Fool Errant

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Oh well, a girl says—I mean—well, perhaps I wanted to see you.”

  “That was very nice of you. But I think there was something more than that.”

  “More?”

  “You said I mustn’t go to Meade House. Aren’t you going to tell me what you meant when you said that?”

  She gave a little conscious laugh, and then broke off to cough.

  “Oh dear—this cold! What did you say?”

  “I asked what you meant when you said I mustn’t go to Meade House?”

  The blue eyes looked at him meltingly.

  “It’s such a long way off,” she whispered.

  “Was that the reason?”

  “I oughtn’t to have said so.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll think—” She coughed. “Oh, you’ll think—I must go—really I must.”

  She jumped up as she spoke and began to walk away.

  Hugo followed.

  “Then there isn’t really a reason why I oughtn’t to stay at Meade House?”

  “Not if you don’t think so.”

  “You were just pulling my leg in fact.” There was a little offence in his tone.

  The girl burst out laughing.

  “Perhaps I was. You swallowed it all beautifully—didn’t you?”

  “Oh—well—”

  Her eyes teased him.

  “Come! You believed it all. You thought there was some deadly secret. You never thought you were just being had.”

  “It wasn’t very k-kind of you—w-was it?”

  She laughed again.

  “Poor Mr. Hugo! Never mind—perhaps it wasn’t all teasing—perhaps I did really want to see you again. Will you come up and meet me another day if I ask you? Will you?”

  Hugo met the challenge of her eyes, and began to stammer very much. It was quite easy to stammer if you wanted to.

  “I’d l-l-love to.”

  The girl pressed his arm.

  “We’ll fix it up. I must go. Don’t come any farther. No, you mustn’t—reelly.” It was “reelly” this time.

  She pressed his arm again and ran off down the incline that led to the Tube.

  Hugo watched her out of sight. He did not follow her, because there was no need to follow her. He knew very well that he had not met Loveday Leigh at all. He walked out of the station and over the bridge in a mood of bleak, cold anger. What a fool they must think him! What an utter prize fool and mug! The girl was undoubtedly Cissie—Cissie, who knew Hacker.

  He remembered Loveday’s little interrupted cry at the telephone. Someone had come in—probably Cissie. How much had Cissie heard? Enough to make her turn up at the meeting place which Loveday had suggested, with a yellow chrysanthemum pinned on her coat. They must think him a mug!

  It consoled him slightly to remember that the first glance had roused an inward protest, and that the scented green handkerchief had finished him. Miss Cissie probably thought she had been frightfully clever. He could imagine her being terribly pleased with the idea of getting over the difference in voices by pretending to have a very bad cold—she did it quite well too. But from the very first moment he had been furiously certain that she wasn’t Loveday.

  Concern for Loveday sprang up suddenly and stopped his thinking of himself. Where was Loveday, and why hadn’t she come? And what sort of friend was Cissie for the child who had run hand in hand with him down the dark lane to Meade Halt?

  He hadn’t any answer to these questions.

  CHAPTER IX

  Hugo lunched economically at an A.B.C. on the other side of the bridge. As he sat at the small marble-topped table, he was wondering what he was going to do next. He went over all the things that had happened in the last fortnight. Any one of them, taken by itself, could be explained away with the greatest ease; but, taken together, they simply could not be explained at all. Some of them were trivial, some annoying; others bizarre and apparently purposeless. Taken in a lump, you couldn’t explain them—you simply couldn’t. And behind the feeling of being up against something inexplicable there was the constantly recurring prick that says. “Look out!”

  He drank his coffee slowly and took time over the tongue, roll, and butter. What was he going to do about it? The name of Mr. Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith presented itself, and not for the first time. It went on presenting itself, supported by reason and common sense.

