“Well, that’s that,” said Garrett. “I don’t mind saying it knocked me endways. I’d have bet my boots Gilbert was straight. Absent-minded beggar—careless about money—but dead straight.”
For just a moment Mr Smith’s dreamy gaze became less dreamy. It dwelt on Garrett, and then appeared to go back to seeing pictures in the fire.
“Careless—” said Mr Smith. He paused. “And his wife says he was murdered—”
“Who told you that?”
“I think it must have been you.”
Garrett grunted.
“She don’t mean that literally. She means they turned the screw too far and he went out. But what I want to know is, where does Mr Jeremy Ware come in? I tell you that young man gives me a pricking of the thumbs. Have you seen yesterday’s Echo Internationale?”
Mr Smith made a faintly affirmative sign.
“Mannister’s seen it too,” said Garrett. “I had him on the telephone this morning. Says the Inconnu article is based on his missing letter. Says his face is blackened. Says he dunno where ’e are, and wot abaht it?”
“And what did you say?”
“What was I to say? If I was his personal adviser, which thank the Lord I’m not, I’d tell him to boot young Ware, and the sooner the better. I don’t know why he wants telling, but he’s just the kind of high-falutin ass that can’t see a brick wall until he breaks his nose against it. It’s not my business to nurse-maid him. If he sacks Ware, we’re no forrader. If he keeps him, it may be the worse for him, but it might be a lot the better for us. I don’t want Ware—I want the people who are behind Ware.” He laid an arm along the mantelshelf and said quite slowly and quietly, “I want the people who got Denny.”
“I see—” said Mr Smith.
Garrett continued to use that quiet voice.
“Ware’s small fry—I can call him in any time.”
“You’re very sure about Ware,” said Mr Smith in a meditative tone.
Garrett stared, kicked back at the log, and reverted to his loudest manner.
“Sure? Of course I’m sure! I’ve taken steps to be sure.”
“As?” said Mr Smith to the ceiling.
“As be blowed! Listen to this. A fortnight ago Master Jeremy hadn’t got a banking account—perhaps he hadn’t any money, perhaps he kept it in the post office, perhaps he tied it up in an old stocking and hid it under his mattress—but ten days ago he opened an account with the Southern Counties and paid in twenty pounds.”
“A most heinous proceeding,” said Mr Smith in a drowsy murmur.
“Wait!” said Garrett violently. “That was on a Monday. On the Thursday Mannister’s damn letter goes missing and Mannister goes to Birmingham for the week-end. On the Monday someone pays another fifty pounds into Mr Jeremy Ware’s newly opened account—pays it across the counter in Treasury notes. On Tuesday Mannister finally makes up his mind that the letter isn’t in his safe and comes bleating to me. Now how’s that?”
“Very interesting,” said Mr Smith—“very interesting indeed.”
CHAPTER VIII
“MY DEAR—TOO MARVELLOUS!” said Mimosa Vane.
She was having tea with Rosalind Denny. That is to say, Rosalind was having tea, whilst Mimosa sipped hot lemon and water and took away the characters of all their mutual friends in a light, high voice. She spoke from a cloud of the pale scented smoke which always hung about her, rising like incense at the altar of Scandal. Mimosa only smoked her own cigarettes. She smoked a great many of them. After twenty minutes Rosalind had begun to feel rather limp. All Mimosa’s worst stories were introduced by fulsome eulogies of the victims. Rosalind wondered who was for it now, and cut herself a piece of cake.
For a moment Mimosa was diverted.
“How reckless!” she murmured. “My dear—too fatmaking! You should try Sibylla’s new treatment. Too extraordinary! Marcia Levine lost a pound a day!”
“But, my dear Mimosa, I don’t want to lose a pound a day.”
Mimosa shook a little mournful head. Her platinum-coloured hair was braided over one ear. The other was covered by a tiny tilted hat of emerald-green. Her eye-sockets were so hollow and her face so thin as to give the impression of a skull with some skin stretched over it.
