The Law of Great Britain is a remorseless machine which, once set in
motion, ignores first causes and takes into account only results. It
will not accept shattered dreams as an excuse for shattering glassware;
nor will you get far by pleading a broken heart in extenuation of your
behaviour in breaking waiters. Haled on the morrow before the awful
majesty of Justice at Bosher Street Police Court and charged with
disorderly conduct in a public place--to wit, Mario's Restaurant--and
resisting an officer--to wit, P. C. Murgatroyd--in the execution of
his duties, Ronald Fish made no impassioned speeches. He did not raise
clenched fists aloft and call upon Heaven to witness that he was a good
man wronged. Experience, dearly bought in the days of his residence at
the university, had taught him that when the Law gripped you with its
talons the only thing to do was to give a false name, say nothing, and
hope for the best.
Shortly before noon, accordingly, on the day following the painful
scene just described, Edwin Jones, of 7 Nasturtium Villas, Cricklewood,
poorer by the sum of five pounds, was being conveyed in a swift taxicab
to his friend Hugo Carmody's hotel, there to piece together his broken
life and try to make a new start.
On the part of the man Jones himself during the ride there was a
disposition toward silence. He gazed before him bleakly and gnawed his
lower lip. Hugo Carmody, on the other hand, was inclined to be rather
jubilant. It seemed to Hugo that, after a rocky start, things had
panned out pretty well.
"A nice smooth job," he said approvingly. "I was scanning the beak's
face closely during the summing up, and I couldn't help fearing for
a moment that it was going to be a case of fourteen days without the
option. As it is, here you are, a free man, and no chance of your name
being in the paper. A moral victory, I call it."
Ronnie released his lower lip in order to bare his teeth in a bitter
sneer.
"I wouldn't care if my name were in every paper in London."
"Oh, come, old loofah! The honoured name of Fish?"
"What do I care about anything now?"
Hugo was concerned. This morbid strain, he felt, was unworthy of a
Nasturtium Villas Jones.
"Aren't you rather tending to make a bit too much heavy weather over
this?"
"Heavy weather!"
"I think you are. After all, when you come right down to it, what has
happened? You find poor little Sue----"
"Don't call her 'poor little Sue!'"
"You find the party of the second part," amended Hugo, "at a dance
place. Well, why not? What, if you follow me, of it? Where's the harm
in her going out to dance?"
"With a man she swore she didn't know!"
"Well, at the time when you asked her probably she didn't know him.
Things move quickly in a great city. I wish I had a quid for every girl
I've been out dancing with whom I hadn't known from Eve a couple of
days before."
"She promised me she wouldn't go out with a soul."
"Ah, but with a merry twinkle in her eye, no doubt? I mean to say, you
can't expect a girl nowadays to treat a promise like that seriously. I
mean, dash it, be reasonable!"
"And with that little worm of all people!"
Hugo cleared his throat. He was conscious of a slight embarrassment. He
had not wished to touch on this aspect of the affair, but Ronnie's last
words gave a Carmody and a gentleman no choice.
"As a matter of fact, Ronnie, old man," he said, "you are wrong in
supposing that she went to Mario's with the above Pilbeam. She went
with me. Blameless Hugo, what. I mean, more like a brother than
anything."
Ronnie declined to be comforted.
"I don't believe you."
"My dear chap!"
"I suppose you think you're damned clever, trying to smooth things
over. She was at Mario's with Pilbeam."
"I took her there."
"You may have taken her, but she was dining with Pilbeam."
"Nothing of the kind."
"Do you think I can't believe my own eyes? It's no use your saying
anything, Hugo, I'm through with her. She's let me down. Less than a
week I've been away," said Ronnie, his voice trembling, "and she lets
me down. Well, it serves me right for being such a fool as to think
she ever cared a curse for me."
He relapsed into silence. And Hugo, after turning over in his mind a
few specimen remarks, decided not to make them. The cab drew up before
the hotel, and Ronnie, getting out, uttered a wordless exclamation.