  Hugo frowned at reason and common sense. The idea of obtruding himself upon the notice of one of Susan’s in-laws, and a bit of a bigwig at that, made him feel hot all over. Benbow Collingwood Horatio probably didn’t even know of his existence. That is to say, he probably knew that Susan had a brother, and might be vaguely aware of having shaken hands with him at Susan’s wedding. Perfectly horrible to trade on being Susan’s brother and to thrust one’s jumbled affairs upon an unwilling bigwig. The question was, were these jumbled affairs his, Hugo’s, private affairs, or was he by some odd chance caught up into a tangle which might concern even bigger people than Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith.

  Hugo could make nothing of this line o thought. He began to think he was a fool not to have followed Cissie. He ought to have followed her. He ought to have found out where she was living; because then he might have met Loveday after all; and if he had met Loveday, she would have told him why he mustn’t stay at Meade House.

  He paid his bill and set out to look for 107 Finch Street and the elusive Mr. Rice. It was one of those grey days when the air is so wet that it is a constant surprise to discover that rain is not actually falling. It does not fall, because it remains in the air, on your face, your hands, your clothes. This wet air was as warm as if it had been July instead of January.

  As Hugo approached Finch Street, his way lay amongst streets that grew steadily greyer, poorer, and, as it seemed, damper. The houses, the pavements, and the people were all damp and dirty. When he had asked his way for about the tenth time, the dampness seemed to be getting into his mind. Why was he looking for Mr. Rice? What did he want with him? What would he say if he found him? What, in fact, was the good of anything?

  He came into Finch Street, and found it a place of dismal little shops. It smelt of fish and old clothes. About every tenth shop appeared to sell fish and chips. 105 was a slop shop; 106 a pawnbroker; 107 a tobacconist.

  Hugo went in and asked for Mr. Rice. The answer did not surprise him—there was no Mr. Rice there. He tried Price, and Brice, and was looked at coldly by the handsome hook-nosed damsel behind the counter.

  “Don’t know him.”

  “He gave this address.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Do you take letters for people?”

  “And what if we do? We don’t have to ask your leave, I suppose?”

  “To be c-called for?”

  Hugo could have killed himself for stammering. The girl mimicked him.

  “Yes, Mr. C-c-clever. Too c-c-clever to live—aren’t you?”

  Hugo walked back through the dreary streets. What was he going to do next? He had not answered the question, when the lights of a Tube station caught his eye. He stood and frowned at the lights for a minute. Then he crossed over, entered a telephone booth, and rang up Mr. Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith.

  CHAPTER X

  When the telephone bell rang, Mr. Smith was looking out of the window. He stood with his hands behind him and his head a little on one side. A very tall, thin man, with the forward stoop and slightly peering gaze of a scholar. He wore large horn-rimmed glasses pushed up on to his forehead. He appeared to be looking at the rain. On a perch, about a yard away, sat a grey and rose-coloured parrot very busy with its toilet. It stretched a wing, said “Awk!” in a loud peremptory manner, and then, with the wing still spread to its utmost reach, observed conversationally, “I parted from her on the pier the first day of July.”

  Mr. Smith said “Ssh!” and the parrot looked at him reproachfully. After a moment it slowly folded its wing, said “Awk!” again rather angrily, and
began to recite at the top of its voice:

  “Three jolly admirals all of a row;

  Collingwood, Nelson, and bold Benbow—”

  It stopped abruptly, flapped both wings, and said “Yah!”

  The telephone bell rang. Mr. Smith went slowly to the table and took up the receiver.

  “Who’s that? … Who did you say? … Susan’s brother? Yes, of course I knew Susan had a brother. I suppose I met you, didn’t I? … What do you want? … Yes, I’m in.… Yes, you can come along.… All right.”

  He listened for the click at the other end and put the instrument back. Then he walked to the window and went on watching the rain.

