‘Still, I think that Hilda might have hit on something better in the way of a fairy tale than what she did,’ speculated Mrs Larch. ‘She seems quite a sharp girl in general.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ maintained Nickle impartially. ‘Of course since it tore one’s inclined to say that, but as things stood what likelier tale could she put up at short notice? She might have got away with it, too, if it hadn’t been—Oh, all right; I’ll take it.’
The interruption was a telephone call and Nickle crossed over to the small table by the door while the other two, the subject of Eliza talked out, waited to hear if there was any new development. Most of the calls that came were dead matter, for in the directory their number still appeared against the name of the former tenant and less than a dozen intimates were in a position to get through to them.
‘It’s “Soapy”, talking from somewhere down there,’ rapped out Nickle, covering the mouthpiece as he spoke back into the room. ‘Get Joolby if you can, one of you.’
Mrs Larch nodded to George and hurried out. But Joolby’s progress was slow even on the level and this entailed a flight of stairs—or possibly the Alsatian Bolshie was difficult to get away from. At all events the conversation was over and the receiver hung up again before the cripple dragged his trailing feet through the doorway.
‘What’s this?’ he said, the quickened beat of his throat betraying the stress of his exertion. ‘Is Dodger there speaking?’
‘He was,’ replied Nickle, ‘but he’s gone. He seemed to be pressed for time and I gathered that telephoning at all was rather risky.’
‘Well, where was he talking from?’
‘God knows,’ said Nickle with a shrug. ‘Some wayside shrine one would imagine. He is scarcely likely to have rung us up from the village pub and in any case there’s no idea of calling on him from our end.’
‘Well, what was it?’
‘He says it’s all right for Saturday still. Nora M. doesn’t seem to have done any harm so far but he’s getting jumpy about that fellow Carrados. He can’t make out what’s going on in that direction but he wishes you could do something. That’s all.’
‘Oh, it is, is it? That’s quite satisfactory, isn’t it, Nickle? And he’s getting jumpy about Max Carrados, is he? Strange that I’m the only one who never seems to get jumpy, isn’t it? I suppose it has something to do with my physical peculiarities, for even as a boy I don’t remember ever to have gone in much for jumping. Well, as regards Mr Carrados I have already arranged, as he suggests, to “do something”.’
‘The deuce you have!’ said Nickle, staring his curiosity. ‘How is it to be wangled?’
‘All in good time, my friend; you won’t be left out of the performance. Now go down and help Won Chou and Jules to get things ready. They know what will be needed. And you bring Hilda up to me here, Mrs Larch. I want to have a little quiet talk with my new maid-servant.’ He waited until they had gone and then looked significantly at Mr Larch. ‘You understand all right, don’t you, George?’
‘Oh yes; I understand all right, Mr Joolby,’ replied Larch in his transparent way. ‘And so long as it doesn’t go actually to extremes—’
‘It shan’t go actually to extremes, George.’ Mr Joolby’s voice sounded positively sympathetic.
‘I know that it may have to be cut rather fine and stretched rather far at a pinch of course, Mr Joolby. That’s in the nature of the business we are on. But I rely on you to give me the nod in time to get Cora clear off whatever happens. I can take my own whack as it comes—as I always have done.’
‘Of course, George, of course. Women and children first—that’s what the Bible says, isn’t it? But not extremes on any account, eh? Well, well!’
‘You know what I mean well enough, Mr Joolby. I mean bloodshed. I never have—’
‘Here is Hilda, sir,’ announced Mrs Larch, reappearing at the door. ‘You said you wanted to see her.’
‘To be sure; to be sure,’ assented Joolby, plainly in his most benevolent mood. ‘And you two had better stay as well now you are here. One can’t be too careful, I understand, in dealing with emotional young females.’
‘As you please, sir,’ replied Mrs Larch, remaining between Nora and the door, while George, painfully wishing that he could be away at the more congenial occupation of forging bank-notes, dropped discreetly further into the background.