“Darling, it’s never safe to stop slimming. Nothing but orange juice every other day, and Sibylla’s crawling exercise. So spiritualizing to thought, and so marvellous for the figure! There is something gross about food, don’t you think?”
“I’m afraid I’m gross,” said Rosalind. “This is a very good cake, Mimosa. Be gross too for once.”
“Darling, I couldn’t! I should put on at least two ounces! I’m too terribly over weight as it is. If I can get down to five stone, I shall be really happy—but even then one must be always on guard. Wasn’t it George Washington who said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty? Or was it President Hoover? Anyhow, it’s too utterly true.” She paused, sighed, sipped her lemon-water, and set down the cup. “But I was going to tell you about Asphodel.”
Rosalind gave her that slight surface attention which was all one ever did give to Mimosa.
She said, “What is Asphodel?” and with nine-tenths of her mind she was wondering how there came to be any tie of kinship between Gilbert and Mimosa Vane. She was like a Rackham wraith made ghastly by being brought up to date and dressed in the latest extreme of fashion. She became aware of Mimosa looking shocked.
“Dearest—not what! Even if you’ve been buried, you must have heard of Asphodel!”
“It sounds like a disinfectant.”
Mimosa looked more than shocked.
“Darling! How too country cousin! But you simply must have heard of Asphodel! Why, Gilbert went to her.”
Rosalind’s surface attention was pierced. A cold tremor passed over her consciousness. She said quite quietly,
“But who is Asphodel?”
“My dear—the most marvellous clairvoyante! But that’s not the word—too terribly banal, I always think. And medium isn’t right either, because it always makes one think about frauds—too utterly sordid! Asphodel prefers to be called a Seer.”
Rosalind said nothing. She was hearing Gilbert say, “A fortune-teller told me I should go round the world. “A fortune-teller. … And Asphodel called herself a Seer. …
Mimosa looked at her through long tinted lashes. Behind them her eyes were as bright and hard as a lizard’s.
“Did Gilbert tell you he’d been to her? I thought he told you everything.”
“How do you know he went to her, Mimosa?”
The lashes flicked up and down again.
“Darling, I met him on the steps. I was going in, and he was coming out. My dear, you should have seen him—too taken aback!”
Rosalind roused herself to a counter-attack.
“But that must have been nearly two years ago. You can’t mean you’re still doing anything you were doing as long ago as that! How démodé of you! I should as soon expect to see you with last year’s hair.”
“Darling, you’re too witty, but just a tiny bit unkind. I do feel the world would be a better place if we were all kinder to each other. Asphodel says so. And what you said just now was really a little bit unkind, because though we change the expression, we needn’t change in our devotion to the ideal. Such a beautiful thought, don’t you think?”
“Asphodel’s?” said Rosalind.
“Too sweet—isn’t it?”
Rosalind began to feel a good deal of curiosity. There must be something remarkable about a woman who could keep Mimosa Vane on a lead for nearly two years. Six months as a rule saw the rise and fall of an idol, or the ebb and flow of a craze. And Gilbert—what had taken Gilbert to the woman who was neither a fortuneteller nor a clairvoyante? But Gilbert had said, “I’ve been to a fortune-teller.” Why had Asphodel told him that he would go r
ound the world? She began to have a strong desire to see the woman who had told Gilbert that he would go round the world. She said quickly,
“Where does she live?”
“Asphodel? In Tilt Street—Number One Tilt Street. My dear, if you want to see her, I’ll take you. She needn’t know who you are or anything like that.”
Rosalind felt a sharp revulsion.
“Oh no,” she said. “I don’t know why I asked. I don’t want to see her in the least—I hate that sort of thing.”
“Well, darling, that’s just as you like. But she’s too marvellous really.” She produced a mirror and a lipstick and brightened the carmine of her lips. “Mouse Hammond went to her, and she told her not to set foot in a car for at least three months, or she’d have an accident. And of course Mouse didn’t listen, and only a week later she had the most nerve-racking smash.”
Rosalind laughed. She was pleased to find that she could laugh.