  A less nautical figure could hardly have been imagined. It was as if his whole appearance protested against the names thrust upon him in unconscious infancy. Even the enthusiastic parents responsible for them had not seriously considered the sea as a profession after he was five years old. He had distinguished himself greatly both at school and college, and then, like so many brilliant boys, had passed into obscurity. Ample means allowed him to indulge a taste for desultory rambling through the old cities of Europe. He became known as a collector of prints, and published a small monograph on Russian ikons, followed a year or two later by another upon early German woodcuts. Then, quite suddenly, he emerged from this cultured obscurity as the author of a book with a commonplace title and a daring content. The European Problem set more than its author in the lime-light. It was at once an analysis and a forecast. In every country it was read, talked of, criticized, and attacked. Written fifteen years before the war, it forecast not only the war itself, but its social and economic consequences. And if he chose, Mr. Smith might at the present moment have indulged himself by observing, “I told you so.” As a matter of fact, he never referred to the subject.

  During the war his intimate knowledge of almost every European country brought him very closely into touch with more than one government department. As to his present position and activities, most people were as much in the dark as Hugo Ross, who had merely a vague impression that John Smith’s uncle was no end of a distinguished old fellow with some sort of mysterious—or shall we say undefined—connection with the Foreign Office. For the rest, he was a bachelor and an eccentric; and he had given Susan, as a wedding present, a string of pearls worth five thousand pounds. Susan was therefore a prejudiced witness when she declared fervently that he was a dinky old duck.

  Hugo came into the study to find the curtains still undrawn and Mr. Smith still contemplating the falling rain. He turned round when the parrot flapped, and said,

  “Ssh, Ananias!” and then, “That you, Ross?”

  Hugo came forward and lent a hand with the curtains, which his host now proceeded to draw. Ananias watched them with a sarcastic eye.

  “It’s very good of you to s-see me,” said Hugo when the subsequent silence had gone on for some time.

  “Well,” said Mr. Smith, “I’m not doing anything for you—am I?” He began to walk away from the window, talking as he went. “Of course the question is, do you want me to do anything for you?—and if you do, what is it?—and if you don’t, why have you come to see me at all? Because of course—” He reached the mantelpiece and, turning, stood with his back against it. “Let me see—I suppose I met you at Susan’s wedding, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was pretty awful. How on earth was he to begin? How on earth did one begin confiding in a sister’s uncle-in-law who just wandered round the room talking vaguely, not to you, but to the carpet at his feet?

  He gazed at Mr. Smith’s long drooping form and Mr. Smith’s rather classic and quite expressionless features surmounted by the horn-rimmed spectacles and a mass of very thick iron-grey hair, and wondered why he had come.

  Mr. Smith continued to look at the carpet; but for the moment he had ceased to wander.

  “The further question arises as to whether one is justified in recommending anyone for a job when you don’t know anything about them except a sister—a very charming sister. Susan is undoubtedly a very charming girl. And though I disapprove of marriage in the abstract, I find that, in the concrete, I do approve of Susan. I suppose you want a job.”

  “N-no, sir.”

  Mr. Smith pushed the glasses up farther. He had a long, thin, carefully tended hand, and the gesture had a certain weary grace. He said,

  “How remarkable! Young men are always coming to me and asking me to recommend them because I knew their grandfathers—or their grandmothers. A grandmother is, of course, the stronger recommendation of the two; and if I ever danced with her, the young man is, naturally, perfectly competent to go anywhere or do anything.”

  “I’ve got a job,” said Hugo.

  “Do you want a better one?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Mr. Smith began to drift off towards the window again.

  “It wasn’t exactly raining this afternoon, but it’s raining now,” he observed. “And it isn’t exactly Christmas yet, but it will be in about eleven months—eh, Ananias?”

  The parrot rose on his toes and said “Awk!” Then in a rapid monotone it began:

  “‘Three jolly admirals all a row;

  Collingwood, Nelson, and old Benbow—’

  Hard a-port! Hard a-port, I say! Give us a kiss, ducky! Give us a kiss, ducky—do!”

  The sound of a resounding smack followed. Mr. Smith said, “Ssh, Ananias!” and drifted back again to the fire.

  Hugo was ready for him.

  “It m-must seem awful cheek to you, sir, my c-coming to see you like this. I’ve come because I want advice. I w-wouldn’t bother you with my affairs, b-but—”

  “There always is a but,” said Mr. Smith.