‘So you are our new help, Hilda Kelly, eh, girl?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she answered rather feebly. It was the first time Nora had encountered Joolby face to face, and at the sight of his monstrous swelling infirmities she realised with a tremor of dismay that unless she could fight it down she might suddenly become faint, or sick, or something discreditably weak, if the ordeal went much further.
‘And Miss Nora Melhuish, of Orchard Close, Tapsfield, also?’ continued her employer. ‘Well, well’—as Nora found herself unable to combat this thrust in her agitated plight—‘there’s no great harm in having two different sets of names, and nearly all of our aristocracy have at least two separate addresses. Some of the most illustrious characters in history have found it convenient to change their identity from time to time. I have myself, and I dare say that Mr Larch there has been described as alias this or alias that on certain state occasions.’
‘I don’t see what my private affairs have to do with my employment here so long as I do the work,’ she managed to retort, hoping to be let off farther questioning on this tacit admission.
‘Very reasonably put,’ conceded Mr Joolby, still pleasantly tickled by what was going on, ‘and that brings me to another matter. Hearing that your cousin Eliza was feeling indisposed you came here to take her place so that we should not be inconvenienced, didn’t you? Very thoughtful and considerate indeed; so different from what one usually hears of the domestic servant classes.’
‘If you don’t mind I should like to get on with my work, sir,’ she put in, as unconcernedly as she could. ‘All this has nothing to do with my duties.’
‘Your work, eh?’ replied Joolby, his mood suffering a remarkable transition as he proceeded. ‘Why, yes, of course; that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? But part of your duties, properly considered, consists in taking instructions and answering your employer’s questions and so on, eh, doesn’t it? Well, Miss Hilda Nora Kelly Melhuish, in the short time that you have been here among us have you discovered anything unusual or irregular in the conduct of this establishment?’ Then as she stood irresolutely dumb at this the cripple unexpectedly swung one of his wooden props and brought it down with a terrifying crash on the bare table lying between them. ‘Answer me, girl; have you?’
‘No, sir,’ she protested faintly.
‘You haven’t, eh? Then let me tell you that your eyesight is very little better than your Uncle Max’s, Hilda Nora. You must have made very poor use of your opportunities here, for, you may as well know now, our business consists in imitating the paper currency of certain foreign countries—countries unfriendly to England and more or less actually at war with us if the truth was known. It’s a political business but none the less it’s technically illegal and so if it got about we should all get into trouble. You follow that?’
‘Well, I suppose it’s forgery in fact,’ she replied.
‘Forgery! What do you know about forgery, girl? If I sign my own name on a telegram it may happen to be forgery in point of law. Think of that.’
‘But these are bank-notes you say.’
‘Well, what does it matter after all?’ suggested Mrs Larch on a note of persuasion. ‘I mean to say, there’s nothing really wrong about imitating things like that—it’s only that they’ve made laws about it. It isn’t as though you hurt anyone or did them out of something—which I certainly wouldn’t hold with. It stands to reason that one bank-note’s as good as another so long as people only think so; at least George’s are, in fact they’re better than the real ones if it comes to that. I often say it’s the people who go kicking up a fuss when they
find that they’ve been slipped a soft one who deserve to be put in the cart. Why can’t they pass it on quietly to someone else and then no one would be a penny the worse off?’
‘Well, it seems rather queer—’ protested Nora, beginning to be a little reassured by the trend of the conversation.
‘Never mind what it seems; I didn’t have you up to listen to what you think but to tell you what to do,’ retorted Mr Joolby, taking over the conversation. ‘No doubt you thought you were very clever to get in here, didn’t you? Well, we thought we were even cleverer to get you, so it wasn’t very difficult you see. Now your Uncle Max Carrados has been interesting himself in our affairs much more than is good for him during the last few days. You say that you have noticed nothing going on wrong here. So why not tell him that and persuade him to drop it. Eh? Eh?’
It sounded too good to be true. All she would have to do would be to—
‘Why certainly. I’ll go at once and tell him that I’ve seen nothing at all wrong here.’
‘You will, eh? Very good. But you won’t have the trouble of going. He may be here any minute now.’
