His servant had news for him.
“Miss Ford rang you up this morning, sir.”
“Oh, what had she to say?” Bobbie turned, lather brush in hand.
“She only asked if you were at home.”
“What time was this?”
“About five o’clock, sir.”
“Five o’clock! You graven image, why didn’t you tell me?”
Lathered as he was, he dashed to the telephone and got through to Diana.
“Is that you, Bobbie? Can I see you to-day?”
“I’ll come at once.”
There was a silence at the other end of the wire.
“I don’t think you need come at once,” said Diana. “Just call in--don’t
be surprised if you find somebody here you’ve heard me speak about.”
“Not Dempsi?” he asked, astonished.
“Yes, he is ... staying for a day or two. I’ll explain when you come.”
Bobbie whistled softly.
He lunched in the gloomy solitude of his club (it was Sunday, the day on
which all clubs are at their worst) and early in the afternoon strolled
round to Cheynel Gardens. The door was opened by a stage butler. Bobbie
looked fascinated at the glittering display of shirt-front and the
ill-fitting dress suit, several times too small for its wearer.
“Mrs. Ford is in The Study,” said the apparition gruffly.
Bobbie gazed in wonder; the servitor with the concertina trousers might
have stepped out from any burlesque of any triangle drama. Had there
been printed across the dazzling shirt-front “James: an old family
servant, devoted to the children,” he could not have been more obvious.
“So you’re the new butler?”
The new butler put his hand on his heart, bowed and growled:
“Yes, sir--name of Smith.” He was squinting, his face fearfully
distorted.
“Well, I’m going to call you Superbus. Take that look off your face and
stop looking round corners.”
Mr. Superbus obeyed. He was for a while disappointed.
“Lord, sir, did you recognise me?” he asked. “Maybe Mrs. Ford told you?”
Bobbie smiled derisively.
“Recognise you! Good heavens, why, you absolutely shouted! I spotted you
the moment I saw you!”
“That’s funny,” said Mr. Superbus. “My good lady always says that when I
disguise my face that way she would pass me in the street.”
“How can you blame her? Who wouldn’t pass you in the street with that
face? Even your wife has some illusions left, I suppose. Now, Superbus,
what is the game?”
Julius was all innocence. A wreath of wild flowers about his head would
not have made him more coyishly artless. Bobbie was not deceived.
“Game, sir?”
“Why are you in this house, got up like a comic seneschal? Does Miss
Ford know who you are?”
Mr. Superbus closed the door quickly and put his finger to his lips.
“‘Ush!” he said mysteriously.
Bobbie waited.
“Well, I’m ’ushing,” he said impatiently.
Julius tiptoed to The Study and beckoned him through the doorway. He had
the air of a respectable conspirator; one who knew that whenever the
mine exploded he would be out of the way and could, in certain
eventualities, be an acceptable witness for the prosecution.
“She sent for me,” he said darkly. “Asked me to come and stay here--I
come! Could I refuse? If there’s any danger I like to be on the spot.
That’s me!”
Bobbie thought he understood Diana’s motive. She wanted a man in the
house; he was not alone in respecting the genius of Double Dan.
“Oh, I see. Sensible girl!”
Mr. Superbus nodded.
“Yes, sir, very sensible. I don’t know anybody sensibler. She came to
the right man. Me.”
“I was talking to myself,” a little stiffly.
Julius inclined his head again.
“Yes, sir; we both heard you,” he said. “I’ve got wonderful ears.”
“I understand Miss Ford was alone in the house and she asked you to come
and stay? I’m glad.”
“Well, not exactly alone,” explained Mr. Superbus, loath to share the
honours which were rightly his as Chief Protector. “Of course, there’s
Uncle Isaac.”
Bobbie’s mouth opened.
“Unc--Uncle Isaac? Uncle Isaac who?”
Julius had meant to ask this question at the first opportunity.
