr. Molloy made no immediate reply. The question was one which, in the
intervals of dodging the pedals of his bicycle, he had been asking
himself ever since he had left Rudge Hall. He had hoped that in the
enthusiasm of the moment some spontaneous solution would leap from his
old friend's lips, but it was plain that this was not to be.
"I thought maybe you would think of a way, Chimpie," he was compelled
to confess.
"Oh? Me, eh?"
"You're smart," said Mr. Molloy, deferentially. "You've got a head.
Whatever anyone's said about you, no one's ever denied that. You'll
think of a way."
"I will, will I? And while I'm doing it, you'll just sit back, I
suppose, and have a nice rest? And all you're suggesting that I'm to
get out of it...."
"Now, Chimpie!" quavered Mr. Molloy. He had feared this development.
"... is a measly one-third. Say, let me tell you...."
"Now, Chimpie," urged Mr. Molloy, with unshed tears in his voice,
"let's not start all that over again. We settled the terms. Gentlemen's
agreement. It's all fixed."
"Is it? Come down out of the clouds, you're scaring the birds. What I
want now, if I'm going to do all the work and help you out of a tough
spot, is seventy-thirty."
"Seventy-thirty!' echoed Mr. Molloy, appalled.
"And if you don't like it let's hear you suggest a way of getting that
ticket off of that guy upstairs. Maybe you'd like to go up and have
a talk with him? If he's feeling anything like the way I felt when I
came to after those kayo drops of yours, he'll be glad to see you. What
does it matter to you if he pulls your head off and drops it out of the
window? You can only live once, so what the hell!"
Mr. Molloy gazed dismally before him. Never a very inventive man,
his bicycle ride had left him even less capable of inspiration than
usual. He had to admit himself totally lacking in anything resembling
a constructive plan of campaign. He yearned for his dear wife's gentle
presence. Dolly was the bright one of the family. In a crisis like this
she would have been full of ideas, each one a crackerjack.
"We can't keep him locked up in that room for ever," he said unhappily.
"We don't have to--not if you agree to my seventy-thirty."
"Have you thought of a way, then?"
"Sure I've thought of a way."
Mr. Molloy's depression became more marked than ever. He knew what this
meant. The moment he gave up the riddle that miserable little Chimp
would come out with some scheme which had been staring him in the face
all along, if only he had had the intelligence to see it.
"Well?" said Chimp. "Think quick. And remember, thirty's better than
nothing. And don't say, when I've told you, that it's just the idea
you've had yourself from the start."
Mr. Molloy urged his weary brain to one last spurt of activity, but
without result. He was a specialist. He could sell shares in phantom
oil wells better than anybody on either side of the Atlantic, but there
he stopped. Outside his specialty he was almost a total loss.
"All right, Chimpie," he sighed, facing the inevitable.
"Seventy-thirty?"
"Seventy-thirty. Though how I'm to break it to the madam, I don't know.
She won't like it, Chimpie. It'll be a nasty blow for the madam."
"I hope it chokes her," said Chimp, unchivalrously. "Her and her
lilies! Well, then. Here's what we do. When Flannery takes the guy his
coffee and eggs to-morrow, there'll be something in the pot besides
coffee. There'll be some of those kayo drops of yours. And then all we
have to do is just simply walk upstairs and dig the ticket out of his
clothes and there we are."
Mr. Molloy uttered an agonized cry. His presentiment had been correct.
"I'd have thought of that myself ..." he wailed.
"Sure you would," replied Chimp, comfortably, "if you'd of had
something that wasn't a hubbard squash or something where your head
ought to be. Those just-as-good imitation heads never pay in the long
run. What you ought to do is sell yours for what it'll fetch and get a
new one. And next time," said Chimp, "make it a prettier one."