“If Mouse’s driving is anything like it used to be!” she said, and laughed again. “She took me down to Hurlingham once, and it was like the man with the Channel crossing—the first ten minutes I thought I was going to die, and after that I only wanted to get it over and be dead.”
“Dear Mouse!” said Mimosa. “She’s quite well again, and the scar doesn’t really make her any plainer than she was before. She’s a darling thing, but you wouldn’t think a man would go off the deep end about her like Emery Stevens has.”
Rosalind wrinkled her brow.
“Emery Stevens!”
“Darling, how too back number! He’s it. Everybody’s on their knees to him to paint them. He’ll have to get rid of his wife—too impossibly domestic. But why poor darling Mouse with three stitches in her nose? Why, Vinnie Hambleton is quite off her head about him—and she’ll have well over a million when her grandfather dies.”
She put away lipstick and mirror, rose, and swayed across the table to touch cheek-bones with Rosalind.
“Darling, it’s been divine to see you, but I must go on—cocktails at Vinnie’s—a sherry party with Len and Cruffles—dinner with the Monties—some sort of show—and dancing at the Green Faggot to wind up with. I just love Cruffles. Don’t you? And I never believe that he really cheats at cards—too scandalous, though of course he does hold the most marvellous hands. You know the Monties are getting a divorce. His temper! My dear, too fiendish! When he saw her last bill from Marthe he shook her—she had a bruise for days. Her maid, Paterson, told my Louise. If you hear they’ve patched it up, don’t believe a word. People will say anything, as you know. My dear, too gossip-loving! I make it a rule not to believe anything I hear. Darling, good-bye! And remember about Asphodel—Number One Tilt Street.” She blew a kiss from the door and went out, still talking.
Rosalind opened both the windows. The scent of Mimosa’s powder, and Mimosa’s lipstick, and Mimosa’s special cigarettes was suddenly more than she could bear. She let a cold buffeting wind blow into the room.
Mrs Vane did not go at once to her cocktail party. She first entered a telephone box and dialled a number which she did not have to look up in the directory. When a voice which seemed very far away said “Hullo!” she glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure that no one was listening and then said,
“It is Mimosa.”
The answer came, still in those faint tones:
“Asphodel speaking.”
Mimosa became quite animated.
“My dear, I’ve done it! I’ve just been having tea with her. … No. Too gross—isn’t it? … Oh yes, she’ll come. But I had to say Gilbert had been to you. … Yes, I know, my dear, but I just had to. … She wouldn’t have come. … Yes, I think she’s sure to now. If she doesn’t, I can always have another try. I can say Gilbert keeps sending her a message, or something like that—but it won’t be necessary. … My dear, too intrigued really, but pretending not to be. … You’ve got the photographs I sent you? They’re quite good—you’ll recognize her at once. And I thought the others would come in useful for local colour. And, my dear, I’d be glad of that cheque. Anything like my card luck at the moment! My dear, simply too heart-shaking!”
She rang off and went on her way to Vinnie Hambleton’s.
CHAPTER IX
JEREMY HAD A TERRIBLE day on Saturday. Mannister was going to Bournemouth for the week-end. Deane was still absent. There were two speeches on the stocks, and everybody in Europe seemed to have written to Bernard Mannister. The waste-paper basket overflowed. Notes had to be taken, draft replies roughed out. And in the middle of it all Mannister kept locking and unlocking the safe and delivering dissertations on the extremely confidential nature of his correspondence, the care that must be taken in dealing with it, the supreme gifts of tact and discretion required in a secretary, and the privileges attached to service in that capacity.
Jeremy said “Yes, sir,” at intervals. Every now and then the right answer was not yes, but no. As the day wore on, Jeremy became increasingly certain that sooner or later he would slip up and say yes in the wrong place.
The mid-day post brought a foreign letter of some extra-super-hyper-important kind. Mannister delivered an oration over it. Standing in an Albert Hall attitude before the safe, he declaimed a lot of rolling sentences about the Peace of Europe.
“Trying out his voice for to-night, I suppose,” was Jeremy’s irreverent thought.