“I don’t know his other name--very bad-tempered gentleman. He has fits;
and....” He tapped his forehead, but Bobbie did not grasp the sense of
the pantomime.
“Uncle Isaac! Suffering Moses!”
Mr. Superbus shook his head.
“No, sir, _he_ hasn’t come yet. They must be Hebrew gentlemen. Only
Uncle Isaac and Mr. Dempsi.”
Bobbie knew about Dempsi.
“--and Aunt Lizzie,” concluded Julius.
Bobbie staggered, grasped the mantelpiece for support, and turned a wan
countenance to the shirt-fronted butler. The unreality of the position
was intensified. Presently Julius would produce two rabbits and a bowl
of goldfish from a silk hat, and Diana would skip on to the scene in a
ballet dress and a fixed smile. And then Bobbie would wake up.
“Do you mind pouring out a drink?” he asked faintly. “My hand’s not
steady.”
The Great Detective opened the tantalus with an air of pride and poured
forth a potion.
“Say ‘when,’” he said. He would have made a good barman, he was so
talkative.
“Aunt Lizzie, I think you said?”
Bobbie had reviewed his relations, but no Aunt Lizzie showed in their
serried ranks.
“Yes, sir--she came with Uncle Isaac, yesterday afternoon. Rare pretty
young lady she is too. Naturally she and Uncle Isaac don’t get on well
together. Fancy calling her Lizzie! It’s common. And when there’s nice
names like Maud and Ethel and Agnes to choose from.”
Bobbie got back to normal with a struggle.
“Why--why shouldn’t she be called Lizzie? It’s--it’s an auntish name.
Aunt Lizzie!”
Mr. Superbus helped himself from the decanter. He it was who had
discovered the tantalus in a cabinet. And rights of discoverers are
indisputable.
“Good health, sir!” he said, and drank.
“Aunt Lizzie!” muttered Bobbie.
“What I can’t understand,” said Julius, wiping his mouth deftly, “is,
when she’s got a good name like Heloise--that’s what he calls her when
they’re alone....”
It was not the whisky, for he had not drunk thereof; nor the smell of
it, for the aroma had not reached him. The room suddenly spun before
his eyes. He saw twenty-four Superbuses wiping twenty-four moustaches.
“Heloise! Heloise!” he muttered. “Has she--has she got hair dark as the
raven’s?”
Julius considered. He had never met a raven, but he understood that it
was a very dark bird.
“Yes, sir.”
“And eyes that probe your soul?” asked Bobbie.
Again the detective considered.
“Well, she ain’t done any probing as far as I’m concerned,” he
confessed, “but there’s something about them that’s--well, peculiar.”
“And the sweetest voice in the world?”
Here again Mr. Superbus was handicapped by a lack of experience. Voices
were just voices to him.
“I’ve never heard her singing,” he confessed, “or talking much. She
swears a bit at Uncle Isaac, which in my opinion isn’t ladylike. Nor
smoking, for the matter of that. The way some of these ladies smoke is
very sad. Smoking stunts the growth--which a doctor told me, and what a
doctor don’t know ain’t worth knowing.”
Bobbie interrupted him.
“Where--where is Uncle Isaac?”
The reply came like a thunderclap.
“Cleaning the silver.”
Bobbie reeled.
“Cleaning the silver!” he said, dazed. “I’ll wake up in a minute.” He
pinched himself, Mr. Superbus watching and ready to offer suggestions.
They were unnecessary: Bobbie found a tender spot. “I’m awake--it’s
real. Uncle Isaac is cleaning the silver! Where are the servants--the
other servants?”
Julius could take exception at the “other.”
“Miss Ford sent them out, if you mean the servants. I’m here
professional. I don’t mind tellin’ you, sir, that my job is to see that
Uncle Isaac don’t go out too.”
Bobbie began at last to see daylight. If it was Gordon, his desire for
liberty was not only pardonable but praiseworthy.
“Does he want to go?”