‘Max Carrados here?’ she exclaimed. ‘What is he coming here for?’
‘It would appear that you wrote and begged him to come at once,’ deliberately replied Mr Joolby, and looking at his face—which she had avoided doing to the extent of her power—the girl suddenly knew that the Thing before her was crudely and inhumanly evil. He was without pity, beyond restraint, and impervious to remorse; all the time he had been playing with her fears and enjoying the thought of the worse terrors he yet had in store for her. Oddly, the revelation helped her. ‘The message was rather ambiguously worded,’ he continued with meaning, ‘but it suggested a good excuse for him to call and it was sufficiently—shall I say disturbing—to make sure that he’d be a little anxious. Oh yes, he will come all right. In fact I can assure you that he is on his way now.’
‘So you forged my writing also—it’s not only bank-notes it seems! And you think that Max Carrados will walk into a trap like that—or that I would do anything but tell him the whole truth the minute I see him?’
‘The whole truth, so far as you are concerned, is that you have found nothing wrong going on here,’ he reminded her. ‘Convince him of that and all will be well for both of you … The little matter of our private activities that I mentioned just now was strictly confidential and you had much better dismiss it entirely from your mind.’
‘Yes; why should you have mentioned it at all?’ she asked suspiciously. ‘Why need you?’
‘I needn’t. But I want you to understand that we really mean serious business, and that having very heavy risks to face we aren’t going to stick at anything.’
‘You mean that I should league myself with you in trying to deceive Mr Carrados and the authorities? Is it likely?’
‘I think it is quite likely when you have considered a little; so likely that you’ll strain every nerve and try every artifice in your power to do it. You are very young to—to meet with an accident, Nora Kelly, and it would hardly be a pleasant thought that you had drawn Max Carrados into a trap with you. Ah; I fancy that must signify our myopic friend’s arrival.’
‘That’ had been the resounding clamour of an ancient bell somewhere below, for, side by side with its electric lights and telephone, the venerable mansion still retained the campanological features of its Victorian prime. Mrs Larch exchanged glances with her employer and significantly withdrew. These details were not lost on Nora (as, indeed, they were intended not to be) but surely her sagacious Uncle Max could be trusted not to be taken in by a ruse so transparent?
‘It’s no good, Mr Joolby,’ she challenged. ‘You think that you can frighten me with silly talk like that? You seem to forget that we are in London. Why, I have only to scream out to bring half a dozen policemen in. And I am quite sure that Max Carrados won’t walk in here without making it certain that if he doesn’t soon come out again the C.I.D. will smash down the door if need be to find out what has happened. I know him well enough for that.’
‘People don’t scream out here, Hilda Nora,’ he replied, and his level assurance struck her coldly. ‘If they did nobody outside would hear them.’
‘It’s no good talking like that,’ confirmed George Larch. ‘He won’t be given the opportunity to arrange anything; he won’t even know where he is coming. The person who gives him the note will deliver it when he’s alone and he must come at once and be guided here if he is to come. No, Miss Melhuish, if Max Carrados does come here nothing but your doing exactly as we tell you will get either of you out again. And that’s the best advice you’ll have in this house.’
‘You hear what he says,’ directed Joolby. ‘That’s the moderate view of the situation. Ah, here’s Mrs Larch coming back. Now we shall know just how we stand.’
‘A Mr Carrados is below, sir,’ reported Mrs Larch, as indifferently as she might have announced the vicar calling. ‘He says he would like to speak with the young person employed here if it’s convenient.’
‘Ask him to wait a few minutes. And be sure to see that he has something to amuse himself with. Now, girl, you haven’t much time to make up your mind. Which is it to be?’
‘Just whatever I like,’ retorted Nora. ‘You can’t bluff me into anything and I fancy that Max Carrados will be able to take care of himself if he’s come here. That’s all.’
‘All, is it?’ snarled Joolby, beginning to display the familiar symptoms of his ire. ‘Oh no; not quite all yet, I think, Nora Hilda. Just open that door, George, and let’s see if we can’t find another argument why she should listen to reason.’