  “I’m not sure where my affairs stop and s-something that I ought to have advice about begins.”

  “I am not a solicitor,” said Mr. Smith.

  His tone was dreamy, not sarcastic; but Hugo stiffened; the flush which rose so easily to the roots of his fair hair subsided.

  “May I tell you what my job is, sir?”

  “By all means.”

  “I’m Minstrel’s secretary.”

  Mr. Smith gazed in the direction of Ananias.

  “Minstrel?” he said. “Ambrose Minstrel?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you want advice. What sort of advice?”

  “I’ve been there a fortnight—and odd things keep happening.”

  “Ah—odd things. What sort of odd things?”

  His tone was abstracted, and he continued to look at Ananias; yet somehow Hugo felt that he was being attended to.

  “I was very glad to get the job, because I wanted a job pretty badly, and I was most awfully pleased at being taken on by a big man like Minstrel.”

  “Yes—how did you get the job?”

  “A friend told me that Minstrel was going to advertise, so I got down to his place before anyone else. I didn’t think I had an earthly chance, because I thought he’d want someone with shorthand and a lot of other qualifications that I haven’t got. But he t-took me.”

  “Straight away—without seeing anyone else?”

  Hugo laughed.

  “He k-kept me to interview the others.”

  Mr. Smith took up the tongs, selected a large lump of coal, and put it on the fire. With his back to Hugo, he said,

  “Was that one of the odd things?”

  “N-not exactly, sir.”

  “He took you without references? Did he know anything about you?”

  “I believe Hacker telephoned about my references. Hacker’s his assistant.”

  Mr. Smith turned round again. He still held the tongs, and kept opening and shutting them in an absent sort of way. He seemed to be looking at Hugo’s boot-laces.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Are you so inherently modest as to consider that there must be something odd about a person who engages you as a secretary?”

  “No, sir. I haven’t really got to the odd things yet.
It—it’s difficult to begin. They don’t s-seem so odd when you take them one by one.”

  “I see. Well—begin. Let us have these oddments. Produce them.”

  Hugo began to produce them. It was frightful to feel that his cheeks were burning. The things that he had to produce shrivelled into absurdity under Mr. Smith’s attention.

  “Someone came into my room in the night and opened my box.”

  “Dear me!”

  Hugo described the incident in detail. It was a ridiculous incident. He described the half-caught words which he had heard when he first arrived at Meade House: “He’s easy—easy;—easy.” Minstrel’s rasping voice came back to him: “The young fool hasn’t got the brains.” The words might have referred to anyone.

  He went on to Mr. Rice, and felt on firmer ground. It was impossible to deny the oddness of Mr. Rice and of the client who offered fifty pounds, and was prepared to raise it, for a pair of field-glasses that were not worth five. Mr. Rice’s visit, Mr. Rice’s letter, and Mr. Rice’s telephone call were most undeniably odd.

  “You’ve got this letter?”

  “No, sir—that’s another thing—it’s gone. I p-put it in my pocket-book, and it isn’t there.”

  “Awk!” said Ananias very loudly.

  Mr. Smith laid down the tongs and put his hands behind him.

  “Sure?”

  “Quite sure, sir.” A pause, and then, “I really am quite sure.”

  Ananias began to dance up and down and flap his wings.

  “Eena, meena, myna, mo—

  Catch a nigger by the toe,

  If he hollers, let him go.

  Eena, meena, meena, meena, MEENA!”

  Mr. Smith went over and cuffed him. When he came back again, he asked,

  “That all?”

  “N-no, sir.”

  “Go on.”

  “There was a girl, sir.”

  “There always is. What about her?”

  “I m-met her in the lane when I went down about the job—I ran into her in the dark—she was running away—” Hugo stuck there because Mr. Smith was looking at him for the first time.

  “Oh, she was running away?”

  “Y-yes, sir. And I c-c-carried her b-bag.” He was stammering badly.