Julius thought the question unnecessary. Surely a member of the family
knew all about the family skeletons? At the same time it was only
natural that he should pretend he didn’t. Julius was a just man.
“He’s a bit nutty. See what I mean? He’s got delusions,
hallucinations--to use a medical expression. Sees things, thinks he’s
somebody else. I’ve had hundreds of such cases through my hands.”
“But who put him to clean the silver?” insisted Bobbie.
“Miss Ford. Said it would keep him occupied.”
A step in the hall, a heavy step.
“That’s him coming now. Don’t be afraid of Uncle Isaac, sir: he’s as
harmless as a child----”
Gordon came in at that moment, but stopped dead at the sight of the
visitor. He was in his shirt-sleeves, he carried a duster in his hand,
his front was covered with a large white apron and a bib that was kept
in place by a pin. Bobbie could not speak--he could only stare and
stare.
“By heavens, it’s--Uncle Isaac!” he said in a voice that was almost
inaudible to Mr. Superbus.
“You know him, sir?” he smiled. “I thought it would be very strange if
you didn’t. Members of the same family, so to speak, and very likely
inflicted in the same way.”
“Ye-yes, I know him.”
Mr. Superbus approached the unhappy object of their discussion.
“Do you want something, Uncle Isaac?” he asked kindly, and patted
Gordon’s arm. So broken was Mr. Selsbury’s spirit that his keeper
remained alive and uninjured.
“Yes--no,” he said hoarsely.
Julius shook his head.
“He can’t make up his mind about anything. It takes you that way. I
wonder how he ever got married.”
Gordon steadied himself.
“Where is--Aunt Lizzie?” he gulped.
“In her room, Uncle Isaac, reading.”
For a second Gordon’s face was contorted.
“Don’t call me uncle,” he grated, holding himself in hand. “I’m not
_your_ uncle, anyway.”
“No, sir,” admitted Julius. “I haven’t got any uncles. Not as far as I
know. They run in some families and they don’t run in others.”
Suddenly his brow clouded, and he glared at Gordon with such intense
malignity that even Bobbie quailed.
“Here--I’ve just got an idea in my head, sir,” he slowly, “a sort of
inspiration. _Is_ that Uncle Isaac?”
Bobbie started.
“Eh?”
“Do you know Uncle Isaac?” The idea or inspiration had taken firm hold
of his imagination. “Suppose Double Dan was passin’ himself off as him!”
Bobbie looked past the man to his brother. Gordon was frowning and
shaking his head. He wished to keep in the character of the patriarch
for some extraordinary reason.
“Oh, yes,” said Bobbie, “that is Uncle Isaac.” He was almost breathless.
Julius was not immediately convinced.
“Are you sure?” dubiously.
Bobbie became very confident.
“Oh, rather! That is Uncle Isaac all right--how absurd, of course it is
Uncle Isaac. I knew him in a minute.”
No man readily sacrifices his inspirations--Julius was but human, though
there were moments when this was hard to believe.
“Oh!” he said disappointedly. “Mind you, Double Dan’s clever.”
“Nonsense!” said Bobbie with loud scorn. “He couldn’t impersonate Uncle
Isaac. I would know him anywhere!”
“Oh, couldn’t he ...!” sneered Superbus. “You don’t know Double Dan!”
Bobbie had done some quick thinking. He must talk to Gordon alone. Mr.
Superbus being impervious to the hints which followed:
“I want to have a little talk with my uncle,” said Bobbie, “on family
business. Do you mind leaving us alone for a minute?”
Julius was in two minds about the matter.
“Don’t let him escape,” he cautioned. “He’s as artful as a monkey! You
ought to hear what he did to me last night!”
“Certainly not.” Bobbie was ready to promise that he would bring his
brother to execution.
Still Mr. Superbus lingered. Diana had gone out, leaving instructions
which were to be carried out to the letter. Julius was a stickler for
duty.
“And don’t let him telephone.”
Even this Bobbie promised, and Julius took a reluctant leave.