The door thus indicated was the second one in the room—hitherto unused and not yet mentioned. It led into a small ante-chamber and so out again on to a passage and the stairs, this having been in the house’s ampler days either a dressing- room or a service pantry as the conditions called for. This was the door George Larch now crossed over to and threw open and in the pause between the action and anything more happening a dreadful fear began to close in round Nora’s heart while her knees grew as flimsy as stubble. What would emerge from that darkened room to confront her?
‘Geoffrey!’ was wrung from her lips as a figure, urged on by someone behind, stumbled into the light; ‘oh, my dear, how terrible you look. What are they doing to you?’
Geoffrey Tilehurst stood cowering and blinking in the unaccustomed glare but he seemed to make no effort to reply nor did he respond to her instinctive gesture of compassion. Then as he came further into the room—pushed forward by Won Chou—she understood. He was gagged and his hands tied behind him.
‘What’s this, Won Chou?’ demanded Joolby, as though mildly surprised. ‘Who ordered like so fashion?’
‘Make much noise,’ indifferently replied Won Chou. ‘Tellee shall do: do do.’
‘In that case it would appear to be his own fault,’ approved Joolby coolly. ‘Guests must conform to the rules of the house. Remove the gag now and let us hear what he has to say for himself—perhaps he has learned to know better.’
‘Nora! You are here to save me?’ painfully mumbled Geoffrey, when Won Chou—none too gently as evidenced by a bleeding lip—had complied. ‘For God’s sake don’t believe anything they say. Only get me away from this dreadful place where I’m being—’ A menacing gesture from another man who had silently appeared cut off the word and Geoffrey shrank back as though he knew only too well that the threat was no empty promise.
‘Oh, Geoffrey, what can I do, only tell me,’ she begged—‘We had no idea that anything like this—we thought that you were just being kept out of the way. Even now I don’t understand—’
‘Come, that will do,’ interrupted Joolby with an impatient growl; ‘talk, talk, talk—that’s all it ever comes to with your kind of cattle. Do you still think that you are playing at charades, girl? Can’t you see the sort of men you have to do with? You “don’t understand—!” No, I do not think you do, but we will ver
y soon explain it … For the next three days we must be left undisturbed and to make sure of that there is nothing on earth that we are going to stick at. You and this man’—with a sweep of the minatory crutch—‘must remain in our hands that long because you know too much. This Carrados has nosed into our affairs and so he must be reassured and headed off. We can’t keep him as well—at least we’d rather not—because he’s too influential it seems and he’s set inquiry afoot, and before our time was up there might be the hell of a disturbance. Now you have it.’
‘But what have I—?’
‘What you have to do is to convince him that he’s been mistaken. If you do that you have nothing to be afraid of. At the end of three days you can both walk out—the best guarantee is that we have nothing to fear from you then and it would be inconvenient to have to leave someone to keep you. If you refuse—well, you see your friend there? A little more strain—a very little perhaps—and I’m afraid—I really am afraid, Miss Kelly—that his rather disturbed mind may be permanently unbalanced … As for yourself, I scarcely like to put into words what will probably happen to you before you get away. These crude Eastern races are so primitive in their ideas of the use they make of female captives.’
‘Oh, you fiend!’ she flung back; ‘you unutterable brute! You would never dare—’
‘Dare! I dare?’ he retorted, dragging himself nearer to her and raising his form to the full on his props almost with a savage grandeur. ‘Look at me, brute that I am; look, look, girl, and then think! What is there that men can do to me now that nature hasn’t done already!’
‘Nora,’ besought the unfortunate Tilehurst, pitifully whining in his distress, ‘don’t drive them to do worse than I’ve had already. Get me away on any terms for God’s sake before I—I—Do anything they ask you.’
‘Oh, you poor, poor—’ she cried out in her pain, immeasurably shocked at his pathetic deterioration, Then turning to Joolby again: ‘If I do as you want—?’
‘No harm will come to either of you meanwhile and at the end of three days you will be free.’
The Bravo of London Page 18