"No, let me," said Hugo considerately. A bit rough on a man, he felt,
after coughing up five quid to the hellhounds of the law, to be
expected to pay the cab. He produced money and turned to the driver. It
was some moments before he turned back again, for the driver, by the
rules of the taxi chauffeurs' union, kept his petty cash tucked into
his underclothing. When he did so he was considerably astonished to
find that Ronnie, while his back was turned, had in some unaccountable
manner become Sue. The changeling was staring unhappily at him from the
exact spot where he had left his old friend.
"Hullo!" he said.
"Ronnie's gone," said Sue.
"Gone?"
"Yes. He walked off as quick as he could round the corner when he saw
me. He--" Sue's voice broke--"he didn't say a word."
"How did you get here?" asked Hugo. There were other matters, of
course, to be discussed later, but he felt he must get this point
cleared up first.
"I thought you would bring him back to your hotel, and I thought that
if I could see him I could--say something."
Hugo was alarmed. He was now practically certain that this girl was
going to cry, and if there was one thing he disliked it was being with
crying girls in a public spot. He would not readily forget the time
when a female named Yvonne Something had given way to a sudden twinge
of neuralgia in his company not far from Piccadilly Circus and an old
lady had stopped and said that it was brutes like him who caused all
the misery in the world.
"Come inside," he urged quickly. "Come and have a cocktail or a cup of
tea or a bun or something. I say," he said, as he led the way into the
hotel lobby and found two seats in a distant corner, "I'm frightfully
sorry about all this. I can't help feeling it's my fault."
"Oh, no."
"If I hadn't asked you to dinner----"
"It isn't that that's the trouble. Ronnie might have been a little
cross for a minute or two if he had found you and me together, but he
would soon have got over it. It was finding me with that horrid little
man Pilbeam. You see, I told him--and it was quite true--that I didn't
know him."
"Yes, so he was saying to me in the cab."
"Did he--what did he say?"
"Well, he plainly resented the Pilbeam, I'm afraid. His manner, when
touching on the Pilbeam, was austere. I tried to drive into his head
that that was just an accidental meeting and that you had come to
Mario's with me, but he would have none of it. I fear, old thing,
there's nothing to be done but leave the whole binge to Time, the Great
Healer."
A page boy was making a tour of the lobby. He seemed to be seeking a
Mr. Gargery.
"If only I could get hold of him and make him listen. I haven't been
given a chance to explain."
"You think you could explain, even if given a chance?"
"I could try. Surely he couldn't help seeing that I really loved him if
we had a real talk?"
"And the trouble is you're here and he'll be back at Blandings in a few
hours. Difficult," said Hugo, shaking his head. "Complex."
"Mr. Carmody," chanted the page boy, coming nearer. "Mr. Carmody."
"Hi!" cried Hugo.
"Mr. Carmody? Wanted on the telephone, sir."
Hugo's face became devout and saintlike.
"Awfully sorry to leave you for an instant," he said, "but do you mind
if I rush? It must be Millicent. She's the only person who knows I'm
here."
He sped away, and Sue, watching him, found herself choking with sudden
tears. It seemed to emphasize her forlornness so, this untimely
evidence of another love story that had not gone awry. She seemed to
be listening to that telephone conversation, hearing Hugo's delighted
yelps as the voice of the girl he loved floated to him over the wire.
She pulled herself together. Beastly of her to be jealous of Hugo just
because he was happy....
Sue sat up abruptly. She had had an idea.
It was a breath-taking idea, but simple. It called for courage, for
audacity, for a reckless disregard of consequences, but nevertheless it
was simple.
"Hugo," she cried, as that lucky young man returned and dropped into
the chair at her side. "Hugo, listen!"
"I say," said Hugo.
"I've suddenly thought----"
"I say," said Hugo.
"Do listen!"
"I say," said Hugo, "that was Millicent on the 'phone."
"Was it? How nice. Listen, Hugo."
"Speaking from Blandings."
"Yes. But----"
"And she has broken off the engagement!"
"What!"
"Broken off the bally engagement," repeated Hugo. He signalled urgently
to a passing waiter. "Get me a brandy-and-soda, will you?" he said. His
face was pale and set. "A stiffish brandy-and-soda, please."
"Brandy-and-soda, sir?"
"Yes," said Hugo. "Stiffish."