“I’ll be on hand if he’s troublesome,” he said from the doorway. “Now,
no larks, uncle!”
“Uncle” mutely promised.
The portal closed, Bobbie went softly and listened. For a few seconds he
waited, and then jerked open the door. Julius was stooping to lace his
shoes. A less inquisitive man might have been suspected of having his
ear to the keyhole.
“Want me?” he asked with a blameless smile.
“No,” said Bobbie, so emphatically that Mr. Superbus could not mistake
his meaning. The door closed again.
“Gordon, what on earth----?”
Gordon threw out despairing arms.
“Bobbie, I’m in a hell of a mess,” he said, his tone one of anguish
beyond remedy.
“What has happened--what does it mean?” asked the bewildered Bobbie.
“Why didn’t you get in touch with me before?”
Gordon’s gesture cut short his questioning.
“I tried to telephone you, but I couldn’t get on, and ever since, that
infernal jackass has been keeping guard over the instrument. Is it a
crime to kill an amateur detective? I’ve forgotten. I know that in some
circumstances murder is justifiable.”
“What has happened?” asked Bobbie again.
For fully three minutes Gordon paced the room, so agitated that he could
not steady his voice. His relief at Bobbie’s arrival had brought the
inevitable reaction. Presently he grew calmer.
“When I got to the station to meet--you know----”
“Heloise?”
Gordon winced. He didn’t want to talk about Heloise. The very sound of
her name gave him a little pain.
“I found her in a state of terrible fear. You can imagine how I felt
when she told me that her husband was watching the barriers and
thirsting for my blood! She wanted me to go on and await her, but of
course I bolted back; went to the hotel to change, and found that the
valet who had my bag and had taken it to the station parcels office, was
away for the week-end. I came home, and she must have followed.”
“Heloise?”
Gordon swallowed something.
“Say ‘she’ or ‘her,’” he begged. “I feel better about her when she’s a
pronoun!”
“She must have followed?” repeated Bobbie in horror. “Then she _is_
here! She--she isn’t Aunt Lizzie by any chance?”
“She _is_ Aunt Lizzie! Aunt Lizzie! Oh, Bobbie, isn’t this the most
awful thing that ever happened? What am I going to do? I can’t leave the
house----”
“But why?” asked Bobbie, thunderstruck.
No man stood less in need of cross-examination at that moment than
Gordon. He had hopes that Bobbie, with his curious insight into human
affairs, would accept the situation without demanding analysis.
“I can’t understand,” began Bobbie. “You’ve only to explain to
Diana----”
Gordon’s laugh was harsh. Bobbie had heard him laugh once before like
that--when he was recovering from gas after having a tooth out.
“I haven’t told you the worst,” said Gordon gloomily. “Diana found me
here and accused me of being Double Dan. I was struck dumb. The idea was
so grotesque that I could not find words to answer her. Suppose somebody
came to you in the street and accused you of murder, what would you say?
Something amusing? I haven’t the gift of persiflage. I could have got
out of it even then, but that infernal woman made her appearance and
hung round my neck! In a sense she was justified. Diana threatened to
shoot her. A woman doesn’t like that. What was I to do? My dilemma was a
terrible one! I had the alternative of admitting that I was Double Dan,
impersonator and teller of plausible stories, or of telling the
unbelievable truth, which means that she would have thought that I was
engaged in a vulgar affair with Heloise.”
This argument seemed very sound to Bobbie.
“Who called her Aunt Lizzie?” he asked. He might have saved himself the
trouble.
“Who do you think?” asked Gordon bitterly. “Diana! Bobbie, that girl is
driving me mad! Why did she come from Australia to upset my life? And
I’m a member of the British Empire League! Curse the Empire! Diana is
terrible! She is carrying on with Dempsi under my eyes. The most
shocking little cad! A bounder of bounders! And Bobbie, she pretends to
be a widow! I don’t know whose widow--I sometimes think it is mine. If
that is so, the things she says about me are enough to make me turn in
my grave!”