There was nothing wrong with the voice; there was nothing wrong with the sentiments. They were both perhaps a little too big for the library of a house in Marsh Street.
“Albert Hall!” said Jeremy to himself; and then, “Oh Lord—I wish he was catching the earlier train!”
The speech which was to be delivered at Bournemouth that evening was finished. Mannister made a feature of Saturday evening speeches. He would go down to Bournemouth in the afternoon, speak in the evening, take a well earned rest on the Sunday, and return to town on Monday for a mass meeting at the Albert Hall.
Principals may rest, but secretaries must work. The Bournemouth speech being disposed of, the Albert Hall speech must be pruned, polished and perfected. It had to be rather a special speech—short, because, where Prime Ministers jostle one another, even a Bernard Mannister must curb the flow of his oratory and compress to ten minutes the wit, eloquence and wisdom of a full length speech. The wit and wisdom were Mannister’s. The task of compressing them without detracting from the eloquence with which they were presented was Jeremy Ware’s. It was a perfectly damnable task. Whenever he cut anything out Mannister insisted on putting it back, and the speech as it stood took an hour to declaim. Obviously, something had to be done. Mannister’s attitude became more and more that of the hierophant who defends his oracle from a sacrilegious mob. By four o’clock Jeremy began to feel as if his brains were being stewed in treacle. They had got nowhere, and Mannister had a train to catch. And then suddenly Mannister ceased to be a hierophant and became a human being—a pompous, fatuous ass of a human being, but definitely human.
“Better take a time off and come back to it. Go away and come back to it fresh. Effort prolonged beyond a certain point defeats itself—Ah! You might make a note of that! A good pithy sentence! Thought too intensely concentrated coagulates and clogs the brain.”
“Treacle!” said Jeremy to himself. “That’s pithier still, you old molasses-mill!” Aloud he said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Go out and take the air. Refresh yourself. Do not return before eight o’clock. You will dine here. James will attend to you. I would like you to stay until you have finished your task.”
“I could take it home,” said Jeremy tentatively.
He did not know why he said that. He was not in the least anxious to take work home. His room would be cold, and the light would be very bad. The Evans next door would in all probability be having a row—they had a very loud and dramatic row which ran as a serial most evenings between eight and ten.
The piercing screams of Mrs Evans and the deep oaths of Mr Evans had lost their freshness for Jeremy, but he still found them disturbing when he had work on hand. The task of condensing Mannister’s oratory was sufficiently formidable without these handicaps.
Mannister had assumed a Jovian frown.
“I have ordered dinner for you. I should like you to finish your work here. There are a number of references, and accuracy is essential. Look up everything, even if you already feel certain of it. I am sorry to keep you so late, but it is better than attempting to go on now. ‘The mind o’er-stretched recoils upon itself like the frayed bow.’ Now where did I get that from? A good example, I believe, of the—er. … Now is it paralipsis? … No. … Paralogism? Metastasis? … No, it eludes me. It is, of course, the string that is frayed and not the bow, but the word which describes the transference of an image in this manner escapes me.” He turned away with a gesture which relinquished the escaping word. “I have my train to catch. A life of public service has its penalties. Sometimes I long for leisure. But I must hurry. Don’t wait about when I have gone. Return refreshed—but not until eight o’clock.”
At eight o’clock Jeremy returned. He was served with an excellent meal in the dining-room under the eyes of six ancestral portraits, a tall young footman, and old James, who was the only servant who lived in. Jeremy felt a little hustled by the eyes. He would have liked to have a book by his plate and dawdle pleasantly through dinner.
He had coffee in the library and got down to the Albert Hall speech again. He was hunting a quotation from a speech of Abraham Lincoln’s, when James gave a respectful cough at his elbow. He held the coffeetray poised, and looked extraordinarily like a thin, melancholy ant with a large flat seed or grain. His high, bald forehead had a worried look.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but Mr. Mannister said you might be staying late.”
“Might’s not the word,” said Jeremy. “Would, James—would.”
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