Bobbie was very grave and thoughtful. This was a situation so bizarre
that it could not be tested by his own experience.
“I see,” he said slowly. “Deuced awkward, old man.”
Gordon had expected some other comment. In all the conditions “deuced
awkward” seemed rather mild.
“You’ve got to help me get out of this,” he said impatiently. “And we’ve
got to deal drastically with Dempsi. Why, he wanted to marry her this
afternoon! Said he knew a place that specialised in Sunday afternoon
marriages! The parson called twice! Dempsi carries a special license in
his pocket, the hateful little dago! I shall do something desperate. I
shall shoot them both.”
Bobbie was looking at him curiously. His real anger was so patently
directed toward Dempsi, whose chief offence seemed to be that he wanted
to marry Diana: which seemed a reasonable and laudable ambition.
“I shouldn’t shoot them,” said Bobbie slowly. “You’ll only get yourself
talked about. And besides, I don’t see that it is any business of yours.
They were old friends, lovers----”
“Do you want to drive me mad?” snarled Gordon. “Lovers! They were never
lovers! Diana--Diana, of all women in the world, to--to--carry on like
this! Encouraging him--there’s no other word for it! Diana, whom I
believed the very soul of modesty!”
Bobbie had no especial interest in Diana’s soul; he thought she was a
nice girl.
“It must have come as a bit of a shock to you,” he said sardonically,
and Gordon was hurt at the innuendo. “What does Aunt Lizzie say about
it?”
This was a subject on which he could not speak with normal politeness.
“Does it matter what she says? Bobbie, do you know what Diana tried to
do? And this reveals an undreamt-of indelicacy of mind. She tried to
give us the same room! A wretched little servants’ room at the top of
the house. She says that Heloise is my accomplice.... It’s no laughing
matter!” Bobbie was rolling helplessly in his chair. “Diana is treating
me like a dog.”
Bobbie surveyed his relative critically.
“And you look a bit of a dog too in those clothes,” he said. “Where did
you dig up that suit? Gordon, I’ve seen a judge send down a man for five
years for wearing a suit like that. He said it revealed his criminal
psychology.”
“Now, Bobbie, you’ve got to help me.” Gordon was not amused. “I’m going
to get away. Once I can get to the hotel to my bag, or even if I could
get to Scotland--which wouldn’t be a bad move--I’m safe. But I haven’t a
penny! She made me turn out my pockets at the point of a pistol. She is
the most thorough woman I have ever met. Swore that I had been trying
to get at the safe and searched me for skeleton keys!”
Bobbie felt in his pockets. The trip to Ostend had exhausted most of the
spare cash--and it was Sunday.
“I’m afraid I’ve no money with me,” he said. “I can get a cheque cashed
at the club for a tenner----”
“That doesn’t matter,” interrupted Gordon. “I’ll tell you what I want
you to do--a very simple service that you can render and will save all
bother. When Diana comes----”
Here, Bobbie thought the solution was a very simple one.
“When she comes I’ll just tell her that you’re really Gordon Selsbury,”
he said, and Gordon leapt up from the chair where he had been sitting.
“Do you want to ruin me?” he hissed. “Tell her I’m Gordon Selsbury? I’ve
told her, haven’t I? But I gave up telling her when I remembered
Heloise. How am I going to explain her?”
The crux of the problem was now displayed. Bobbie had no cut and dried
solution. Such as presented were so nobbly and damp that he rejected
them without examination.
“I’d forgotten about Aunt Lizzie,” he said thoughtfully.
Gordon’s triumph brought little happiness to him.
“Don’t you see it’s impossible? Now, I’ve been thinking the matter over
and I’ve worked out a much better plan than yours. I can get away when
this dithering old ass isn’t looking--which is pretty often. Diana has
to go out early to-morrow to her bankers. That will be my chance, but I
must have some money. I want it before the banks open, so you cannot
possibly help me there. What you can do is this: persuade Diana to let
you have the key of the safe. She’s put the lock on as well as the
combination. I’ve tried to open it, so I know. Get the key and pass it
to me at the first opportunity.”
Bobbie was looking at him very hard now, and Bobbie was whistling.
“Give you the key of the safe?” he said slowly. “By Jove!” His eyes were
bulging, his jaw had dropped.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Gordon with a sinking feeling in his
heart.
Slowly and distinctly the words came.
“You infernal rascal!”
Gordon stepped back as if he had been struck.
“What do you mean?” he gasped. Yet he could not mistake the meaning of
words and looks.
Bobbie’s attitude had undergone a remarkable change. The friendliness
had gone from his tone, the light of fun from his face. He glared at the
man before him; judgment and condemnation and doom was in his eyes.
“You _are_ Double Dan!” he breathed. “By jinks! I was deceived! You’re
clever, my man, diabolically clever. Carslake said you were, and like a
fool I thought he was exaggerating. You _are_ Double Dan! My brother has
whiskers! Where are yours? I thought there was something strange about
you when I saw you. And now that I come to think of it, that
cock-and-bull story of yours about Aunt Lizzie is just the kind of story
you would tell if you were detected--phew! Bravo, little Diana!”
Gordon went purple and red; he uttered strange, wild animal noises that
had no meaning.
“I swear----”
Bobbie shook his head.
“It won’t do, my friend,” he said. “I see the whole plot. Of course,
you and your accomplice pumped my unfortunate brother, who is on his way
to Paris or some other unreachable place. You discovered that I knew he
was going to Ostend, and you changed your plans. Gordon went to Paris as
I feared----”
“Alone?”
Gordon was becoming an adept in self-control. Alone? That was a poser
for Bobbie.
“I didn’t think of that. But there’s no reason why part of your original
story shouldn’t be true. The husband appears, the lady begs the victim
to go and she will follow. That is it!”
“I tell you----”
Bobbie stopped his protest.
“No, no, my man, it won’t do,” he said sternly. “My cousin, Miss Ford,
who has so cleverly trapped you, must have some special reason for not
wishing to hand you over to justice--had I been she, I would have sent
for the police. She has probably taken the wisest course--I will not
interfere with her plans.”
He laughed softly--Gordon thought that the immaculate agriculturist Abel
must have laughed like that; there was something to be said for Cain.
“Give you the key of the safe, eh? I was nearly deceived; upon my word,
I was. Now go on with your dusting, little man, and thank your lucky
stars you’re not in prison.”
Gordon went on with his dusting--he dusted the perspiration from his
brow, and the duster was not particularly clean. The result was
startling.
“Bobbie!” he wailed.
Bobbie turned on his heel.
“Do you want me to kick you?” he demanded.
Evidently Gordon didn’t. He began to rub the back of a chair listlessly.
He had no heart in his work, and without enthusiasm even dusting is a
failure.
Bobbie opened the door and found Mr. Superbus sitting on the bottom
stair, manicuring his nails with a clasp-knife.
“Giving you any trouble, sir?” he asked eagerly, and was disappointed
when Bobbie Selsbury shook his head.
“None whatever.” He walked back into the room. “Now then, Uncle Isaac,
clear out!”
“Did he try to escape, sir?” asked the interested custodian.
Bobbie laughed his Cain and Abel laugh. His brother wondered where
Diana kept her little gun.
“Did he try to escape? I should jolly well say he did!” said Bobbie.
“Look after him, Mr. Superbus. You have in your able hands a man of
singular cunning and resource.”
Mr. Superbus shook his head sorrowfully.
“You’re a naughty old Uncle Isaac, that’s what you are,” he said. “I’m
surprised at you.”
Gordon collected his dusters and staggered from the room. He was at the
end of his dream.
“I’m a naughty old Uncle Isaac,” he moaned. “I’m a naughty old Uncle
Isaac!”
His moan came up from the deep recesses of the kitchen.